Lelouch of the Wings of Rebellion

by MagusZero

In an alternate world without Geass, Lelouch awakens to another power from the Collective Unconscious - Persona. Leading a band of phantom thieves through the Metaverse, he seeks to topple the Britannian regime, stealing one corrupt heart at a time. Featuring the cast and setting of Code Geass, put into Persona 5's overarching scenario.

69. The Stroke of Midnight

"Allow me to officially welcome you to Ashford Academy, and as honorary members of our Student Council!"

Gino and Anya had completed their enrollment paperwork earlier that morning, and its processing had been expedited, so that they had been accepted as students before the end of the afternoon. Their eventual acceptance had never been in doubt though, once they had expressed their desire to attend Ashford Academy; no one was going to refuse the two Knights of the Rounds.

The school had provided the duo with their new uniforms, which they had already changed into: the black high school boys' uniform for Gino, and the pink middle school girls' uniform for Anya. At a glance, they could pass for ordinary students, but that didn't make them any less dangerous.

Personally, Lelouch would have preferred if Milly hadn't invited Gino and Anya to join the Student Council, as it was already bad enough that the Knights of the Round were at Ashford at all, but, on the other hand, being so outwardly welcoming would give the impression that they had nothing to hide. Moreover, if Milly had declined to give Gino and Anya spots on the Student Council, while she had done so for Leila, a comparatively less important noble, the student body might see it as a slight toward the Knights of the Round, which would attract further attention that they didn't need.

They were gathered in the Student Council room in the Clubhouse, and they were each making their introductions. As the Student Council President, Milly went first, and then it was Lelouch's turn as the Vice President. Perhaps he came off as a bit too aloof as he did so, but Gino just smiled, and said, "So you're the type to play it cool, is that right?"

"Yup, that's Lelouch for you," Milly replied. "He may seem like he doesn't care at times, but there's no one more dependable when it comes to getting things done. I couldn't ask for a better Vice President."

"Someone has to be the voice of reason around here," Lelouch said. "Who knows what sort of chaos you'd unleash on campus if left to your own devices?"

"You just don't know how to have fun," Milly chided.

"Oh, I can tell this place is going to be fun already," Gino said as he watched their exchange.

Lelouch was glad that Gino didn't seem to see anything beyond the facade he showed to others, but disconcertingly, Anya's eyes seemed to fix themselves intently on him for a moment. It was almost as if she recognized him from somewhere. But after another moment, Anya had the same disinterested expression as before, leaving Lelouch to wonder if it was just his paranoia getting the better of him.

As the Student Council's Secretary, Rivalz went next, and Shirley followed him.

"My name's Shirley Fenette. If you have any questions about the sports teams here, I'm the person you should see."

"Oh, wait, I've seen you before!" Gino said, his eyes lighting up. "You were that girl at the ball, who looked so overwhelmed by the crowd that I couldn't help but lend her a hand." He paused, looking thoughtful for a moment. "If I recall correctly, you were Lady Breisgau's guest, so you must also be a noble. I hope you won't hold it against me if I'm not familiar with your family." He let out a good-natured chuckle. "There are so many noble families throughout the Empire that I'm not sure how anyone could keep track of them all!"

"Huh?!" Shirley's cheeks went red. "I'm... just a commoner, Sir Weinberg," she replied. There was no point in lying to him about something like that.

"I could have sworn it was you there," Gino said, a look of puzzlement on his face.

"I invited her," Leila spoke up. "I had recently decided to transfer to Ashford Academy, and happened to befriend her on a summer trip that the Student Council invited me to join them on, so I thought I would return the favor by giving her the chance to attend the ball."

"Ah... Well, that explains everything!" Gino let out a hearty laugh. "Don't you worry, Miss Fenette. I'd never begrudge a pretty girl the chance to go to a ball. Your secret is safe with me." He shook his head. "But why don't we drop the formalities? You all can call me Gino, and I'll use your first names too." He glanced over to Anya. "You don't mind letting them address you on a first-name basis either, do you?"

"It makes no difference to me," Anya said, her voice little more than a monotone. Holding up her camera, she casually snapped a picture of the assembled Student Council. "Recorded," she announced, though it was more to herself than anyone else.

"Um... my name is Kallen Stadtfeld," the Queen of the Black Knights said next, careful to use the meek personality that was her public face. "It's... a pleasure to meet you."

Every member of the Black Knights present knew that Kallen was lying through her teeth. Moreso than any of the others, Kallen would see the Knights of the Round as mortal enemies. Lelouch cast a surreptitious glance at Suzaku, and saw his old friend purse his lips at the act, but thankfully Suzaku remained silent.

Hopefully, none of them would cross paths in Knightmares. Otherwise, Kallen wouldn't hesitate to try to kill them in combat. If anything, she'd relish the opportunity to personally defeat two of Britannia's greatest warriors. From what he'd heard of her performance during the raid, he knew that ordinary opponents couldn't threaten Kallen at all, provided that she was equipped with a Knightmare that allowed her to use her natural reflexes and agility to their fullest. Only a Knight of the Round or a similarly skilled opponent could pose a possible challenge to her.

