❛ I know you. If I were blind I would know what you are. ❜ / rosa !
Zero stands, eclipsed by moonlight. The silhouette of his helmet cuts it into a thick crescent, beads of white trickling across caped shoulders. Becoming Zero has turned Lelouch into a lonely being who exists both between the world of the dead and the world of the living. Fodlan is falling to pieces. It’s been five years since Byleth’s absence.
But when Claude sent out a call, Lelouch found himself returning to the monastery against his will, despite Lelouch Lamperouge no longer existing – he is Zero, he is nothing more, he will never be anything more. The helmet has become his new face.
Rosa is the first to see him. He stands, waiting for her to ask him questions – who are you? – why are you here? – or perhaps even she has heard of Zero, the mercenary, who flies on the back of his wyvern and brings justice where no one else can walk. But it doesn’t come.
She approaches him and touches the back of a gloved hand with the very tip of her finger. Something registers, then. All the confirmation she needed. “I know you,” she says breathlessly, “If I were blind I would know what you are.” And then she reaches for Zero’s helmet.
Lelouch lets her.
Tired eyes greet her; one amethyst, unchanged, the other ever a burning pink, where Geass ripped into his body. He goes to hold her wrist, guiding it to his face. Permits for her to see where age and war have changed him. He’s not a tired boy anymore shirking his duties and playing chess. He is 23 and yet he is older than that. Then, delicately, his lips press to the inside of her wrist, where her pulse beats. “I can always count on you,” he breathes against her skin, missing this – missing her. “I wish we didn’t have to meet like this.”