Kallen Muse Practice, aka Look at Me, I'm a Derp

[dramatic_cape]

Who: Lelouch and Kallen
Where: Himorogi
When: lol whatever
Rated: /vague shrug

Comments

[dramatic_cape]

Oh.

That's -

Oh.

It maybe takes a full thirty seconds for Lelouch to remember that breathing was necessary for survival. You forget, in this kind of situation. Like your lungs are being crushed. A few words can do that. Snap your ribs like brittle twigs.

A massacre.

( I did this. )

Thousands of Japanese people, dead.

( I did this. )

He hadn't known. He didn't know. He doesn't know. He can't remember being there. Lelouch remembers Euphemia at the last, remembers her fighting it (no, I don't want to do that, please don't make me - ), but now he remembers what he had made himself forget.

Her eyes. Gone.

Oh. Okay. You're right. I have to kill the Japanese.

( It's over. Thousands dead and I don't even know, didn't even know. )

One stupid mistake. Letting his guard down was the mistake. Ignoring the spasms in his left eye earlier that day, the burn getting hotter over weeks, the tingles sharper, the hum of it more natural until he could call it up on instinct, until it was harder to dismiss than to summon. No, not even. If he'd kept his mask on, it wouldn't have happened. If he'd stayed Zero. If he hadn't spoken to her. Hadn't tried to tell someone the truth. For once. The one time in his life, he tried to bare himself, and in one moment, one stupid moment, one utterly idiotic careless moment, thousands dead. Dead. Dead.

( I did that. )

His legs buckle slightly at the knees. Lelouch hadn't even been consciously aware of putting his hand to his mouth. To hold something in, everything in, the urge to scream or the urge to vomit or the urge to just break down and laugh at the stupid, stupid, stupid futility of it all. He'd caused the slaughter of a thousand people and not even known. Their souls are on his shoulders and he hadn't even noticed the extra weight. Because of one poorly-worded sentence and a rare moment of eye contact. Not even fiction writers have the audacity to construct a plot device so contrived. Rocks fall, everyone dies. Everyone. Dies.

He's turned sheet white.