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There was a little-known fact about one of the graves in the capital gardens. The grave belonging to the former emperor’s knight reads as follows: “Here lies a consummate and invaluable Knight to His Highness Lelouch Vi Brittania, 99th Emperor of the Brittanian Empire.” This naturally, to anyone who looked beyond the name and dates of birth and death of the knight, would usually spark aggressive rumors for years to come about the true nature of their relationship. However, considering the turmoil that followed the death of the knight, it’s no surprise that it had been brushed over.
Of course, there were whispers, sparks surrounding an unlit match that spoke of hidden history between the pair. It was well known that the emperor, then a prince, had been sent to Japan with his little sister as a political bargaining chip seventeen years ago, but the knowledge scarcely went beyond that. Old friends from before the emperor’s rule said that the former prime minister’s son and the prince reconnected two years before his ascension to the throne and subsequent death. According to an old friend, they were “thick as thieves.”
“Oh yeah, they were close, and I honestly think that if they tried, it could’ve worked,” former student council president, Milly Ashford said with a fond smile, “That boy was a real piece of work and an occasional pain in my ass, but when Suzaku came around? Oh, it was like watching two peas in a pod grow in real-time.”
Milly had grown into a beautiful woman, her news work taking her all over the country as she followed political negotiations and cultural movements that have sprung up en masse in the last ten years. She was beloved among newscasters, with viewers loving her fun-loving personality along with the duality that came with the more serious events. She was as professional as she was goofy, never letting the weight of the Ashford name hold her down.
“Did the Emperor-.”
“Lelouch, please.”
“Sorry, did Lelouch ever give any hints that he had any particular feelings about being involved with the same gender?”
“Oh no, but he was always hard to read, even when we were kids! I was always open about my attraction to women, and he never expressed any ill will toward me. I did sometimes play up my antics just to watch him roll his eyes and try to get us back on task,” Milly chuckled lightly, clearly in the middle of a fond memory, “But to answer your real question, I don’t think he swung that way, but if he did, I’m not shocked. Girls loved him, but he definitely didn’t love girls.”
This was a very common narrative perpetuated by many people who knew Lelouch. It has additionally been documented that, while he had many female pursuers and few male ones both privately and publicly during his, albeit short rule, he never took a lover.
Perhaps Knight Kururugi was the reason why, that’s what former members of staff under Emperor Lelouch thought. In the years after his death, I accumulated many stories that had previously been left unsaid due to fresh public outrage, but in recent years, lips have loosened and are all the more eager to talk.
“The emperor used to invite the knight to his quarters regularly in the middle of the night. Most thought the emperor was paranoid, but…” the former housekeeper looked away, only meeting my eyes through her periphery, “Things would go… bump in the night.”
“The emperor would always ask Kururugi to accompany him on his daily, lengthy walks in the gardens. I’m convinced they enjoyed doing that more than they did anything else,” said a former groundskeeper, a smoke in his left hand, “Well, it was either that or playing chess, in which the emperor was the superior player.”
Stories and rumors, that’s all I had to go on for a while to support my theory. However, after a long time of having gone no-contact, an old friend of mine popped back up on my radar again.
Kallen Kozuki, ace pilot of the Black Knights. She had been MIA over the past few years, none of our former friends having any sort of read on where she was at any given time. She recently bought a spot just on the outskirts of Tokyo so, even as an adult, she can check up on her mother when she needs to. Aside from Kururugi, Kallen was one of the closest to the late emperor in and out of the ostentatious royal garments he was known for. If anyone could shed some light on this, it would be her.
So, on September 27th, the anniversary of Emperor Lelouch’s assassination, I visited Kallen’s apartment, knowing she would be home. She was and appeared shocked to see me, even more so when I told her my reason for my visit.
“You think Lelouch and Suzaku... Really?” Kallen replied with raised eyebrows, leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed.
It’s here when she’s standing in front of me for the first time in ten years I notice how much she’s grown… Literally. She’s at least two inches taller than she was before and her hair falls just past her shoulders despite its gravity-defying nature. She wears silver and gold rings on her fingers and a dangly, silver earring on her left ear with a black knight chess piece. Pants and jackets are still a fixture even after all this time, but I can’t say they don’t suit her. Maybe she knows that.
She must be spending more time outside too, working out maybe? As a pilot of the black knights, if she was controlling that gigantic mech for all that time, I think I would be concerned if she didn’t have any muscles.
“It was brought to my attention they may have been involved… As much as I don’t want to dredge up old wounds-.”
Kallen waved her hand in a so-so way, opening the door for me to come inside. After I step in, I notice she looks around a bit outside before closing the door behind her. Despite a life currently free of rebellion, it’s what she was born into. I’m not shocked she would still be on edge after all these years.
“This is the first I’m hearing of it. Then again, Lelouch was always…” she paused right before the living room, her eyes catching on something, “good at hiding things.”
Kallen motioned to the big chair on the far-right side of the room, taking a seat on the couch.
“Are you ok being recorded?”
“Go ahead. You said this would stay anonymous.”
I place my tape recorder on the table between us and cross my legs, zeroing in on Kallen.
“How well do you think you knew the emperor as a student and as Zero?”
Kallen let out an amused scoff, “Starting out with the hard hitters, huh?”
I smile at her, “Of course.”
