- Created By otakualchemist
Broken Pieces -Brotherly Love-
When something is broken badly enough, it can never go back. This holds true for objects, for animals, and even for people. You can try to piece it back together, but it could never be the same. It would be different from what you once knew. Even in the hands of a master, it would never be exactly the same.
Just like Albedo wasn't the same. Sure, he'd been a little different to begin with. But if he hadn't broken the link...
"If I hadn't..." Jr. pressed his head against the cold glass that encased the Durandal's park. He stared out through his reflection at the endless space, at the trillions of stars dotting the pitch-black landscape. Shaking his head, he pulled his forehead away, watching the vapor that had collected on the glass from when he had breathed vanish, leaving behind only a faint imprint.
Ignoring the fluttering fake insects, he sank down onto the bench nearest the windows, then laying down, his arms under his head. "I wonder.... where you are now." Jr. murmured, his eyes slipping closed for only a moment before a voice in the back of his head jolted him awake.
'I'll be waiting, Rubedo.'
That once familiar presence seemed so distant now, but he had to try to see if he could still... 'Where are you waiting?' Jr. tried to keep himself from sounding too surprised, elated, or angry, and yet he knew that he failed on all aspects.
'Aha! You really are still like an emotional little teenager. Quel chemin malheureux vous avez choisi, frère Rubedo. I pity you. In your room on this great harbinger of war.'
Without responding to him, Jr. ran to his room, nearly knocking over a poor 100-series that was away from the bridge. "Sorry!" He shouted back to her, finally reaching his room and waiting impatiently for the doors to open.
There... there he was. His brother. Albedo. Laying on the bed so nonchalantly, biting into an apple and getting the juices all over his chin and neck. Didn't he ever care about cleanliness?
Jr. strode over and, with the red sleeve of his coat, wiped the liquid from Albedo. "You really need to take better care of yourself." He grumbled, eliciting a laugh from the younger of the two. "Ah, Rubedo. Quite the metamorphosis you've gone through. From child to man, without changing face. I must say, it's something I should be proud of."
"Sh'up, Albedo. If I have to, I'll treat you like they do in hospitals, when you're a total cripple. You know, when nanotechnology can't fix you, and you can't take care of yourself at all? I'll have to feed you and clothe you and-"
"When nanotechnology can't fix you... just like it couldn't fix Sakura Mizrahi?" Albedo looked up at his brother smugly, watching his face contort into a fierce, almost disgusted expression. "I have a secret to tell you about that, you know. Sakura Mizrahi didn't die by my hands, oh, no. She died to protect me. Even though I hated her! Isn't that amazing, Rubedo?" He laughed again, and easily caught Jr.'s fist as he went to punch him across the face. "Oh, come, now. Stop it, Rubedo. You know that hurting me won't do anything."
Jr. felt Albedo's hand grip his fist tightly, but without that intention to harm. Just to stop. Without thinking, he relaxed his hand, pressing his palm and fingers against Albedo's.
"You're so small. So childlike. Like Peter Pan. You know, the boy who never wanted to grow up? Though he lives in Neverland. Not this hell. Not the hell that even the innocent have been sentenced to, Rubedo." Albedo rotated his palm just slightly so that he could intertwine his fingers with his brother's. "Rubedo... do you think that if the Miltian Conflict never happened... if we had just lived like normal boys with a normal mother and a normal family... we would be happier?"
It wasn't the question that prompted Jr. to answer. It was the look in Albedo's violet eyes. Instead of being filled with hatred and loathing, they were different. These were the same sad, scared, lonely eyes that Jr. had looked into so many times when he was a child. "Uh... maybe. But.. you know, if we had lived like that, we'd be dreaming about having adventures like we've had. We don't want them now, but we would have... er... craved them back then. That's the right word, right?" Jr. smiled sheepishly, with a nervous laugh to accompany.
"Craving... longing... wanting... desiring... they're all right." Albedo reached up with his other hand to run his fingers through Jr.'s short hair. "I sometimes wonder what you'd look like if you grew up, Rubedo."
Jr. smiled and pulled away from Albedo's hands, wrapping his arms around his twin's broad shoulders. "I'd look almost exactly like you and Gaignun, except for different hair and eyes. The other U.R.T.V.s would have looked the same."
