He had been falsely accused. He could not blame the investigators. Their evidence clearly pointed at him. Regardless. Suzaku was confident that he would be found innocent. His location on the battlefield was, at all times, monitored closely enough that they should soon realise their mistake and let him out so that they could go on to capture the real killer.
His mind flashed back to the ghetto. Lelouch... His body wasn't discovered among the dead, nor was that green-haired girl. If only Suzaku could find out what happened to him. To either of them. Did they get out okay, or were there bodies buried under rubble and not discovered until later on? If only he could find out. If only he -
The door opened and the light hurt his eyes for a few seconds. Even so, he recognised Jeremiah Gottwald pretty quickly. He had a distinctive silhouette.
"Sit up straight in the presence of your superiors," Gottwald snapped at him. He stepped to the side and a table was brought into the room, as well as a single chair. One for Jeremiah, while Suzaku had to make do with the floor. "This would go a lot easier for everyone if you confessed. Yourself included."
"I'm sorry," Suzaku said. "I cannot in good conscience confess to a crime I did not commit."
He could have dodged the backhand quite easily, even in these restraints. But Suzaku knew what would happen if he fought back. If he escaped. If he did anything at all to resist. It would make things worse. Not for him. For other people. They would suffer. The best way to minimise that suffering would be to take it himself. No matter what punishment they tried to dish out, Suzaku Kururugi would take it and then some! Even death would find no fear in him.
"You're a stubborn one, aren't you?" Jeremiah scoffed. "That's fine. If a beating won't get the job done, I'm sure we can find some other way to make you cooperate!"
Ah. How embarrassing. Apparently he had fallen asleep at some point without noticing, and the stress of his situation had caused him to have a rather peculiar dream. After all. He could consider no other possible explanation for why a Pureblood like Villetta Nu might appear in the doorway clad head to toe in tight-fitting black leather and tapping a wound-up whip into her open palm. In short: He was having an erotic dream, and would very much like to wake up now.
Please?
<hr>
Do you know what's kind of strange? Well, everything in her life these days, apparently, but perhaps more of a specific, current event that she might find a little unsettling. Unnerving. Unthinkable. Un-everything under the sun!
"Come on, Shirley," her roommate said. Her naked roommate. Her naked roommate that had wrapped both her arms around Shirley's right arm and was squeezing it right in between her breasts. "You seem so tense all of a sudden. Would you like me to help you relax?"
Sophie, the aforementioned naked roommate clinging onto Shirley's arm, lay her head upon Shirley's shoulder and rubbed her cheek against it like a cat trying to rub its scent. Now. You might be forgiven for believing this was what was setting off all of Shirley's weird alarms at once and making her a little bit panicky. But no! Not at all, actually. This kind of oddly affectionate and sexual behaviour from people around her was merely off-putting. Not strange, not anymore.
Nope. The strange bit was how not one single person they passed reacted at all to the sight of a cute, naked girl with a pretty nice (though not as nice as Kallen's) body, even though Sophie didn't actually make any effort to hide herself and in at least one instance she happened to catch a passing man's hat to return it to him. Not a word said about her lack of attire. Just a pleasant "thanks," a friendly smile, eye contact maintained the entire time even though her perfectly nice breasts were <i>right there</i>, didn't even try to sneak a peek at her legs or butt or anything, even though her body was -
... Was she checking out her naked friend? Goodness, girl, get a grip! Don't succumb to whatever this is so easily!
"So, you still haven't told me what this is all about," Sophie said. Or more like whispered huskily directly into Shirley's ear. All of a sudden her knees felt weak. "What was in the package? How did you knock out that man? Why did I never notice how alluring your -"
"DVDs," Shirley quickly answered, preferring for the time being to not know how Sophie had intended to finish that question. "It was a bunch of DVDs about - About the student council."
"Oh," Sophie said. "That is kind of creepy. Why haven't you gone to the police?"
"Because they were animated to a professional standard," Shirley replied. "And... They showed a bunch of things that haven't even happened yet."
Things that would be just a little bit too traumatic to think about just now. There. This seemed like the sort of thing Lelouch would do. Right? Tell just enough of the truth to mislead her into thinking that was the whole story, stall for time until she could get Sophie to Lelouch and then -
"We're here!"