It wasn't that he really cared if anything bad were to happen to their two newest Student Council members, but either one of them dying would draw attention that the Black Knights didn't need right now. Thus, Gino and Anya were safe as long as they remained on Ashford Academy's grounds. Kallen still kept her knife, disguised as a pink pouch, on her person at all times, but she couldn't just murder Gino or Anya with it if she happened to catch them alone on campus. Indeed, it would be far worse than killing them on the battlefield. An assassination would not merely invite scrutiny; it would launch a massive investigation.

More to the point, the other Black Knights on the Student Council would never approve of it. Yes, Kallen had killed people while she was on the raid, but they would see killing in cold blood very differently than doing so in the heat of battle, even if her targets would still be dead either way.

"Now that I think of it, you remind me of someone else that I saw at the ball," Gino said off-handedly.

Kallen stiffened slightly, and at once Lelouch recognized her mistake. Kallen had been standoffish when demanding that Gino release Shirley back at the Consulate party, and the blonde Knight of the Round had even commented that she was feisty. Moreover, Kallen had also said that Shirley was her friend when doing so. All the pieces were there for Gino and Anya to put together. If they realized that her meek personality was a false one, they might start wondering about what else Kallen was hiding from them.

Even if Kallen managed to avoid such suspicions, Gino had already proven himself to be interested in her true self. The hopeless affection of a Knight of a Round was a sort of attention that Kallen didn't need while trying to keep a low profile at school

"I do?" Kallen asked cautiously.

After a moment, Gino shook his head. "Nah, it just must be a passing resemblance. It's too bad that I never had a chance with her. She was really something."

Lelouch fought the urge to let his incredulity show on his face. Gino really didn't recognize Kallen as the same girl that had talked back to him at the ball, when her looks were so distinctive? It was how Xingke had seen through them, after all. He had already thought that the Knight of Three came off as a little bit airheaded, but now he found himself wondering if Gino was something of an idiot savant, gifted at piloting a Knightmare, but utterly lacking in common sense. Or perhaps Gino really did recognize Kallen, and it was all an act to lull them into a false sense of security... but Lelouch sensed that comparing Gino to Xingke was giving the tall blonde too much credit.

They could probably also chalk it up to the mask, dress, and hair style Kallen wore at the ball being radically different to her schoolgirl act. Even her voice changed from her slightly deeper natural speaking voice when she was intentionally being meek and quiet. So between the two wildly separate contexts, and Gino's apparently care-free attitude, the Black Knights had thankfully dodged a bullet.

Nina made her introduction without incident, and was followed by Suzaku, who was nothing but polite with his own, concluding with a small bow.

"I thought I recognized you!" Gino said, throwing an arm over Suzaku's shoulder without warning. "Nice work back there at the Consulate! You were able to rescue Princess Euphemia from the Black Knights like it was nothing! I know that they don't usually make Elevens Knights, but I can totally see why Prince Schneizel made an exception for you!"

Ignoring the racial slur, innocently as Gino seemed to have used it, Suzaku replied, "I joined the military and became a Knight so that I could work to change the system for the better from within. But I am glad that no harm came to the Princess."

"Oh, an idealist! But you're modest too!" There was a sudden gleam in Gino's eyes. "From that video they put out, we know that five of their members are girls, but the one who grabbed Princess Euphemia was a guy, so he must have been their leader, Zero, right?"

Lelouch noticed that Rolo was now looking expectantly at Suzaku as well.

Suzaku didn't speak for a moment, no doubt grappling with the irony that he was now a Black Knight himself. Then, he made the slightest of nods, and said, "Actually, I don't think Zero was Princess Euphemia's kidnapper at all."

"What makes you say that?" Rolo asked.

"Yeah, you know that you're contradicting your boss there," Gino added. "Prince Schneizel said that he believed the Black Knights were responsible."

Even Anya was looking on with vague interest now.

"I know what I saw," Suzaku said firmly. "For starters, the kidnapper didn't match Zero's silhouette from the video."

"He could have changed his clothes," Rolo suggested.

"But he couldn't have become shorter," Suzaku countered. "You could get a pretty good feel for Zero's height next to the Knightmares in the video. The kidnapper wasn't tall enough to be Zero. A difference of at least 10 centimeters is kind of hard to miss."

"An intriguing point, I'll admit that," Rolo replied. "But given how... theatrical Zero has proven himself to be, couldn't he have staged the video to play tricks with the perspective, and disguise his true height?"

"Oho! It's no wonder that you're a detective!" Gino grinned.

"There are other ways in which Zero could have obscured his true build to mislead anyone clever enough to think of those tricks," Lelouch said. "For example, he could have been wearing platform shoes, or chosen a bulky coat to make himself appear broader than he really is." He knew that he was undermining Suzaku's argument, but if it would mislead those not working with the Black Knights, he would do so without a second thought.

"Insightful as always, Lelouch," Rolo smiled. "I've been informally bouncing ideas about the case off of him," he explained to Gino. Rolo turned back to Lelouch. "But do you still think that the Black Knights aren't the ones responsible for kidnapping Princess Euphemia?"

