The room was dank. That was deliberate. An overhead sprinkler system would occasionally rain down a steady mist for about thirty or forty minutes, once every few hours. She knew the length of time the sprinklers ran varied, because she had counted the time. She was confident within a minute or two of the correct duration. The periods without the artificial rain were harder to judge. She had tried to count that too, but the mind-numbing boredom of that proved to be so daunting, her mind eventually drifted back to why she was there in the first place, and that just filled her with blinding rage, and crushing sadness.
Her "cell" was actually a very large room, probably about 40-feet across – a square room with a semicircular front. Her restriction, however, was to a much smaller, but still somewhat large for a prison, 20x20 platform raised about four feet higher than the main floor. In theory she could depart that area to the rest of the room, even to the front door. But the routine showers were a part of the security.
There was a moat in between. It was relatively shallow, only two-feet deep and wide. The sprinklers' coverage encroached on the platform area a couple feet. It would trickle down into the moat, which overflowed onto the main floor, which was always covered by at least an eighth of an inch of water.
The real kicker, so to speak, was that the moat, and the main floor, were electrified. The fake rain was salty. Anyone trying to walk across without proper protections would almost certainly be killed before getting more than a couple feet. The folks who brought her meals wore full-body suits with rubber insulation, her meals kept in, on, with, plastic dishes and utensils.
From everything she could tell, this was no building simply decided at the last moment to be her prison. It was apparent there was a good deal of planning that someone like her would be kept there. It raised the question of whether she was just being used as a guinea pig for some later purpose.
That didn't make it any better. It wasn't an excuse that meant much. "Don't worry, we only locked you in this deadly prison to test it out." "Oh, okay. And here I thought you just hated me and wanted to watch me slowly rot in here." That was a bit of an exaggeration though. After all, the entire purpose of this ridiculous setup was because she couldn't rot.
C.C. couldn't be completely sure, but it was probably a week since she was brought here by Suzaku and Cornelia. The two hadn't dared to show their faces since bringing her there, probably knowing she'd verbally berate them for this. It wasn't the first time she'd been betrayed by people she trusted. But, there was usually a specific goal in mind when it happened. She was kept for experiments, like what Lloyd mentioned concerning seeing what happened if she were given gaping wounds. She was tortured for information, regardless of if she had it to offer or not. She was even kept as a toy.
But so far, all she was, was kept. She was in the room, given food and water three times a day, and nothing else. She wasn't even spoken too, much less tortured for information on anything. She may as well have been a pet turtle, kept and fed, and that was all.
Suzkau said it was to keep her from Nunnally when he had her captured. He said she was corrupting and brainwashing Nunnally. She didn't have any idea what he meant, short of believing he had to be misunderstanding something. She wondered a bit if Nunnally knew. Had Suzaku and Cornelia told Nunnally they arrested her? Had Nunnally asked about her absence? Would they tell her the truth or make up some story? She didn't even know how things were developing with the Alters.
Keeping track of the days was hard. She had nothing to write with or write on. The only "walls" on her platform were the curtain that offered minimal privacy around the makeshift bathroom they made for her. Once, early on, she fell asleep with a meal sitting uneaten near her bed around the center of the platform, only to wake with a different meal there. Immortality didn't really offer any protections from sedatives or poisons, so if either were pumped into the air, or laced into her food, she would suffer it like any other person… except if it were poison she would wake again after it killed her. But with no windows to the outside to see sunrise or sunset, no newspapers, access to the GIN or television, there was no way to determine the actual date, or know how any had passed.
It was all serving to aggravate her to no end. She didn't even have a way to blow off steam. In some ways, this was the worst torture she'd ever experienced. At least with scientists or perverts prodding her, or soldiers pressing her for information, there was contact with others that would allow her to pass the time with mockery or banter. She would be surprised if the total amount of time she spent in the mere presence of another person over the days since being imprisoned here totaled more than an hour.
She found herself even missing Marianne. They had a contract once, and she and Marianne spoke quite often, almost the way she and Nunnally had been doing until this stunt. Marianne's Geass was a somewhat odd one, C.C. reflected from time to time. It was a mischievous power well suited to her; letting the owner transfer themselves, mind and Geass, to anyone else they made eye contact with. Certainly a risky power, but a clever person could make great use of it too.
