"So… you're telling me that this 'Black Mask' of yours murdered Clovis, is that correct?" Cornelia asked. "A convenient story. I don't suppose you can tell me who this 'Black Mask' is?"

Lelouch wracked his mind, trying to remember the assassin's identity. He still came up blank. He had the beginnings of a strange feeling about the Black Mask though…. Something seemed vaguely wrong about that question as worded… But what?

"Useless," Cornelia snapped. "Well, perhaps you can still fill in some details about your next heist."

"After Clovis' confession to all manner of crimes and his murder, Area 11 was in an uproar. With the colonial administration suddenly bereft of leadership and public opinion sharply divided, rebel groups saw their opportunity to strike while we were vulnerable. Most prominent among them was Lieutenant Colonel Josui Kusakabe of the Japan Liberation Front, a radical even among his fellow terrorists. She pulled out a photograph from her file. It showed a broad-shouldered Japanese man with black hair, disheveled on the sides, a goatee, somewhat thick eyebrows, and a scowling expression. "Yet his plans were foiled. Was that your doing, Zero?"

Kusukabe fit the profile of those the Black Knights targeted well enough, that was true. But….

"No," Lelouch said finally. "Someone else got to Kusakabe first."

"Your 'Black Mask'?"

He shrugged, drawing another blank. "Probably, but I don't know for sure."

Cornelia sighed. "You're not making this easy, Zero." She shuffled her papers. "Because of the chaos that you had caused here, I was redeployed in the middle of my campaign against the Middle Eastern Federation to serve as the Viceroy of Area 11. I hope you're pleased with that. The incompetence of the officers left behind and the loss in morale of my men from having their commanding officer taken away from them meant that sieges of the Eighteens' strongholds took needlessly long and cost the lives of many good Britannian soldiers. They had to bring in Schneizel to sort out that mess," she said bitterly.

Lelouch couldn't help but smirk at that. To think that the Black Knights had such a far-reaching effect so early! The Middle Eastern Federation may have fallen in time, but they had successfully delayed Britannia's expansion.

"Look at you!" Cornelia said, contemptuously. "An unrepentant murderer! You as good as killed those men yourself, even if you didn't murder Clovis. Those were my men!"

"And you're not a murderer? How many have you killed in war, oh 'Goddess of Victory'?" He paused. "How many families will never see their fathers, mothers, or beloved siblings because of you? You know there's another nickname for you…. "The Witch of Brit-"

"Silence!" Cornelia raged. "You forget your place yet again, Zero!"

"My apologies, Viceroy Cornelia," he replied, not actually sorry at all. "My point is we can't get ourselves hung up on which of us is more of a hypocrite when there is so much more at stake."

"That remains to be seen, or if it's just the ravings of a lunatic," she said coldly. "But we digress." She took out four more photos, and spread them on the table. "You continued to expand your contacts all while you plotted your next major heist."

"You made contact with Kaguya Sumeragi, the young head of one of the Six Houses of Kyoto," some time around or before the traditional Eleven holiday of Tanabata. She pushed one of the photographs in front of Lelouch. It showed a girl - he couldn't call her a woman, not when she was clearly just into her teenage years, with long black hair, and green eyes that reminded him of Suzaku's. She was wearing a fancy pink, purple, and white kimono with red trim, as well as a golden circlet around her forehead. He had a feeling that she should seem much more familiar to him that she did, but the drugs were still affecting his recollections.

"Don't try to deny it," Cornelia continued. "The fact that you met with her on Tanabata is well-documented by our intelligence. What were you trying to accomplish?" The Viceroy leaned forward. "Perhaps you planned to use her to gain influence over Kyoto for your own ends?"

Lelouch could only look on at Kaguya's photo in confusion. Gaining influence over the Six Houses of Kyoto was a sensible goal for any would-be revolutionary. But what was he doing with her in public during the Japanese Star Festival? She was much too young for him…. Perhaps he would remember as he recounted the events leading up to that meeting…

Cornelia removed Kaguya's picture, and replaced it with one of a boy in an Ashford Academy high school uniform, perhaps a year younger than himself, with light brown hair and violet eyes.

"Rolo Haliburton," Cornelia read off. "Transfer student to Ashford Academy, 15 years old. By all accounts, something of a prodigy. In a short time, earned a reputation for working as a private investigator, independently looking into several of the mental shutdown incidents, and cooperated with local and viceroyal authorities to this end. He joined your Student Council, and you began spending time with him, though whether you were feeding him false information to sabotage the investigation or if you managed to subvert his loyalties remains to be seen."

Lelouch knew he would have certainly fed Rolo false information if given the opportunity. Seeing the photo jogged his memory a bit… Rolo had indeed become one of his confidants, that was true. But had Rolo defected to join the Black Knights eventually or not? That, he couldn't recall just yet.

"Onto your next major target…the man known to the public as 'The Black King,'" Cornelia said, moving the third photo in front of Lelouch. The Black King was a heavyset man, even moreso than Kusakabe, and had dark skin like Villetta's. He had a beard, also like Kusakabe, though his was brown, with a thicker goatee, and extended into thin sideburns, but his hair, slicked back, was blonde and obviously dyed. The Black King wore an expensive brown suit, obviously tailored to his girth, over a red vest and white undershirt, with a blue bowtie around his neck.

"This man was a prominent member of Area 11's mafia," Cornelia continued. " He controlled much of the Tokyo Settlement's criminal underworld. Due to… circumstances beyond my control, even my hands were tied more in this matter than I care to admit. As much as I cannot forgive you for what happened to my men in Area 18, or your involvement in Clovis' death, one way or the other, I believe I owe you a small debt, Zero, for taking care of that loathsome gangster for me. And so as much as you have tried my patience this evening, I am willing to keep listening to you, at least for a while. Do you understand?"

Lelouch nodded, feeling the power of Judgement growing with him.

"How exactly did you take down the Black King where even I failed?" Cornelia asked softly. "And more importantly…"

She whipped the final photo into position, showing a face that Lelouch knew all too well. There as now a terrible wrath in Cornelia's eyes, as if threatening dire consequences if he even thought about lying to her.

"What does all of this have to do with my beloved sister, Euphemia?!"

A/N:

The third arc begins, and two chapters in one day (though as an interlude, this is a shorter one)!