"Yes. On that, I agree with Suzaku. It's just too different from their previous modus operandi."

"Well, you'll know sure enough once you catch him!" Gino said, oblivious to the fact that Zero was standing just a few feet away from him.

"Yes," Rolo said quietly.

"Now let's finish the introductions now, shall we?" Milly said.

The others went in turn. When they were done, Milly added. "We also have a few honorary junior members on the Student Council. They couldn't make it here on such short notice, but you'll be with them in the middle school, Anya."

"Ah, so you'll have some friends there, Anya!" Gino told her.

"Friends?" Anya repeated. "Yes... I like that."

Hopefully, Anya would be in different classes than Nunnally. However, Lelouch knew that with his luck, Anya would be in Nunnally's classes anyway. Milly wasn't responsible for assigning student schedules, and with how sudden the transfer had been, she wouldn't have had time to pull any strings among the administrative staff.

Things were going to get interesting around Ashford Academy, to say the least...

xXx

Lelouch woke that night in the Velvet Room, to the grating sound of an alarm, finding his cell filled with a pulsating red ambience.

"You're back, big brother," the ever-familiar yet distorted voice of Shadow Nunnally, alias Nemo, said from the other side of the Velvet Room. Looking up, Lelouch could see that she was pacing in her cell. As before, Igor was nowhere to be seen.

"Did Igor try to summon both of us here again?" Lelouch asked.

A wicked smirk flashed across Nemo's face, and she began giggling. "No, that was me. Things are getting so unstable in the Metaverse that I can bypass him altogether when I want to... for a time. It helps that you have such a close bond with my other self. I'm able to use that to find you as you dream, and draw you here."

That was both convenient and disturbing at the same time.

"What did you want to talk about, Nunnally?" he asked carefully.

"I heard that the new Knight of Six has arrived as a student at Ashford Academy," Nemo scowled.

"Yes, she has," Lelouch replied. "She and the Knight of Three will both mean trouble for us, though at least they don't seem to be particularly observant outside of battle."

"You don't even know the half of it, big brother," Nemo said, never breaking eye contact with him. "You forgot, but I remember. For a time, Anya Alstreim used to live with us at the Aries Villa."

"Wait, what?!" If Anya had lived with them, she almost certainly had recognized him back in the Student Council room, though he couldn't say whether Anya had just chosen to keep it to herself, or if she had only done so on a subconscious level.

"It was only for a week," Nemo said matter-of-factly, "So I'm not surprised that you forgot. She was sent to the Aries Villa to learn court etiquette under our mother's tutelage." Nemo's expression turned into a snarl. "But our mother was murdered at the end of that week."

"N-Nunnally," Lelouch started, feeling like his head was spinning. "Are you sure about that? Are you... saying that... Anya killed our mother?" Could Anya have been one the cult's artificial Persona-users, raised to be fanatically loyal and advance its goals by any means necessary? "But if that's true, then the assassination method-"

"I don't know who killed our mother," Nemo said impatiently, her anger starting to seethe over. "But our mother was already dead when they grabbed and crippled me, just so that it would look like a terrorist attack! Don't ask who grabbed me; I didn't get a good look at them. But I can tell you that it wasn't Anya. It was a man. Besides, Anya was just six at the time. She wouldn't have had the strength to carry me from my bed to the staircase where Mother lay dead."

Lelouch felt his heart freeze.

"But you... I mean your other self... you lost your sight for eight years because you witnessed our mother's death."

"My other self only thinks she saw Mother die. It's a false memory. I would know. The real memory got pushed right into me, her Shadow."

"But... then..."

"Fundamental parts of what you believed to be the story of our mother's death are wrong?" Nemo asked. "Of course they are. How could you expect to have that right, when you remember so much else about her wrong?"

"What do you mean?" Lelouch asked, feeling angered himself, though he knew that it would do no good to get visibly upset with Nemo. She would perceive that as a rejection, and there was no quicker way to drive a Shadow berserk than rejecting it.

"Let me tell you a story, big brother," Nemo said, softer now, though her golden eyes still kept boring into his. "Do you remember the time when we were playing in the garden together, and Empress Gabrielle tried to take my doll from me?"

"Gabrielle la Britannia... She was Clovis' mother. That was such a long time ago, Nunnally. But... I think I remember the important parts. Empress Gabrielle was picking on you, and tried to break your doll. Then our mother appeared in the Ganymede, with its rifle leveled at Empress Gabrielle and her entourage. She made them back down."

"Do you remember what I said, big brother, after Mother came to our rescue?"

Lelouch tried to recall Nunnally's words, but he only drew a blank.

"I'm afraid I don't."

"I ran over and said, 'Mother, you were so cool!" Nemo continued. "And then, she said, 'Oh dear, Nunnally. You thought that violent behavior was cool? You make me very happy.' Just as much as she protected us, she took a sadistic delight in seeing her enemies squirm. But you chose to forget that our mother was always like that, didn't you, big brother?" Nemo let out a harsh laugh. "Perhaps you even chose to make her into some kind of martyred saint, to better justify your revenge against our father, not that you ever needed such a justification at all."