She wanted to talk to Nunnally about that. Heck, she would even talk to Suzaku or Cornelia about it if they would bother to show their faces. Not being able to just made her anxious and angry. In uncommon fits of madness she even resorted to screaming out at the top of her lungs. But no one answered. Why would they? They wouldn't even answer when she could see them right in front of her, bringing her a new meal as they retrieved the dishes of her last one.
And so time continued to pass on like this. She found herself becoming more unhinged and childish as time went by. For what had to have been six or seven meals straight she threw the leftovers or the dishes in the moat. They were retrieved while she slept, she discovered. She wasn't so much as scolded for it, so it became a disinteresting exercise. They had been leaving a change of clothes for her every so often. She took to going about fully nude for a time, wondering if that would illicit any sort of response. It didn't.
After that, she began to settle into a sort of malaise. One wouldn't be wrong to say she gave up. She certainly didn't seem to be showing any indication of wanting to do anything. It wasn't as though she hadn't given thought of how to escape. She even had the fanciful idea of using a dinner plate as a slide to skim across the floor to the door, even using one of the plastic forks or spoons as an oar to push herself forward with.
But that was as impractical as it was amazing to imagine as an escape tactic. It wasn't as if the door had handles on her side anyway. You could hear the electronic lock every time someone came in, and the door opened barely wide enough for a person to make it through, closing behind them.
Even if she attacked one of the guards and stole his protective suit, it was obvious the room was monitored if no other time then when someone was in to visit her. She may have been immortal, but she wasn't impervious to damage. She may get up from a bullet through the skull, but she will fall. If only to recover their colleague, they wouldn't likely have any qualms about shooting her a few times and just tossing her back into the room. Or, they simply wouldn't open the door if she knocked out one of the guards.
Well, perhaps that was something to think about. At the very least she could get herself a companion for a short time; someone trapped in there with her, forced to talk to her just to avoid the same mind-numbing boredom she was going through all this time.
A week, a month, a year… C.C. had no idea how long it had really been. But by the time anything changed it felt like it had already been ages. The same routine day in and day out, without even the means of reliably keeping track of how many days passed by. That was changed by a resounding boom.
The door to the room went soaring through the air, turning end-over-end like some crude, massive, throwing star. It struck the front edge of the platform, briefly lodging in there until a chunk about a couple square feet around broke off and together fell into the moat. She was nibbling at her food at the time, the loud crash causing her to look over at the doorway like a cat caught in the goldfish bowl.
"I wonder what this is about?" she thought to herself. It was too sudden and unexpected for her to hold any excitement at the prospect of being able to leave now. Partly too was the thinking that there was no way anyone would be coming with her rescue in mind. Things would have had to get pretty bad, she considered, for Nunnally to resort to sending forces in to free her. And it wasn't like she was exactly bubbling over with friends, let alone ones willing to brave the danger and difficulty in attacking what she assumed to be some secret and well-guarded Britannia military facility. More likely than some rescue team her to free her, it was probably some group or another that cracked under the pressure of the issues with the Alters and decided to attack a Britannia base out of some misguided desperation.
With the door gone, she could finally hear sounds of what was going on. She was shocked to hear a bestial cry. It was an unmistakable sound, chilling. It was different from the last time, probably considerably smaller, but it was without a doubt the cry of a dragon.
There was a large rumble, the lights cutting out all at once. A large portion of the ceiling caved in, debris raining down on the corner of the platform. C.C. retreated a few steps to avoid getting hit by the falling rubble or fully engulfed by the cloud of dust. A figure descended through the hole, the cloud dispersing on their landing.
"This is surprising," C.C. said with a cough, the dust irritating her throat. It had been pitch-black, but the hole in the ceiling letting in the light of the moon. "What an odd coincidence."
"The only coincidence is that you weren't struck by any of the falling concrete." Euphemia Alter said with a light chuckle. Somewhere an emergency light flickered to life, casting Euphemia in the duality of the pale white light of the moon and dull red of the emergency light. "I tried not to accidentally kill you, but I didn't know exactly where you were."
"You make it sound like you're here for me."
"I am."
"You want to kidnap me?"
"No. I wanted to free you. Two weeks locked in here was rather cruel of sister."
