Sorry this took so long. Here's chapter two!
To Sarah Smiles: Ha ha, thanks for your review! :) Unfortunately I don't think I'll include romance in this story. But I do ship Lelouch and Suzaku, and that will probably show.
"The video was posted about seven hours before the attack, sir," Kanon tells him. Schneizel watches the screen in mild interest. Zero Requiem – Part I. It was an interesting title, the part I especially. This was a work in progress.
There were no fatalities from the terrorist attack yesterday. Everyone had, by some sort of luck, been evacuated before the attack.
"There's no way to trace the user who uploaded the video?"
"They've covered all their bases, sir."
"It's too early to assume that they're related to it," he says. "Did you finish questioning the man who caused the power cut?"
It was a strange thing. The man was a professional at dealing with electric wires - he'd done this job for twenty years. But he'd crashed his maintenance truck into the pole and caused the black out anyway. It wasn't too far fetched to say it was an accident, but Schneizel wanted to cover his bases nevertheless.
"Yes, sir, we did," Kanon said. "He doesn't appear to remember having done it at all."
That piqued his interest. "You're sure?"
"Absolutely."
Kanon's phone beeps. He glances at the text and his eyes widen. "There's another video." He turns Schneizel's laptop towards himself and types Zero Requiem into the search box. The video pops up in a matter of seconds. It already has a thousand views.
"Good day! This is Zero again," one of the boys says.
"And I'm Lancelot!"
"I hope you enjoyed our little show yesterday. You'll be happy to know that there's more to come!"
"But you'll have to work a bit to find out where to look."
Zero moves closer to the camera, his black mask unnerving. "We'll take it easy for the first round," he says. "What would I get if I divide three - " here Lancelot holds up three fingers in the background "- and five?" Zero holds up five fingers himself. "Solve this before fourty eight hours, and you might stop the next bomb!" He reaches towards the camera, and the screen goes black.
They both blink, quite unsure of what to think.
Lelouch isn't talking to him. He responds if Suzaku asks him a direct question that absolutely deserves an answer, such as what should I say in the video, but otherwise he pretends for all occassions that Suzaku doesn't exist. It sort of weirds him out to sit in class and not have his phone blink madly at him, but he's used to Lelouch's temper tantrums by now.
"Is he mad at you?" Euphemia whispers to him in the middle of a lecture. Suzaku jumps.
He still can't believe that Lelouch let her go. He was so sure that he would have pushed him out of the way and used his Geass anyway. Maybe he still cares for her, even after all these years. Suzaku can't deny that he's messed up really badly – it's a risk to her life to get her involved, and the Geass might have saved her more than them – but some part of him is horrified at the thought of forcing her to relinquish her will.
Suzaku nods his head yes, too scared to turn and speak in the middle of class.
He'll have to take complete responsibility for this, he knows. Lelouch won't make this easy for him. He's lucky she was so easy to convince – once she realized who Lelouch was and that they didn't actually kill people, she promised to keep their secret. Of course that didn't make Lelouch feel at all better, and he was quick to kick her out of their apartment at the first opportunity. After which he ignored Suzaku and started working on his next bomb, pausing only to record a new video.
He's used to his temper tantrums, but that doesn't mean he likes them. Especially when things really are Suzaku's fault – the guilt tastes horrible on his tongue.
"Can I come over after school today?" Euphemia whispers again. She's perfected the skill of talking in class with the teacher never figuring it out.
The correct answer is no. Especially if he wants Lelouch to forgive him sooner. He hesitates a bit, then shakes his head no. He knows she'll be frowning, but they really can't afford to get her even more involved.
Who is he kidding. For all his talk about trying to keep her safe, the worst part is that Suzaku doesn't care about the risks. The part of him that was just so lonely all this time, desperate for something, anything, to give him more purpose...had met Euphy. And she was the light, the only brightness he'd seen since that gypsy summer years ago, and the selfish part of him wanted to hold onto it for as long as he could.
"...I know the way to your apartment anyway," Euphemia reminds him. "You really can't stop me from finding you."
He finds Lelouch on the roof during lunch break, just like he knew he would. He is sitting leaned against the wall, his phone open in his hands. But his eyes are closed and his head is resting on his chest, as if he fell asleep in the middle of whatever he was doing. It's hard to sneak up on him when he's sleeping but Suzaku manages, quietly sitting beside him and leaning over to see what he was looking at on his phone. He is unsurprised that there's a lock screen up already. Lelouch's phone lock has about ten different stages – even if Suzaku watched him unlock it in slow motion he wouldn't be able to recall all the passcodes ever.