Lelouch's anger, already quietly building within him, reflexively surged as his sister's Shadow continued to speak ill of their mother. Nemo was-

Suddenly, Lelouch felt as though he had been struck.

He couldn't quite say that Nemo was wrong.

Many in the Imperial Court had unjustly hated Marianne for her ancestry, but there were also always those who seemed to shrink in fear in her presence. As a child, Lelouch couldn't quite understand that reaction, since his mother always came across as nothing but charming to her friends, if at times playful, and he had been sure that she would have gladly extended such courtesy to the other nobles, if they would only accept her. But now that he was older, and capable of viewing things somewhat more objectively, Marianne had amassed a frighteningly high body count in helping his father take the throne. It wasn't unreasonable to fear a Knight of the Round, when they could end your life with but a word from the Emperor, especially if that Knight was as skilled as Marianne the Flash.

Marianne's whimsy extended even to when she was piloting a Knightmare, but with deadly consequences for anyone who happened to be her target. He had never quite thought of it in this way before but... it was almost as if she was engaged in an amusing sport that she happened to excel in. He had seen a similarly jovial attitude in other nobles when they went fox hunting. Marianne's quarry may have been enemies of the throne, but they were fellow human beings all the same.

Even thinking that about his beloved mother was repugnant to Lelouch, making him feel like he was desecrating her memory. But then another realization came to his mind.

He had told Kallen how close she was, both in spirit and skill with a Knightmare, to his mother, words of the highest praise coming from him, but actually, Kallen and Marianne were very different from each other. Marianne always had flawless poise, but she also had an undercurrent of viciousness that he was now forced to confront, the darkness that Nemo claimed to have inherited from her. Outwardly, Kallen was much rougher around the edges than Marianne had ever been, and she was every bit as formidable in combat, but Kallen's ruthlessness was pragmatic, to ensure that she and those she cared about would live to see another day. There was no time for hesitation or mercy against a foe as mighty and implacable as Britannia.

Yet under all that, Kallen's compassion ran deep, and she was at times so very vulnerable. Kallen fought for him now, but in doing so, she would bring freedom to the Japanese people. Marianne had fought tirelessly for her love as well, but in doing so had only helped tighten Britannia's iron grip, and was thus complicit in its oppression of entire nations.

"The fact remains that Mother always protected us, no matter what it took," Lelouch said, trying to rationalize her behavior. "Anyone in her position would naturally develop a certain viciousness just to survive, especially in a place as unforgiving as Pendragon. That goes doubly so if it was for the sake of those that they cared for. And even I take pleasure in seeing my enemies' plans laid to ruin. Is that a sin?"

"I don't blame you at all, big brother," Nemo said, shaking her head. "As children, we naturally always thought of Mother in the best possible light: a brave and kind woman who deserved none of the scorn that others had toward her. But do you also remember the expression on our mother's face as she held Empress Gabrielle at gunpoint? If you need any further proof of Mother's true nature, it was there."

"How could I remember something like that?" Lelouch asked irritably. "I'm not a Shadow."

"But I am," Nemo replied. "It's an expression I'm rather fond of. Mother smiled like an angel... just like this..."

Nemo spread her lips into an angelic smile of her own, but it was a smile belonging to a heartless angel of death, its malevolence betrayed by the predatory way in which it bared her teeth. The expression looked so very wrong on Nunnally's face.

"You know that Mother totally would have blown Empress Gabrielle away, if she hadn't backed down first. I sometimes even wear that expression myself, when I'm crushing my enemies," Nemo giggled. Seeing his expression, she frowned. "You don't like it? Surely you must know that part of me wanted to be just like Mother when I was younger. But I was denied that chance when they took the ability to walk from me!"

"Nunnally... there's no denying the rage that's been so long pent up inside you... but you were always a gentle girl, back in Pendragon. You didn't want to hurt anyone."

"Some of our desire to emulate our mother was built on an idealized image of her, yes," Nemo admitted. "But deep down, we knew what she really was; a bloody queen, just like Empress Gabrielle and the others were always saying behind her back."

"You... admire our mother... but you also hate her," Lelouch said slowly, the cruel realization finally dawning on him. "That's at least partly why your conscious self can't accept you fully, because of what it would mean if she were to acknowledge those feelings as being her own. Isn't that right?"

"Yes," Nemo replied bitterly.

"Why?" he asked, feeling at a loss. "Mother loved you, and I've never seen anything but love for her from your other self."

Nemo's lips curled. "We don't have enough time for that tonight," she said curtly. "As I told you, I can only bypass the Nose for so long. Besides, knowing you, your first response would be to refuse to believe it."

"I can handle the truth, whatever it may be," Lelouch said slowly, trying not to show offense at the suggestion that he couldn't. "You can always tell me anything, Nunnally."

"Oh, I've barely gotten started on Mother," Nemo said, "and already you're having trouble accepting what I've told you. But... it still feels good to be able to finally say what I've really been thinking to another soul."

Lelouch nodded back to her. Unwelcome as the revelations Nemo had given him were, he was grateful that they were able to talk to each other. In turn, he could feel the power of the Lust Arcana growing within him.