"Only two weeks, huh?" C.C. pondered to herself a moment. "And why would you wanna do something like this?"
"A small affection."
"And the price?"
"Price?"
"I don't think for a moment you're about to let me just walk away from here."
"Why wouldn't I? It isn't as though I can kill you; not permanently anyway. I really don't think there's any reason you and I should fight."
"If you plan on killing Nunnally, then there's no way you and I could ever get along."
"If I wanted to kill Nunnally, I would've done so when I burned her house."
"Then what do you want?"
"From Nunna? Nothing, really. Step aside, or disappear, I don't really care. I only meant to warn her not to force herself in my way. I don't really care if she lives or dies. I won't be chasing her down. It will all be meaningless eventually."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Come with me, C.C. You don't' belong with them. You understood Lelouch's dream better than anyone. You suffered the same way he did. I don't want to see you suffer for a pointless struggle against something that is already beyond you."
"That's a hell of a thing to say. You sound like a little brat." C.C. thought. If she didn't mind dying once, she might've said it directly to her. She didn't know why, but it seemed Euphemia was in a talkative mood. If that was the case, why not pry some information out of her in the meantime? "And I'm guessing that power of yours is the key?"
"Yes. You should recognize it, I think. It's very similar to the one you once had."
"My Geass? Are you saying that horrible power… you…" C.C. snapped. The memory of her own Geass was an old one. It was one of the most corrupt powers she'd ever known in her centuries of granting this eminently corrupt power. No Geass really changed the nature of a person. Yes, they could make them do things they ordinarily would not. But hers was a darker power that twisted the hearts of the victims themselves. To hear that someone had that same power, let alone Euphemia as she was now, was horrifying.
"As close as you were to Lady Marianne, I had expected you would have known, but it makes sense that she didn't tell even you. If she did, it would have revealed their plans, and she obviously didn't want you to know about that."
"What are you talking about?"
"My uncle and Lady Marianne's real plans."
"Your uncle? You mean V.V.? He hated Marianne. He was jealous that she consumed the time and attention of his brother."
"My uncle wasn't as petty as most people think. Just because he was stuck in the body of a child, doesn't mean he was mentally stuck that way too."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"He and Lady Marianne were having an affair behind father's back. I can't blame her. After all, father seemed to have no end to the number of women he'd take to his bed. As promiscuous a personality as she had, it's to be expected she would find another man to take to bed with her. And who better than the one who was eternally locked in the image of the man she originally fell in love with?"
"You can't be serious." C.C. refuted, sure that this had to be some kind of delusion she'd cooked up in her own mind.
"You were father's ally before you were Lady Marianne's or uncle's. That's part of the reason V.V. never got along well with you; he thought you would find out and tell father. But Lady Marianne didn't have a choice since she was married to father, and you were key to his plans.
"I hated them all," she said with a tone as if spitting up bile. She sat down on the edge of the platform and started to stare up at the night sky.
Unable to resist the urge to retort, C.C. answered with, "I didn't think the perfect little princess knew how to hate anyone? When'd you learn that particular skill?"
"Like any child, I was naïve. I didn't know very much. But, I did learn very quickly. One of the first things I learned was how to be the sort of princess that could control the attention she received. I was there to look at when a cute figure to look at was required, I was out of sight when I wasn't needed. I didn't make myself stand out, because I didn't have to."
"You had your Geass that long? You were one of V.V.'s."
"Like all of those of the syndicate you left to him, I was a guinea pig for what he and Lady Marianne planned. Then Lady Marianne faked her own death, and I was left on my own for a while."
"How do you expect me to believe that Marianne didn't love Charles? That V.V. was in love with her, that he didn't hate her?"
"It doesn't really matter if you believe me or not. They're all dead. Yes… they're all dead, and you and I are not. That's a very special thing."
"I don't understand why you're here, why you're telling me all this. What is it you really want?"
"I'm getting closer to the completion of my plans. The world will get much closer to the one Lelouch once envisioned. I told you before, that despite the role you had in spreading the power of Geass, and how Geass has impacted all of our lives, you also helped Lelouch tremendously. I really appreciate that, and I respect the fact that you were someone he cared very deeply for.