Lelouch starts falling a bit to the side in his sleep, which jerks him awake in an instant. When he sees Suzaku next to him he frowns.
"How many views did we get?" Suzaku tries, like it even matters.
Lelouch shrugs, starting the complicated task of unlocking phone. It only takes him three seconds. He doesn't check views, though, instead going back to whatever he was doing – which was, it seems, reading about the former royal family of Britannia.
"Do you think the riddle was too hard?"
Again, no answer.
"Lelouch, I'm sorry."
Lelouch stops reading for a moment, the fingers that had been scrolling freezing. "I forgave you," he says. "You literally couldn't help yourself."
He sounds a bit lost, and Suzaku feels like he's missing something. Like he might not have understood Lelouch's anger after all.
Then he sees that he hasn't stopped scrolling because of his apology. His fingers are frozen over the name of Nunnally vi Britannia.
He waits patiently for Lelouch to snap out of it. Minutes pass. Suzaku can't even tell if he's thinking or not. Finally he nudges him, reaching over and prying the phone out of his grasp. Lelouch's fingers curl in its absence.
"I'm sorry," Suzaku says again. He isn't sure what he's apologizing for this time.
Lelouch shakes his head in dismissal. Suzaku waits for him to say something cutting, but he is oddly silent.
"Should we try to contact them?" Kallen wonders. They're all huddled around the lone laptop for the second time in two days. The video has ended, the replay button blinking on the screen.
Ohgi shakes his head. "We don't even know their motives yet," he says.
"Lancelot seems Japanese," Sugiyama says. Everyone nods in agreement. It's hard to make out clear identities behind the masks, but his accent is unmistakeable. "I'm not sure about Zero." Zero's English is flawless, but so is his Japanese. It's hard to place him. They both seem like typical high schoolers.
It's the riddle that seems…well, sort of lame. Five divided by three. What even.
As lame as it sounds, none of the black knights have come up with anything satisfactory.
"Pass code for a bank safe," Inoue tries. "Divide the two and you get zero point six. Maybe the code is zero, six, zero, zero, zero, so on."
"But code for what safe? We can't bloody well check all the safes in the city."
"..."
"Location coordinates," Tamaki says.
"With five and three? Please."
"Er...math class?" he tries again. His eyes widen in realization. "That's it. They're teenagers, and they're going to blow up their school."
Kallen frowns. "I'd like to think they have bigger goals than that."
"Ehhh, it's what I would do."
"We're freedom fighters. That is not what you would do."
"Some fight this is," Sugiyama says darkly.
There is a moment of horrible silence because everyone agrees.
Kallen takes the laptop from Ohgi's hands, typing three by five into the internet search bar. The results are mostly a mess, but some things look promising.
"There's something called the three by five initiative," she says aloud. "Something about HIV treatment."
Sugiyama looks over her shoulder, interested. "Maybe he's targetting a medical facility?" He reads a bit. "But this is outdated," he says. "It was in 2005."
"Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe the hint is just medical facility."
"That still leaves a lot to narrow it down by."
There is silence again, but this time not so dark.
Euphy appears at their door that evening, just like she had promised. Lelouch gives her a long, blank look before slamming the door in her face.
For a moment, she is too shocked to protest.
"Lelouch?" she hears Suzaku's muffled voice inside. "Who was at the door?"
"Delivery man," is Lelouch's reply.
Euphy knocks again, louder. "Suzaku, this isn't a delivery man!" she calls out.
There is the sound of a short scuffle. "You just slammed the door in her face?"
"She wasn't invited!"
"That's no excuse to – just a second, Euphy! - that's no excuse to slam a door in someone's face!"
"If you want to meet her, meet her somewhere else. This house is off limits."
There's a silence, and then Suzaku appears at the door, an apologetic smile on his face, though his eyebrow is twitching awkwardly. "I''m sorry about him," he says. "He's...well, he's just..."
Euphy smiles. "No problem." She steps inside. Lelouch glowers darkly at her from a corner. He isn't wearing his eyepatch. He's covered his eye with his hand while he fumbles around on his table for it.
She wonders what he's hiding.
"I just want to get to know you," she tells him. "Schneizel's told me so much about you, but I...well, I was too young to really remember."