"So, you'd be rather handsome, then." Albedo smirked, and Jr. pouted up at him. "Don't get a swelled head, Narcissus!" he teased, and Albedo laughed, pulling Jr.'s arms away from him. "It's time to wake up, now, you know." He smiled, getting up off of his bed. "So I have to go. You have a lot ahead of you."
"Wait, what do you mean, Albedo?" Jr. reached out for his brother again, though this time, his hand fell right through his brother's arm when he went to grab for it. "Wake up, Jr.," he saw Albedo mouth, though his voice was deeper, like Gaignun's. "Jr., wake up!"
Jr. opened his eyes and looked up at Gaignun sleepily, his vision blurred as sleep lingered. "What's goin' on?" He rubbed his eyes and sat up, looking at his younger brother, who, instead of wearing his suit, was in a t-shirt and jeans, leaning over him.
"You were having a nightmare about Albedo." Gaignun told him, though Jr. got the distinct feeling that it wasn't a nightmare. "And I woke you up. You have to remember, Jr., that he's dead. He's not coming back. Ever." Turning to the door, Gaignun paused, glancing back at Jr. with a sigh. "So just relax a little."
Jr. put a hand to the right side of his chest and felt nothing as he did with his left, before determining that Albedo was gone, his heart ceasing to beat as his did. He sank down into the pillows and closed his eyes. He would never be the same anymore. A piece of him had been broken off, and he could never go back to being the same.
Note: In French, Albedo says "What an unfortunate fate you have chosen for yourself, Rubedo, brother."
Love
The women that Lelouch Lamperouge loved and depended on were always the ones that slipped away from him.
It began with the murder of his mother, Marianne. She was the pillar in his and his sister's lives, the guiding light through the darkness of the vast imperial family. There were a hundred and eight consorts to the emperor, each likely having her own children; it was easy to forget who was who and what was what without his beloved mother to point out to him that Cornelia wasn't the same as Guinevere was, and that Euphemia and Carline were different, as well.
All of his sisters bore their father's eyes, and all were so easy to become lost in.
The murder of Marianne Vi Britannia was the moment that Lelouch formed a shell around himself, fragile as that of an egg.
It was when he met that woman and was granted the power of Geass that his shell broke, and Zero emerged from the slumber of seventeen years, the revolutionary chick.
He had risen to great power with that alias and that eye, and the small black sheep, exiled from its herd, began to reunite with its white-wooled siblings. Clovis. Cornelia. Schneizel. Euphemia.
Sweet, sweet, Euphemia. The woman who had been the first to make his stomach turn with her vibrant smile, to make a blush rise upon his cheeks. The first juvenile love that he held in his heart. The Third Princess turned Sub-Viceroy turned "traitorous murderer." If not for the curse inflicted by that woman, he would not have accidentally given her that command to kill the Japanese. With that turn, he did not just lose Euphemia, his first love, his half-sister. He also lost Nina and Suzaku.
Suzaku.
Suzaku, who had confronted him in mourning. Suzaku, who had cornered him with the intention of avenging Euphemia, the Princess for whom he was a Knight. Suzaku, who had fired the shot that drew forth Zero's true identity. Suzaku, who, despite Lelouch having been his best friend of so many, many years, shot him. Suzaku, who turned him in to the Emperor himself. Suzaku, who watched the Emperor bury Lelouch's memories deep in his subconscious and fill his mind with hypnotic lies.
Suzaku, who had betrayed his best friend for the memory of his lover.
When Lelouch had woken from the solemn slumber that the amnesia had provided, he found that the most important person in the world had been taken away. Nunnally. The baby sister that he was going to give the world. His motivation, Zero's motivation. The tiny bird, too broken to fly, but with enough spunk to sing as loud and long as it could.
When Nunnally had been crippled in Marianne's murder, Lelouch had vowed then and there to make the world a better place so that when Nunnally could see again, with those eyes that had been broken by the Britannia that tortured them so. She was Lelouch's weakness.
And when the Emperor had seen that, he took Nunnally and appointed her the Viceroy of Area 11. He made Nunnally, the one person that Lelouch could not win against, a prime enemy.
And then there was Shirley. Sweet, sweet, Shirley Fenette, who had fallen in love with Lelouch not once, but thrice. Even after finding he was the Zero who was responsible for her father's death. Even after finding out again. And then a third time, with the Geass-canceler's effects.