Well, this was unexpected. It was just a perfectly ordinary house along a perfectly ordinary street. There was a "sold" sign out front, indicating it had been recently purchased, and the condition of the house itself wasn't quite as good as the other surrounding buildings, but otherwise it didn't seem all that strange really.
"Now, before you knock me out, think this through!" Sophie quickly said. "Do you really want to just leave me lying around in the middle of the street? A cute girl like me? Helpless and alone? And - And leaving me inside that house isn't a great idea either; you don't know what or whom you might find! Wouldn't it be better if you had backup, just in case things go south?"
"Alright, alright! Just try to keep your hands to yourself."
"No promises, hot stuff!"
Ugh, she wasn't quite as bad as Milly yet, but god willing she'd never actually meet anyone else quite that dirty in the entire rest of her lifetime. Of course, there was the important question of how on earth they were going to get inside this place. Maybe through a side window? They might be able to get in through the back... They might need to find a rock or a pipe or something heavy to smash their way inside, or maybe they could use a hairclip to pick one of the locks? Whatever their method it would take all of their skill and cunning!
Or Sophie could walk right up to the front door, gently push it and watch it swing open without so much as an ominous creak.
"Well," Sophie said, with a bow. "After you? Does that deserve a kiss?"
"M-maybe later!" Shirley said. She walked inside. Okay. So. Maybe she should have waited until Lelouch was done before actually entering the building. Having someone as smart and wonderful and, shall we say, commanding as him would have definitely been a pretty great idea right about now. She honestly half expected to have a bag put over her head the second she entered, and was prepared to trigger her Geass at a moment's notice -
But nothing happened. She just walked inside. Found a big room with bare walls, curtains pulled across the curtains and bars across all of them. When she passed through the doorway there was this oddly unpleasant tingle. As though someone had walked on her -
<i>No!</i> cried a woman, who had thrown herself against the ground. She wailed wordlessly, while others stood nearby, most of them stunned by this tragedy...
It might be best if she didn't finish that thought.
<i>"Suicide... She could do it...?”</i> asked a numb Japanese boy.
Nearby, an attractive young woman looked around with uncharacteristic nervousness. <i>"Has anyone seen Lelouch?"<i> she asked, to anyone that might answer. All the while, the woman wailed, and wailed, and if you listened closely you could perhaps understand what the sound of a heart breaking might sound like...
You know. On balance it might be best if that thought didn't actually finish. That sort of phrasing seemed to have bad taste after seeing your own funeral.
Anyway. She was here for a reason. The room wasn't actually empty anyway. There were tables all over the place. With little things on them. Held under glass cubes. Little pieces of paper in front of them. It almost gave Shirley the impression of a museum, and if that was the case then she'd encountered the strangest museum she'd ever dreamed of.
She leaned down to read the one closest to the door, and ignored the fact that Sophie's shadow indicated she was probably getting her butt/legs/both checked out, and recited aloud what she read.
"Ring of Lies," she said. Indeed, there was some kind of ring underneath the glass. She moved onto the next one, which had a stopwatch in it. "Equivalent Exchange." She scratched her head a little over that one, and moved on to another table. In particular, one where there was a strange red light glowing over the item in question. A pair of earrings?
"Normality Earrings," she read aloud. But there was a little more text in there as well. "Effect partially drained and mixed with Exhibitionist Lotion. Target... Sophie Wood?!"
"Huh? What? My name's on that card? Let me - Whoa! So it is! That's so weird, what does it mean?"
"I don't know," Shirley very slowly said, carefully wrapping her head around all of this. "But if that was written in there, then doesn't that mean -"
The front door opened and a smiling, whistling man strode into the room carrying a box. The instant he saw the girls, the whistling stopped and he reached for what Shirley assumed was a firearm. He didn't get the chance to draw it before he - and unfortunately also Sophie - both dropped to the ground completely unconscious.
"Alright then!" Shirley said. Her trembling hands pulled out her mobile phone. "I think this is where Lelouch takes over. At least now we have someone he can interrogate..."
- It turns out the man is not responsible for the DVDs, and doesn't even know what they're talking about.
- It turns out that the man is actually trying to help protect this world from... Something.
- It turns out this man is secretly trying to do something to this world. Something perverted.
- It turns out the man had backup, and Shirley has to deal with him as well now!
- The man is able to somehow escape before he can be interrogated.
- Something else
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