Lelouch laughs shortly. "Schneizel told you so much about me?" he shakes his head and leaves the room, fitting the eyepatch over his eye. Euphy starts to go after him but Suzaku shakes his head.
"It's going to take a while for him to get used to you," he says. "Give him time." He gestures for her to sit, then wanders to the refrigerator to find her something to drink. She takes the time to look around herself.
The apartment is...surprisingly neat, for two high school boys living together. While Lelouch's desk is piled with stuff, it all seems organized. The floor has been swept, tables dusted, the newspapers under the coffee table categorized according to month.
It's the contents of the refrigerator, which Suzaku is standing in front of like he's hoping it will magically conjure something to save him from his shame, that alarms her.
"Do you guys never cook?" she asks.
Suzaku shrugs awkwardly. "We usually buy out," he says. "I'm sorry, but there isn't anything to drink...can I offer you water?"
"Yes, yes, sure. But, you never eat cooked meals?" It's hard to wrap her mind around. She's reminded horribly of the difference in their living circumstances.
"Lelouch cooks really well," Suzaku says defensively. Has she offended him somehow? "He just doesn't always...well, remember to."
"And you? You don't cook?"
"I make a half decent sandwich."
"That isn't cooking, Suzaku."
"...but I use the stove to toast the bread."
She shakes her head in dismay. She'd have to do something about this.
"Did you consider the periodic table?" Lloyd asks Cecile, lazily. He is too tall for his chair – his limbs hang awkwardly off of it. He swivels it around as he stares at the ceiling.
They used to have more company than just each other, but Lloyd's eccentricity wasn't welcome on the police force. He'd messed up too many missions by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or by getting on the wrong person's nerves. He hadn't been suspended – they needed him too much for that – but he'd been given his own room and been told to keep away from other people's businesses if he could help it.
Cecile, his trusty assistant, was willing to be his partner, but he doesn't believe that. She probably only tagged along because she could hit him on the head as many times as she wanted and not get in trouble with their boss.
"No," Cecile says, from where she's typing furiously across the room. "Did you?"
"Boron," Lloyd says, thinking. "Atomic number five, valency three."
She pauses for a moment. "A boron based explosive?"
"Congratulations! Then again, we could be completely wrong." This doesn't bother him in the slightest. "But while that does put the five and the three together, I don't see why he said divide?"
"Nuclear fission?"
"Then why boron?"
"For the control rods."
Lloyd hums thoughtfully. "So the clue is the control rods of a nuclear reactor? That could be problematic."
It takes a while for the news to sink in and for panic to take over. In a moment Lloyd is up, dashing across the room for the phone. "This is bad, this is bad."
"Call Schneizel first!" Cecile calls, typing faster now. "Tell him this is an emergency."
Lloyd dials quickly.
"Hello?" Schneizel's voice says from the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry, but we're all going to die," Lloyd says, completely serious.
Lelouch watches the news on his screen in distaste. The comments on his video had been bad enough – pass code for a bank safe, honestly. The only half decent theory he's come across so far is related to the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. It is completely wrong, of course, but it is amusing in a way that doesn't make him want to die, unlike pass code for a bank safe.
But now...he stares at the screen, where some policeman is making a statement about evacuating areas and a nuclear explosion.
This is pure blasphemy.
How did they get it so wrong?
He reaches for his phone. His number is guarded, so the police won't be able to trace him. He'll just have to call them up and tell them that they're a load of idiots and to calm the hell down.
He can smell something good wafting from downstairs, and hears pleasant laughter, and it doesn't help his killing urges in the slightest.
He dials Schneizel's number.
"Hello?"
"This is Zero," he says, emotionless. "Your answer is wrong."
Schneizel is instantly ten degrees colder. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the nuclear reactor is not going to explode. Do you really think we could manage that? A pair of teenagers?" They could, of course, but Schneizel didn't need to know that.
"How do I know you aren't lying?"
Lelouch sighs heavily. "You don't," he says, and hangs up.
He listens to the empty silence of his phone for a moment, wondering how to get rid of this mess. The real bomb is still out there, completely ignored, while everyone panics in the wrong direction.
Could he set it now? To distract them from evacuation?
Maybe post a video as well.
He texts Suzaku, even though they're in the same house.
I need you upstairs. Now.
ZERO REQUIEM – Failure of Part I, is the title of the newest video.
The two masked boys, Zero and Lancelot, appear on the screen.