"Because you and I are similar, I think I might have an affinity for you. I respect the fact that you're my senior in so many respects. It is unacceptable to me that you would suffer locked away in here. But my hope is that this has taught you about where you belong. Nunnally obviously can't do anything to protect or even help you, otherwise you wouldn't have been here for two weeks like this. Suzaku and my sister turned on you on completely unfounded suspicions. You don't belong with them. You belong on my side, on Lelouch's side.
"You should be able to live your life without worrying about others finding out who you are, or what you can do. Even if you were to go back to Nunna, what difference would that make? As soon as it was possible, you'd be locked away somewhere again. And who knows how much they've already poisoned her mind against you. Join my cause, C.C., and together we will create a peaceful and just world. It will be a utopia without the fights for power, the betrayals, the pain and suffering, of this wrong world."
"I see… I think I understand now. You haven't really changed at all, have you?" C.C. sighed. "It's a little frightening, and a relief. Your dreams, your desires, they're what they've always been, aren't they? Even that passive nature of yours. Everyone thinks it was a coincidence Nunnally was away when you burned the castle. But you knew she wasn't there, didn't you? And you attacked at night when there would be no guests and the fewest people there. People remember your passiveness, but they forget that you were willing to turn the other way when people died if you thought there was a greater purpose. You accepted sacrifice if you could see a goal and purpose beyond it. You were never a saint, just less of a demon than everyone considered the rest of your family to be."
"I don't know if you're trying to insult me or praise me." She chuckled. She stood back up, her eyes glowing with the light of Geass. "What everyone thinks of who I used to be is irrelevant. Who I am, who I will be, makes that all pointless. I am the goddess that will lead everyone to the utopia that lies at the ends of the world. That is all everyone needs to understand.
"I was truly hoping you would understand my dream and would help me like you did for Lelouch. Please consider it?" she asked, extending a hand towards C.C.
"Even if I did believe in your idea, I could never betray Nunnally." C.C. answered, averting her gaze and sounding a bit melancholy.
"I see." Euphie answered back, her own expression becoming somewhat forlorn. "I can only say that I'm disappointed. I only hope you and I won't end up fighting on a battlefield one day. I think you've suffered the pain of death enough times in one lifetime."
Euphemia turned away and walked to the edge of the platform area. She leapt to the floor below and walked casually towards and out the ruined remnants of the doorway. C.C., a pained look of debate, watched Euphie leave. She was wondering if it was the right thing to do, to let her walk away like that. She hadn't really tried too hard to reason with her towards giving this all up, but that was because a part of her knew there was no giving it up for Euphemia. She was invested in this plan of hers, and weak-willed overtures about interpreting Lelouch's dream weren't going to sway her.
It was a cruel irony that Lelouch had once feared an empowered Euphemia. After all, she had succinctly thwarted his original goal and if not for an ill-timed twist of fate could have all but ended the Black Rebellion before Lelouch could fulfill his goals of revenge.
How much of that was natural charisma and intellect, and how much was the power of Geass? C.C. found herself contemplating every encounter, every move, she knew of the third princess when she was alive, parsing if she ever had an inkling that this woman was a Geass user. It was hard. They hadn't crossed paths much, and when they did, before all of this, it was often in the company of a known Geass-user. Was that coincidence or deliberate? It didn't take long to realize how much of a rabbit hole you could end up down if you started thinking too much on all of this. Even so, it demanded thought and consideration. The implications were critical.
The next move was also critical. She didn't want to yield as much ground to Euphemia as that, but C.C. did know she had a point. Two weeks in there was obvious in a couple potential implications. Either Nunnally was unaware of C.C.'s situation, or unaffected by it. Either Nunnally had no idea that C.C. was being imprisoned, or didn't care. Neither one bode particularly well. Like Euphie said, it meant that C.C. couldn't really count on the young empress. She'd likely end up locked away at the first chance Suzaku and Cornelia got.
She wondered if that was part of Euphie's goal too, or just another of those seemingly happy coincidences of things going her way. It was going to be hard for C.C. to deny being affiliated with Euphemia. How could she explain why Euphie would come and wreck a secret prison just to set the one and only prisoner there free? It was an untenable situation for her now. In all likelihood, returning to see Nunnally would only put Nunnally in a position of having to choose between keeping a friend and alienating her family and allies.