Nemo disappeared, and Lelouch felt like he was about to drift back to his own bed in reality, when suddenly, the alarms in the Velvet Room began blaring even louder than before. The room itself started shaking, and a powerful force insistently pulled him back. After another moment, the alarms ceased, and the red light faded, replaced with the usual blue of the Velvet Room. He was left facing the Prison Master, who looked rather unamused.

"Trickster..." Igor scowled. "What were you planning just now?"

Given the timing of Igor's arrival tonight and the previous time, a pattern became obvious: Igor had always been able to sense whenever he strengthened a bond with one of his confidants, which allowed him to notice the end of encounters with his sister's Shadow. It had to be infuriating to Igor that he was continuing to meet with a yet-unknown confidant, thwarting the supernatural surveillance that the Prison Master had extended into every other aspect of his life.

Igor's bulging, bloodshot gaze demanded an answer. "What else, but stopping Ragnarok and the ruin of the world?" Lelouch lied. "But as I said before, if you aren't capable of stopping Ragnarok yourself, don't question my methods. Concern yourself only with the results that I deliver."

"Your arrogance only grows by the day, Trickster," Igor growled. "Before long, I fear that you shall fancy yourself the master of my Velvet Room, thankless for the help that you have been given. Mark my words that your pride shall be your undoing on that day."

Lelouch laughed.

"Do you think that this is amusing, Trickster?"

"You've got me all wrong," Lelouch said, putting on a disarming smile. "I'm nothing but grateful to you, Igor."

"You have a most unusual way of showing it, Trickster," Igor replied, sounding thoroughly unconvinced.

"I'm serious," Lelouch said. "If it wasn't for your guidance, I would never have gotten as far as I have, and nor would I have become so close to so many people, each of them irreplaceably precious to me. You changed my life, Igor, and I'll forever be in your debt for that." He paused. "In some ways... I might even say that you've been more of a father to me than the man who cast me aside ever was. And isn't it normal for a son to argue with his father from time to time?"

"All the time is more like it," Igor said. "Indeed, this display of humility is most unexpected from you, Trickster. Are they merely words that you offer in hopes of placating me?"

"No. I meant every word of it," Lelouch replied firmly, even offering the Prison Master a bow.

Supplicating himself in any way, even if feigned, chafed Lelouch's Lelouch's pride, especially before a man like Igor. But he would endure it, for the sake of the performance that he needed to put on right now. And that meant showing Igor what he wanted to see.

Igor chuckled, and his body language relaxed, letting himself lazily lean to the side, with one arm on on his desk.

"Let it be said again that you never cease surprising me, Trickster. Go then, and find one more worthy Palace to conquer. Then, we shall bring about the downfall of the man who forsook you and your sister together."

"I will continue to exceed your every expectation," Lelouch said with a smirk.

It was true that in spite of Igor's blatant attempts to manipulate him, the Prison Master had been the one who had first pushed him to cultivate his bonds with others, a gift that could not be understated. Indeed, Igor had, however unwittingly, been a mentor to him in a way that his father never had, even if the old man's motives had always been purely selfish.

And just like his true father, Lelouch still hated Igor.

Are the Black Knights Just?

Yes: 23.4%

xXx

Lelouch couldn't tell Nunnally about his conversation with her Shadow without giving the game away to Igor's ever-present surveillance, nor going back to his promise to Nemo. He also didn't know how much Nemo had told her conscious self. But as he awoke in his own bed that morning, he thought of a way to broach at least some of what they had discussed, so that it would appear natural.

"I was thinking, Nunnally," he said as they had breakfast together, "doesn't Anya seem awfully familiar? I feel like we've already met her somewhere, and I don't mean at the Consulate party. It was before any of us ever came to Japan."

Nunnally's brow furrowed. "Now that you mention it, I think that you're right. It would have had to have been back when we were in the Homeland... but for some reason, I can't quite place where we saw her. It should be easier for me to remember. Hair like hers is very distinctive." Her expression turned into a frown. "It's strange... I almost know where the memory should be... but when I try to grasp it, there's nothing there at all."

Lelouch couldn't help but feel unease. He had forgotten all about their past with Anya himself, and he still couldn't actually remember any of it either. That could have just been chalked up to him not finding Anya important at the time, especially next to everything else that had happened in the weeks after her arrival. But the way that Nunnally described it made the gap seem all the more conspicuous.

Nemo had said that Nunnally's recollection of witnessing their mother's death was a false one, and at first he had just assumed that it meant that the facts of the incident had gotten jumbled in his sister's mind. Between the shock of being forcibly dragged from her bed, the pain of being shot, and finding herself shoved under their mother's still-cooling corpse, the situation must have felt utterly unreal to Nunnally. Hearing everyone else say that she had been there when Marianne died could have convinced Nunnally that her original memories of the incident were the false ones, especially when she was desperately trying to cling to life herself. Nunnally had been in no state of mind to think things through clearly. But now, Lelouch found himself wondering...