"I'm disappointed," Zero says, sounding pretty pissed, "that you are all so, incredibly wrong. This was supposed to be an easy one."
Behind him, Lancelot shakes his head.
"The nuclear reactor is not going to blow up," Zero continues. "You have my word of honour. Something else is, however, and it looks like you won't be stopping that."
Lancelot mimics an explosion with his hands.
Then the screen fades to black.
In the heart of Tokyo, the top floor of Infinity Corporations, owned by one Clovis la Britannia, explodes.
Schneizel puts on an expression of long suffering concern for his younger brother while he questions the doctors at the hospital.
In reality, he doesn't care one bit. He probably wouldn't have even cared about Cornelia, and she's his favourite sibling. Clovis is at the bottom of the list of Siblings He Cares For. Almost not on the list at all.
"How is he, doctor?" he asks in fake worry.
The doctor waves a hand at him. "He'll live," she says. "A couple of broken bones, some bruises, burned skin. He's much better off than the rest of the victims."
"Any casualties?" Schniezel asks.
"None, so far. There's a lady with an injured spine, and we're still hoping for the best there." She frowns angrily. "Nasty terrorists."
That is a mild term for it.
The doctor goes back in, and Schneizel returns to the waiting area. Lloyd and Cecile are there, looking rather apologetic. As apologetic as Lloyd can look, at least.
"The blame is on me," Schneizel says. "I'll speak to the Chief. Don't worry yourselves."
"It seems so obvious now," Lloyd says. He's clearly sulking.
"Obvious?" Schneizel hadn't given the riddle any thought. He'd been too concerned with the explosion and withdrawing the orders for evacuation. The whole situation was a mess, honestly.
"What would I get if I divide three and five," Lloyd recites dully. "I. He said I. He meant what would he get if zero divided three and five."
Schneizel's eyes widen in realization. "Fifteen divided by zero. Infinity."
"Congratulations," Lloyd says, but there's none of his usual enthusiasm in it.
Suzaku is, for lack of a better term, furious. He's standing towering over Lelouch while Lelouch sits at his desk, looking pointedly in a different direction.
"You didn't tell me you were going to set the bomb off immediately."
Lelouch frowns, but doesn't meet his eyes. "You wouldn't have let me."
"That is my freaking point."
"They were evacuating, Suzaku," he argues. "They thought we'd set off a nuclear reactor. They were panicking."
And killing twenty people is somehow better?"
"They didn't die. No one did."
"That was luck, Lelouch. Pure luck. We were supposed to set it off at night when the building would be empty."
Lelouch raises his hands in defeat. "Well, what else could I have done?"
Suzaku's glare grows more intense. He grabs Lelouch by the collar and tugs him forward, so that he has no choice but to meet his eyes. He meets them defiantly.
"No fatalities. That's what you promised me," Suzaku says lowly, fiercely. "That's why I'm still here. If you mess up like this again, I'm gone, and you'll have to do this by yourself."
He drops his collar abruptly. Lelouch falls back in his chair.
Suzaku leaves, slamming the door shut behind him.
Lelouch hears his motorbike whirring to life as he speeds away.
The stench of the corpses was overwhelming. There was no place to hide from them, the entire city was trashed. Corpses leaked onto the streets and lay in pieces along the sidewalk.
Suzaku was behind him, not even breathing. They were trying to step around the bodies but there was no where to walk, no place to step that wasn't covered in blood and gore -
"Nunnally!" he kept shrieking, the only sound in the gloom. "Nunnally, Nunnally!"
They each held a gun, two large for their bony ten year old hands. Lelouch's fingers shook over the trigger, but there was no one to fight. The enemy lines seemed to have retreated, leaving the entire city dead in it's wake."Nunnally!"
And then he saw her, in the middle of the street, broken wheelchair and mangled body, her eyes wide open and screaming -
Suzaku wakes up to a loud thud. He looks over his bedframe and finds his roommate on the ground, rubbing his head and blinking.
"Nightmare?" he asks unnecessarily.
"Yeah," Lelouch mutters. "I'm fine." He stands up, staggers a bit, and then makes his way out of the room.
Suzaku glances at the clock. 5 AM. He rolls out of bed as well.
I basically googled three by five and just made up all the theories from there. I guess it shows.
And I get that dividing by zero should aaactually be undefined, and not infinity, but please spare me for the sake of the progress of plot. Undefined Corporations sounds pretty lame. Granted, it suits Clovis, but still.
Review?