a/n: "after turn 10" fic.

All's not just ; R - drama/serious - Schneizel x Lelouch

I. capture for sake of deceit

Schneizel caught him. The Britannians could not resist this call against power. The three-way battle lost. Zero had been triumphant. He had moved quickly across the triumphed over land, immediately to win their likely sought favour. Moved to budge them from the hollow furnace they wedged themselves into, to improve their living, and assure them that their Empress, ruler from heaven's descent- assure them that she was not at fault for their suffering (of course they would say, it had been the eunuchs, who had originally been positioned to serve the Emperor- but they had been poisoned poisoned people, not whole and power hungry) he would allow her to regain her throne, regain it when he was done exhausting this country in ways they had never experienced (not imperial rule, not government rule, just reconstruction and-) would he let her have the throne again?

He'd been bound to a chair in a confined room (but it looks like someone's office), his cape thrown aside and draped over another chair by the dark desk (neatly papers, this room-) Schneizel wants to deal with him alone and stands before him, charm and elegance, and that ever present majesty somewhat dissolved into a steely ambiguous tone that Lelouch skims over in his mind, this would not last- to deal with him alone is foolhardy. And the second prince does not turn on the lights, letting instead the bleeding sun seep through the blinds. The Knight of Rounds are on a different floor, Lelouch is aware that he has not told them (him, Su-) that Zero has been captured otherwise (that blundering fool) but there are two aren't there? This faulty, move.

"Let's see what's under that mask."

His white gloved hands, even when he had been younger, and Lelouch resents him in many ways, the way of brothers, of rivals, of royalty, of- (and there is a thing called the "penalty", Lelouch's first game of chess to have been lost had been against this older brother, Schneizel- whose background was to be more outstanding- he had lost with the heads taller, yet his fingers still chubby, regal older brother Schneizel. Always looking as if-) that deal. Lelouch had hated the way Euphemia had a tendency to almost, almost address Schneizel tenderly. It disgusted him it- (reminded him, that if he lost there was a penalty to pay and often, his small back knocking against a mattress he did not know, Schneizel's fingers had been much more slimmer and curling, touched neither gently nor roughly, and he would never be allowed to talk) the mask is pulled off.

Schneizel does not look in the least bit surprised to see him.

Yet, Lelouch could not help but be tempted to ask anyway, lips already curling all over again (a way Schneizel may have seen on and off, never, Lelouch never understood why Schneizel always looked at him in that way, curious, bored, nothing, just not to point, it was a look that drove him mad, drove him mad because Schneizel has always looked down upon him, he-) "Surprised?"

(Lelouch can tell he wants to give a sigh, that exhausted, exasperated sound of disappointed, and he has never seen this older brother angry, only disappointed. Lelouch-) wants to see him angry.

Schneizel shakes his head, "No, I thought it would be you."

His eyes hold ever forward to Lelouch's, messy dark hair caught about over an eye and unabashedly clear from the other, Schneizel almost makes the motion to brush it away but the intrigue of Lelouch's sudden part of lips catches his attention more, "I had hoped however that it would be not."

"Hoped?" Lelouch gives a dark chuckle, shoulders hitching, the devil's remorse does not exist- in the least. Lelouch has been hoping, hoping for a day like this to come, from the first time he lost at chess, "I," his eyes are just as dark, "-must have been on your mind ever since that chess match."

Whether Schneizel is thinking of the very first or the very last that Zero proposed, Lelouch neither knows nor entirely cares, just that his point is across, that it exists. If Lelouch cannot ever defeat him on the small, checkered floor, board then-

"What was it you said? Ah," catching thought, Schneizel leans but a bit forward, as if he rather not be above Lelouch in the bit but cannot help it (and this is wrong, because Lelouch does not catch it at all, no one does, it does not exist like-) Lelouch says to him, finshing, "Do not underestimate the White King."

Schneizel gives an almost nod of that's right, "And you said before: A king must move so that his subjects will follow," the discarded mask, where did he put it? His fingers slide under Lelouch's chin, Lelouch is looking up at him, up. They move, to touch at the sharpness that had not been there distinctly as before and this time Lelouch does not flinch or try to curl away, but staring, that caught half glare. He will not remove his gloves. Lelouch is smirking.

"But you cannot move now," Schneizel's has always had a refined, calm, authoritive voice, the voice of a King? Zero- Lelouch will match him for that, match him with justice, with hardship, with hatred.

