The streetlight flickered as Suzaku landed, the angel not giving the light a second glance. He was far too focused on what he was about to do.
There were many things he should have been doing at the moment, like chasing after Carine and continuing their search. Angels were still being killed, angels from their garrison. With demons out breaking the seals as fast as they could be found, the angels couldn't afford the losses that they were sustaining. Carine might not believe him, but it felt like punishment for the garrison's failures.
Suzaku ducked his head and gritted his teeth. Of course, it was probably a punishment for his own failures. He had managed to mess up the devil's trap that had contained Luciano, nearly losing them their Righteous Man, their one hope to end the apocalypse before Lucifer could be freed. He had completely failed to protect Lelouch then, nearly getting cast out of his vessel. The abomination had been the one to save them all, an idea that made Suzaku's grace crawl.
And then there was the nagging sensation that he was being punished for things far beyond that. For the moments when he looked at Lelouch and didn't see a tool for stopping the apocalypse but a fellow soldier, someone that could be equal to him. For the moments when he looked at Nunnally and saw a desperate young woman trying to protect her brother instead of an abomination. And those moments when he doubted.
For those alone he could be killed.
Suzaku slumped, torn between flinging himself back towards Heaven to lose himself in the glory there or retreating back to Lelouch and Nunnally. Instead, he reached out for the one angel that he had always turned to when he was conflicted. "Kallen?"
He tipped his head up, listening for her approach even as he reached out with his grace to see if he could feel her. She had come for him once before, right after he had sent Lelouch in to deal with Luciano. If that hadn't been a sign that he could still turn to her then Suzaku didn't know what was.
When nothing came, he closed his eyes. "Kallen please, I need-"
Suzaku turned around, unable to keep himself from relaxing at the sight of his former captain. Now things would be different. Kallen had always known what to do and she had never steered them wrong when she had been in charge of the garrison. It was only after she had left that things had started to crumble. Suzaku couldn't lead, he was made to take orders and none of the other angels had been able to fill the space.
He took a step forward, freezing when Kallen retreated. She gave him a wary look, Suzaku averting his eyes.
He kept his eyes on the ground when Kallen cleared her throat. "Come to kill me?"
"No!" Suzaku was surprised at the burst of panic that he felt at that, quickly schooling his expression to carefully calculated blankness again.
He must not have been completely successful, because Kallen gave him a look of shock before relaxing her stiff posture. "What do you want from me?
"I...I don't think what we are doing is right."
"You think?" Kallen laughed, leaning one shoulder against the lamp post. When Suzaku didn't respond, she stopped laughing, staring at him instead. "You're serious."
"Yes. Nothing in my orders make sense. And doing the opposite of them feels...right."
"No it isn't." Suzaku nearly snarled out the words. He didn't realize that he was fidgeting until he saw Kallen's gaze follow his hand, only then realizing that he had run his hand through his hair. He jerked his arm back to his side, falling back to attention. He licked his lips, carefully keeping his voice level. "Our brothers and sisters are being killed. This isn't the time for indecision."
Kallen pushed away from the lamp post, walking over to him. "You're scared."
Suzaku wanted to deny the statement, but he found that he couldn't. It was all too true. He didn't want the worst to happen, hated this indecision that kept him from acting. He hated the way he couldn't even trust himself to do what was right. Hated that he was being kept from Lelouch and Nunnally, that he was being kept from his place in the garrison because of the two humans. And the sharpness of the emotion frightened him, just as much as the idea that the garrison was being punished.
He looked down at the ground, watching Kallen's feet as she approached him. "It will feel like that, but it gets better. I promise, it gets better."
She reached out to touch his shoulder, Suzaku tensing before he could help himself. Kallen was still a danger to them, an unknown. And he was already trying to cope with whatever was wrong with him.
It was the wrong reaction, Suzaku looking up as Kallen pulled away. He flinched back at the disgust on her face.
"That's right. You're too good for my help. I'm just trash." She sounded wistful as she spoke, Kallen staring at her hand. Suzaku swallowed, wanting to go over and comfort her, or as much as he could while stuck in the vessel. Here he couldn't just exist close to her, but he could offer something.
As soon as he took a step forward, Kallen looked up at him, her hand clenching into a fist. When she spoke again, she was angry. "A walking blasphemy. That's all I am to all of you. You don't even care! How long did it take you to replace me?"
Suzaku swallowed, desperately wanting to fly away from this conversation. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Kallen was supposed to tell him that he was doing something wrong, she wasn't supposed to encourage him. She wasn't supposed to have this kind of command over him either, she had been gone from the garrison for so long.
"As sure as we were sure that you had fallen and would not return."
"That fast?" Kallen scoffed, looking up to the sky and shaking her head. "Heartless bastards, all of you." She paused, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. "And I guess that you were the one that replaced me?"
Suzaku nodded, unable to stop himself from reaching out to her. "Yes, but not anymore. They don't trust me. And now...there are many days that I...I don't know what to do." It was a relief to get the words out. He wasn't meant to captain a garrison, he was just a soldier. This was right, appealing to his superior officer. Suzaku chanced a step forward, going to grab her hand. "Please tell me what to do."
"Like the old days?" Kallen withdrew from him, shaking her head. "No."
"You had them and you couldn't follow them."
"That was a mistake, one that I regret." Suzaku paused to take a deep breath, dropping all pretenses of keeping control. "Without orders I'm nothing. I was never meant to be an abomination, I'm just-"
"A soldier." Kallen stormed forward, Suzaku scrambling backward to keep away from her. He stepped down from the landing he was standing on, his foot catching the edge of the stair awkwardly. Before he could right himself he fell over, sprawling onto his back.
Suzaku intended to get up, but Kallen beat him to it. She loomed over him, placing a foot on his chest and leaning into it. Suzaku flinched, thinking he heard a few ribs crack under the pressure as she leaned over him, glaring at him. "And that's all you can ever conceive of being. Your captain, the one that had lead you to victories since the beginning of this planet, falls and you just step into her place as soon as she is gone without a qualm. You get sent to kill that same captain and regret it, not because it's me but because you failed to carry out the order. You get a chance, a real chance at something better than Heaven and all it's control and run away because you can't be without orders. You can't see yourself being anything but a hammer for God. Daddy's little soldier!"
She disappeared before Suzaku could respond, leaving him laying on the ground and staring up at the sky. He took a deep breath, feeling his ribs protest. With a thought, he healed them, wincing when he remembered what he had refused Lelouch, all because there were more things to worry about. Daddy's little soldier indeed.
He picked himself off the ground, Suzaku staring at the impression that he had made on the ground. It was all too easy to imagine wings burnt into the ground. He shivered and ducked his head.
He should have done what he could when he had first thought of disobedience, either gone back to Heaven to get himself fixed or let Luciano kill him when they had first attempted to get Kallen. But that wouldn't have worked, because the secret to killing angels was guarded jealously. The only ones that could kill an angel was another angel.
Suzaku looked up at that, narrowing his eyes. He had been taught that long ago, with the addendum to be careful, just in case something changed over the millennia that he had been stationed on Earth. And, if the information had been leaked, he was sure that Lelouch would have gotten it. With the way that Carine insisted on threatening Nunnally, Suzaku was sure that Lelouch would have found a way to kill angels by now. But he hadn't, he had been surprised about their existence and Luciano had said that he only knew how to send angels back to Heaven. If such a high powered demon knew nothing about killing them, then that left only one suspect.
Suzaku growled under his breath, sending out a call to Carine before returning to the warehouse. There were a few things that he wanted to look over.