Had Nunnally's memories been deliberately tampered with? If so, could his own have been tampered with as well? At the very least, he knew that it was possible, given that Toto had admitted to using her Persona to erase some of Marrybell and Oldrin's memories. But at the same time, he didn't want to go down that rabbit hole, not without a more conclusive proof of a contradiction between his memories and reality.

Likewise, he refrained from bringing up the resentment that Nunnally's Shadow felt toward their mother. There would be no quicker way to make their breakfast even more awkward than it already was, and he didn't have a good way to broach the subject with Nunnally. More than that, it wasn't something he really wanted to talk about, at least when he was still trying to make sense of it himself.

"Just be careful around her, Nunnally," Lelouch said quietly. "I mean, you would anyway, since she's a Knight of the Round. But if she knows us from before, that makes her all the more dangerous."

"I know, big brother."

xXx

Lelouch headed to class, continuing to play the role of an ordinary student, when he saw the rose-haired Knight of Six approaching him. From how her eyes remained focused on him, it was clear that she wished to speak to him. Lelouch could have increased his pace, but he suspected that, even after his training with Sayoko, Anya would easily be able to keep up with him, given her own military training. He also could have chosen to pretend that he simply didn't see her, but if Anya thought that he was intentionally avoiding her, it would only serve to make her suspicious of him. Given those facts, his best course of action was to let Anya continue to approach him.

"Lelouch," the Knight of Six said as she drew near to him, "there's something I want to ask." Her voice was still soft, and her intonation changed little as she spoke, but while it was subtle, it was unmistakably more forceful than before.

"What is it, Anya?" he replied, trying to sound casual. "Do you need help finding your classes?"

"No, I can manage that." She held up her phone, turning it to show him its screen. Or, now that he had a closer look at it, was it more of PDA with a built-in camera? Deciding that it didn't really matter, he saw that her device was displaying one of the photos in her private diary.

To his dismay, Lelouch that it was a photo of himself, dressed in princely white clothes with gold trim, purple cuffs, and a pink cravat. The younger him was standing in one of the gardens that surrounded the Aries Villa, red, pink, white, and pale yellow roses behind him, with a gazebo further back in the picture. He was holding a pair of red roses, raised in his right hand, while he looked at the camera. Why he had those flowers, he didn't know, but Anya must have taken it eight years ago, during her time with them, and she had held onto it for all of this time.

This was very bad. It proved part of Nemo's account, and it confirmed that Anya had recognized him earlier.

"Same Lelouch?" Anya asked, only further proving the point.

That she bothered to ask the question at all showed that there was at least a seed of doubt in Anya's mind, and Lelouch immediately seized upon it.

"It's... a remarkable likeness," he said, "but I've never been in such a beautiful garden before. I'd remember something like that. And judging from his clothes, that boy is clearly from a noble family... but I'm only a commoner."

Anya frowned slightly, pulling her device back close to chest, body language that seemed unusually defensive coming from a feared Knight of the Round. Could it be that, under the seemingly emotionless exterior, Anya was actually rather shy, in spite of piloting Knightmares into combat?

"You have the same eyes," Anya pressed after a moment. "Explain."

Of course she would focus on that! Violet eyes were still indelibly associated with the nobility in Britannian culture, and especially with the Imperial Family.

"Oh, I hear about my eyes all the time," Lelouch said, trying to act like he wasn't at all perturbed by her persistence. "But it's not a trait that's exclusive to the nobility; it's merely more common among them. In a nation as large as Britannia, you'll find plenty of commoners with eyes like mine."

Lelouch then cursed himself inwardly, realizing that he had made a mistake. In Britannia, the best-known example of a commoner with violet eyes was his own mother from before she became an Empress, Marianne Lamperouge. As the successor to his mother's title as the Knight of Six, and as a girl who had, for a short time, been personally trained in etiquette by his mother, Anya had plenty of reason to be intimately familiar with those facts!

"I see..." Anya replied, a trace of emotion entering her voice. Was it disappointment? Sadness? Perhaps even bitterness? "How boring."

Was Anya really accepting his excuses so easily? How could she not make those connections? He had thought that Anya seemed to be in a world of her own, but now, he wasn't so sure. It might be more accurate to say that Anya was single-minded on whatever happened to capture her attention, but in that light, Anya relenting in her questioning made no sense. He couldn't shake the feeling that he hadn't managed to convince Anya at all, and that the whole thing was some sort of test from her, though for what purpose he couldn't say.

The more he thought on it, the more questions he had about the Knight of Six. However, they weren't ones that he needed answered right now, especially if asking them would encourage her to start probing his background again.

Lelouch then heard the first bell ringing in the distance, indicating that classes would be starting in less than five minutes. He couldn't recall ever being quite so relieved to hear that sound.

"It looks like I'm running a bit late!" Lelouch said, putting on an apologetic expression. "But don't hesitate to ask if you need anything." He turned and waved. "Enjoy your first full day of classes, and see you around!"

Anya said nothing, and simply glanced back down at her device, her frown deepening.

xXx

"Okay, everyone! It's time to continue planning this year's Culture Festival!" Milly announced excitedly at that afternoon's Student Council meeting. "As Student Council President, I'm making an executive decision: we're moving up the date of the festival this year! It will be held before the end of the month!"