His face is close, dangerously, and there is something bubbling in the back of Lelouch's throat, like a laugh, like a word, and it does not come out when Schneizel places his mouth over his, just stays there festering, burning, and if it is swallowed by the other or himself, this Lelouch also does not know. However this closeness, this feeling, it is glorious, this position! The unintended bow.

Schneizel cannot imagine any further success when the leader, when Zero has been caught. He is the brain, he is the heart (and it is wrong, the connotation that heart often brings- feeling, because Schneizel is using it in literal meaning) Zero is the heart behind the power, and if he exists no more, not one step can be taken further without it being a step closer to death. When their mouths part- "This is not chess." Their lives, their rivalry- though it had been taken to the chess board, time and time again- it was not so, it was... ("Next time Zero, this will not be cleared by a mere game of chess.") Lelouch has to withhold his laughter once again.

"In chess," the bewitching glance, half taken in, half out to be cautious for once Schneizel deems that danger be more appropriate (he was handling Zero after all). Lelouch continues, "-once the King is captured the game is won."

His curling lips, they had referred Schneizel's hand once before as the devil's but in truth, Lelouch's own hand is- "But sometimes there comes a time where one can only win if the King is captured."

They both share fault in this.

"He must be captured to ensure his win, not the win of those that oppose him."

The enemy.

Schneizel does not step back, a lesser man would have made that step. It is not pride (as Lelouch, as Zero had not taken the White King that day). Foot, feet firmly in place, rising as the lowered octave of Lelouch's voice (Zero.)

"What do you mean by this?"

He thinks they're still dark, the lowered lash of Lelouch's eyes, closing all momentarily, to be able to give the striking, final blow, and Schneizel resists no further and brushes that dark hair away from the other eye, and it does strike him, when Lelouch opens those eyes once more- the geass.

(The King must go first. To set an example.)

"Heed me, my orders."

For the first time Lelouch wins.

II. by defection

To avenge his majesty.

No one dared to pursue after Zero any longer. Those brave, those ever loyal, had not returned. They would not return, they were dead. Dead as their majesty whose remains are smeared across a wall, dismembered and open and fresh and redder than the crimson sun to the- and the blood is darkening like cooling mahogany, the guns still warm from their grip. Metal remains harsher than flesh but less resistant. Zero has set an example.

By the time the Knight of Rounds make it, Suzaku, Anya, Zino. Suzaku's curled, tightly, harshly made fists have slacken, the sight of carnage is familiar but to come in this form (of the head, is a blow indeed). Entrails, that literal heart, is printed (rather sloppily) over the room, in red is Zero success (was it not befitting, in this country he has taken, the colour red is lucky, it is the colour of celebration). Let it be befitting. Let them fall in bewilderment, disgust, horror, apathy. The sight.

The Zero now, could not be the same Zero as before, Suzaku tried to reason- though to reason as such was contradiction. For that hatred still remains.

III. breaking point

Lelouch walks without his mask. He chucks it a ways forward before he cannot help but stop, pause. He's left their territory and has returned to his own, blood splattered all different ways across (oh but not his blood), he is caught. Caught by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and when C.C. finds him he almost doesn't notice her appearance as he would have usually, as sharply as before.

"I won," he merely says to her, as if that were all, as if it was a game of chess and not another fall of a potential ruler, another heir to the throne, another one connected by blood to him (all that that man has created Lelouch will-) C.C. takes it as a child trying to please his mother.

So she nods (Marianne might have said her meeting him here at the setting of the sun was romantic, and C.C. would have denied it the same, this-)

His fingers curling about his mouth, the gut, doubling over, an arm about the stomach. He'd left his cape elsewhere, still hanging over that chair probably. He smiles at her, as he tries to compose himself, a deficient vibrancy.

"You," but she does not say it as the same as before, humoured, the twinge of innocent bout the edges, no more. Her lips tinged with- but now it is like, the cold walk in the lonely rain, the departure of one dream for another (and it is steeped in history) her expression, "-really hate losing don't you?"

Lelouch has still not stopped laughing, but is has subsided into a few chuckles, tears of mirth at the edges of his eyes, he brushes them away with a stained glove (but it does not smear, it is dry.)

"Of course."

She informs him the rest of them are waiting, and he picks up the mask.