Kallen leaned back into the couch slightly, looking back in her memory, “If I said I didn’t know him at all, that would be a lie, but that’s not to say I knew him particularly well either. He was annoyingly apathetic and selfish. He was rude and occasionally offensive. He often ran off in the middle of the school day to gamble with nobles just because he could. He never applied himself in his classes, but somehow remained near the top. He was a bastard in every way, but…” Kallen’s face goes slightly pink, “I can’t believe I’m about to admit this, but as Zero… He was a hero to me in a sense. And after everything… I eventually began to see them as the same person, and I respected him well beyond words.”
“He did more for the Japanese people in under a year as a student than we had been able to do for ourselves since the war ended. I’ve read the books, hell, I’ve seen the murder with my own two eyes. We had an actual fighting chance with him at the helm and despite the fact he wore a mask in our presence, we learned to see past the mask, or at least I did,” she shot me a look out the side of her eye, but continued speaking, “I think that what got him, in the end, was that humanity… Some may call him a demon, some may call him a traitor, but I really do think what happened to him was a result of that humanity he could never really shut off, that he instead buried under theatrics, bravado, miracles, apathy, and selfishness.”
“And why do you think that was?”
“If I were to give you the simple answer, I would say it was his Britannian upbringing and leave it at that, but we all know that there’s more to it than just that,” Kallen said, putting up two fingers and putting one down with each name she listed, “His little sister, Nunnally and Suzaku Kururugi. It goes back to them. There were moments when I realized Zero had to be something-someone more than he was letting on. According to the Prez, he and Nunnally came to Japan when they were young, right after his mom died, and ever since he had been fiercely protective of Nunnally. Not just because she was blind and crippled, but because she was all he had left. Lelouch left the frontlines when we needed him during that fateful battle because something happened to her and… if Naoto were still alive and he had been in Zero’s place, I’m confident he would have done the same if it had been me. He loved her.”
I nod, “And Kururugi?”
“Kururugi was the pilot of the Lancelot and as such, was the biggest thorn in our side as far as the rebellion was concerned. There was a day we found out Suzaku was the pilot and… well, he lost it a little bit. He was stunned and later, after our retreat, I could hear him laughing maniacally to himself in his knightmare over the radio. It was frightening to say the least, but no one ever brought it up to him. Maybe we should’ve…” Kallen pushed a few stray hairs aside with her hand with a sigh, suddenly looking a decade wearier than she had when I walked in the door, “Afterward, on Kamine Island, Suzaku said to Lelouch, ‘I didn’t want it to be you,’ before they began to argue about ideals and the-the future and I just… It was all static to me for the longest time, you know? I was so caught up in my own feelings and the rest of the world, I somehow completely overlooked this until now.
See, now this was where the real meat of the story lay. I uncross my legs and lean in, “Where do you think it all clicked for you?”
“I wasn’t even able to process this relationship between them until you reached out to me, but if I had to say when, I would have to say today, all those years ago, when I watched Lelouch be killed by his own symbol,” Kallen leaned back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, “I think a lot of people were rocked by the fact that millions of people around the world just watched an emperor get assassinated in mere seconds, but what I couldn’t get past was how it just seemed like they were in their own little world up there,” Kallen put both hands in the air, mimicking what she had seen that day, “You could barely see it, but Lelouch cradled Zero’s mask with his bloody hand and was talking to him like he had known him for years, and the second he was done, he died. That’s when I knew there was something more to Lelouch’s assassination than what we saw today all those years ago.”
Kallen’s head turned to the left, her eye catching on a nearby photo frame. I follow her gaze and my eyes widen slightly in surprise. The picture she was looking at was of the late emperor in his Ashford Academy uniform, giving the camera a small smile.
“It was such a personal moment, but it happened so fast, if you weren’t paying attention, you would miss it every time. It was so tender and to the untrained eye, uncharacteristically human and genuine that I just knew. I knew it had to be someone that he knew under that mask to draw that kind of emotion from him, and if Nunnally was already there, plain and visible, there was only one more person it could have been.”
“Suzaku Kururugi.”
“For all their back and forth, if you asked me if Lelouch loved Suzaku, I would have to say yes, that it was definitely reciprocated, and it reached its conclusion in its own… twisted little way,” Kallen softens her gaze as she continues to look at the picture, “But that’s the thing about Lelouch. For all his secrets and lies, he had a way of shouting the truth out into the world whether the world noticed or not.”
For most, Lelouch vi Britannia only existed for 2 months, others having known him for years before he usurped the throne. There were sides to him that only a few were privy to at any given moment and fewer that could make a distinction between the lives he led. He went by many names, many that follow him into the afterlife, a curse against all he represented to the world, but the life and legacy he left behind left more questions than it answers.
Sadly, I don’t think we will ever get any answers unless Suzaku Kururugi comes out of hiding as Zero, which is unlikely. If he ever resigns from his post or passes on the mantle, I think he would fall off the grid entirely. He would have the rest of his life ahead of him to find his version of peace if he has yet to find it.
I suppose it makes sense, in a way, that he would take that route. Because, as much as this generation fixates on the late emperor, he will eventually be forgotten, erased to the best of one's ability in the annals of history. He will become an ugly, distant reminder of what humanity can become when pushed to a tipping point as a result of the previous generation's shortcomings. As such, when the knight has finally served out his purpose, he too will follow his liege into obscurity, his physical presence as a symbol of peace and justice no longer necessary in the new world. He will continue to serve a dead man, and thus the entire world until his very last breath, with a twisted devotion only seen in fiction, and die having made the dreams of millions and the man he loved a reality.
Both a beautiful and a tragic way to go, don’t you think?