"Isn't it awfully early for that, Madam President?" Lelouch asked. "In past years, we've held the festival in late October, or early November. Do you realize how much work it will be to put together the festival on such short notice?"

"Well, times change, and we have to change with them, instead of just being old stick-in-the-muds," Milly pouted. "How better to welcome our newest two Student Council Members to Ashford Academy, and show them how we do things around here? Besides, with everything going on in the world, I think everyone could use a fun diversion right about now."

It was then that Lelouch grasped Milly's true intentions. She was sincere that she wanted the student body to be able to take their minds off things, but by moving up the Culture Festival, the preparations for the event would also help keep the Knights of the Round busy while they were at Ashford. They would additionally provide plenty of excuses for small groups of Black Knights to meet, under the pretense of handling their delegated tasks, as they planned their next operation, which would likely be sooner rather than later. Moreover, the spectacle of the festival was sure to appeal to the fun-loving Gino, and the more he felt at ease, the less likely he was to be suspicious of his fellow Student Council Members.

"You never change your mind once you set your heart on something, Madam President," Lelouch said, shaking his head. "But I suppose that it's that irrepressible energy of yours that makes this school so vibrant."

"That's right!" Milly replied. "So here are your assignments, everyone!"

Just as Lelouch had anticipated, Milly broke them up into smaller groups, though he couldn't help but be concerned that she asked Anya to work with Nunnally and Alice. Of course, they were the other two junior honorary members of the Student Council, and it would look odd if Milly was seen as intentionally separating them. That all three of them were also in the same grade would even make others naturally look to Nunnally and Alice as being guides of sorts to Anya as she acclimated to Ashford Academy. But the fact remained that Alice was an escaped Code-R test subject under a paper-thin false identity, and Nunnally was a former Princess in hiding. Anya probably wouldn't recognize Alice unless she was specifically looking for her, but she would almost certainly recognize Nunnally, just as she had instinctively realized that he had been the boy whose picture she had taken at the Aries Villa.

No, it was more likely that Anya had already recognized Nunnally, and was waiting for a chance to speak with her, just as she had approached him earlier. Alone, he could pass himself off as simply having a passing resemblance to the supposedly late Eleventh Prince of Britannia, but place him in a room with Nunnally, and that excuse would rapidly strain credulity. 'Nunnally Lamperouge' have the same name as the Eleventh Prince's allegedly deceased younger sister, if she was to go by her mother's maiden name, bore a strong physical resemblance to the lost Princess, and was also confined to a wheelchair.

That detail thankfully hadn't been shared with the public, as any sort of disability in a member of the Imperial Family would run counter to Britannia's prevailing ideology of Social Darwinism, in turn making it easier for Nunnally to blend in at Ashford Academy. But it would be known among many of the nobles of the Imperial Court at Pendragon, of which Anya was one.

Time had brought about some differences between the appearance of 'Nunnally Lamperouge' and Nunnally vi Britannia. For instance, Nunnally's hair had been much shorter back during their time in the Aries Villa, and she had once worn it in a pair of twintails instead of letting it flow freely. But Nunnally's violet eyes were still her most distinctive feature, marking her as-

Wait. 'Nunnally Lamperouge' could see. Nunnally vi Britannia could not, at least far as Britannian high society had last heard from her. Obviously, it wasn't a secret around Ashford Academy that Nunnally Lamperouge had been blind for many years, but that disconnect could give Nunnally just enough plausible deniability to keep Anya from being certain of her true identity.

That was still far from ideal, but short of fleeing, there wasn't really anything that Nunnally or himself could do about Anya's presence. Even that wasn't really a viable option now, if it invited reprisals upon the Ashford family for sheltering them, to say nothing of the other members of the Student Council. They could only hope for the best. And no matter what happened, he had to trust that his sister would be able to handle Anya. He had smothered Nunnally's growth as her own person for far too long with his attempts to protect her. If he went back to doing so now, it would be a betrayal of the understanding they had reached together.

As for himself, Milly asked him to join her for the Culture Festival preparations as her Vice President. That was reasonable enough, so he stayed with her in the Student Council room as the others departed to take care of their assigned tasks.

"Anya stayed with you once at the Aries once, before she became the Knight of Six?" Milly asked, after Lelouch took the opportunity to fill her in on the situation. "I had no idea."

"I had all but forgotten about it myself," Lelouch replied. He paused. "How are you holding up? Our... other activities aside, having two Knights of the Round suddenly transfer to the school would keep anyone in your position busy."

"Oh, definitely. I already gave them the VIP tour around campus. As they say, first impressions are everything, especially when the people in question report directly to the Emperor." Milly shook her head and let out a small chuckle. "Still, it brings me back."

"How so?" Lelouch asked.

"It reminds me of when you and your sister first came to Ashford Academy. Of course, both of our new transferees are older than you were when you first came here. You were entering your first year of middle school here, and I was in the year above you. Though I have to say, they were surprisingly agreeable for a pair of Knights of the Round."

"Appearances can be deceptive."