"I'm sure that, even when I'm reborn as a whole new person, I'll fall in love with you again."
She had whispered that with her dying breaths, blood spilling from her abdomen and onto the marble floors of the mall, which had been evacuated some minutes before. It had been because she had said that name, Nunnally, to the person who hated that name most, who hated that person most, who just happened to have a gun in his hand.
He had realized too late, each and every time, how much he loved the women that had been so wronged.
Marianne. Euphemia. Nunnally. Shirley.
How Lelouch had loved them all.
Sacrifice
The rain poured down on Fifth Jerusalem mercilessly, and it hid the tears so well.
It had been seven years since the end of their adventure. Five of them were spent in torment. The other two, in bliss. But now, it was torment again, as the small group of mourners stood before the white casket, rested upon a hole, six feet deep, next to one already filled and covered by grass, a headstone at the top, reading "Jin Uzuki" and other words that weren't as important.
Rui Alexander had come to her final resting place.
Shion sobbed into her handkerchief, tightly gripping Allen's hand, while he gripped the umbrella so tightly that his knuckles were as white as his face, pale with sorrow. KOS-MOS stood beside her, emotionless as usual, but her expression softer, her red eyes fixed on the grave, glimmering with a bit of blue.
MOMO was gone. She had been gone for years. Ziggy was gone, too, and their graves stood beside Jin's. chaos had his arms wrapped around Mizuri, who sobbed horribly, unable to look at the flower-laden casket, while their son, Adalia, gripped his best friend's hand, looking at her worriedly.
Alicia's gaze was on the casket. Was her mother really in there? When they'd looked earlier, she was in there. She was sleeping. Her hand in Adalia's, and her tiny red curls covered by her hood, she looked up at Jr. curiously. "Daddy, why are they burying Mama?" She asked, and he gripped her free hand tightly, tears and rain streaming down his cheeks, his chest heaving with sobs and a hiccup escaping him every so often. "Mama's just sleeping, so why are they burying her? She has a lot of work to do, doesn't she?" Alicia frowned, her brow knitted with worry. But soon, she was in her father's tight embrace, his face in her tiny shoulder, covered with rain and now with tears.
Their enemy had taken her. They had shot her in the chest while she ran to protect the ones she loved. She spared them by taking the final bullet.
And on her tombstone, it was read....
Dr. Rui Alexander
Nach Glühen
Ich möchte, daß das Gedächtnis von mir
ein glückliches ist.
Ich möchte gehen nachdem
Glühen des Lächelns, wenn das
Leben erfolgt ist.
Ich möchte ein Echo
lassen weich Flüsternd
hinunter die Weisen.
Von den glücklichen Zeiten und
von lachenden Zeit
und hellen und sonnigentagen.
Ich möchte, daß die Risse von denen, die sich
Sorgen machen, vor der Sonne trocknen
Von den glücklichen Gedächtnissen, die ich lasse,
wenn das Leben erfolgt ist.
I'd like the memory of me to be a happy one.
Mabinogi Tales
"Now, dear child,"[B/] she said with a smile, "Erinn awaits." ~Mabinogi Tales~ Chapter I- Ranel Alistair (Death is nothing, here.) 2453 A.D., London, England All of London was ablaze. They di...Creation
As the diary floating in a void in time stated, in his three million years of life, Crest had tried 343 times to become a father. He had tried with various lovers, human, phoenix, dragon, and demon alike. He thought he'd given up at around two hundred, but the hunger to be a parent consumed him, and he just kept trying.
He'd had no idea, when the Queen had given birth to the Prince, that the three hundred and forty third time, a small fling with the Queen, had finally worked. Even though Saki looked so much like the King that it was impossible to believe that he was Crest's son.
Two months later, Crest had been relieved of his high-priest duties, and he went to live in Kuzai Village to escape the suspicion that he'd kidnapped the Prince, who'd gone missing at the same time.
He lived his life surrounded by people who loved him, though he was still hopelessly alone. He watched many deaths and births, the most promising of his village's children being Mitsuru and Marina Alistair, who became the Captain of the Guard and the Bandit King, respectively.
Crest aided in raising them both. But neither were his child.
It wasn't until years and years later that he had discovered that the Prince was his son. Royal by blood, but still his son. This child that had been created with half of him and half of the Queen.
His own creation. His own child.