"Oh, I know that, Lelouch. I mean, when you first came to the Academy, you had a real chip on your shoulder. I thought of myself as a patient person, but you really tested me that day."

"I recall that we had something of an argument, yes. Before we came, the Academy had few features to make it accessible for someone in a wheelchair, and I was sure that I was going to have to find another place for Nunnally to stay. Though looking back on it, I was more angry at myself for not researching the school's facilities more thoroughly first. And naturally, after being betrayed by my father, I suspected that anyone who knew who we really were might be trying to use us."

"Something of an argument?" Milly asked, raising an eyebrow. "We were really going at each other! Honestly, Grandfather's usually quite on top of things, but if he had just told me who you really were from the start, instead of just saying that you were the son of a family friend, I would have been able to understand the situation, and that mess could have been avoided." Her expression changed to a smile. "But now we can look back on the whole thing and have a good laugh!"

She leaned in slightly, the sudden intrusion upon his personal space causing his pulse to involuntarily quicken, though he showed no outwardly visible reaction. Milly had always had something of an adversarial relationship with propriety and the idea of keeping a polite physical distance from her female friends and himself, but something felt different now, though he couldn't quite say what.

Perhaps the briefest flicker of disappointment crossed Milly's face, but after a moment, she began to speak, her voice lower than before.

"You know, it was seeing just how kind and dependable you were around your sister that convinced me you'd be perfect as my Vice President on the Student Council. At first you acted like you couldn't be bothered by anyone or anything else, but I knew that once you put your mind to something, you wouldn't stop until you'd given it your all, and then some. And I knew that being on the Council would do you some good. I could tell right away that outside of your sister, you didn't have friends, and it's just too sad to go through life like that. If I could just get you to loosen up and enjoy yourself a little, I could count that as a small victory."

"I had Suzaku, though at the time I didn't know if I would ever see him again. But now, I have a wide circle of friends, and I'm closer to them than I ever thought would be possible. How times have changed."

"That goes for both of us," Milly added. She frowned slightly, her eyes seeming distant for a moment. "But some things just stay the same."

"What's wrong?" Lelouch asked.

"Oh? Don't worry about me!" Milly said, quickly putting on a smile "You have more than enough on your plate."

"You're being evasive," Lelouch pressed. "You always try to lift everyone else's spirits, but sometimes you need to focus on yourself first. I know I'm the last person who should be saying this, but you should be more honest with your feelings, especially with what we've been through in the last few months. We may wear masks, but if something's bothering you, now isn't the time to be hiding it."

"..." Milly sighed. "You got me." The false smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. "It's my engagement to Earl Asplund. You know that I publicly agreed to go along with it, in the hope that I'd be able to get some info on his work. But we all know how that turned out; I barely got a peep out of him about it. And now we know that the Empire has already completed a 7th generation prototype, flawed as it is."

"Don't sell yourself short. Without you, we would have never been able to visit Kamine Island, and we wouldn't have discovered the location of my father's Palace. That's absolutely crucial information for us."

"I suppose you're right about that... But... things are moving faster than I expected. With the engagement, I mean."

"Earl Asplund wants the wedding pushed forward so that he can get his hands on the Ganymede and its data faster? With a potential war looming between the Chinese Federation and Britannia, I suppose he's still looking to develop new Knightmare Frames, even if his current project is stalled. But I told you before, if it comes to that, we can-"

"Oh, no," Milly replied. "It's not Earl Asplund who wants to rush things along. It's... my mother. She's the one who arranged all of those interviews I had to attend with potential suitors. You'd think she'd quiet down a bit after Earl Asplund agreed to marry me, but nothing could be further from the truth. She keeps demanding to know when we're going to make it official."

"So she's that desperate to regain noble status?" Lelouch asked, scowling. "I assume that she hasn't asked about your feelings on the matter at all?"

"I've tried to bring it up with her, but she won't hear any of it. I'm 'the only daughter of the Ashford family', and as far as she's concerned, I should quit complaining and do my duty 'for the good of the family'." She grimaced. "She can't afford to disown me for disobedience, or she loses her best bargaining chip for a noble title, but she'll do anything to browbeat and shame me into compliance with her wishes."

"How typical," Lelouch said, his scowl contorting further.

"I'll say it again; sad as it is, Earl Asplund really is the least objectionable suitor that my mother has tried to set me up with so far. But that makes it even harder for me to explain to her that I don't want to marry him."

Lelouch nodded. "With Earl Asplund's apparent disinterest in relationships, he likely wouldn't have a problem if you were to have your own love life apart from him, as long as it remained discreet. The bigger concern is that sooner or later both of your families would exert pressure for the two of you to produce an heir."

"Of course you'd think about that part of it," Milly frowned. "But I can't say that you're wrong. You were raised a prince. You know how these things work."

"Indeed. If I had stayed in Pendragon, I would have likely had an arranged marriage myself, in the end. The same would have been true for Nunnally as well... though I try not to think about that." He paused, his lips curling in disgust. "Do you remember how I told you once that Genbu Kururugi had planned on making Nunnally marry him?"

Milly shuddered. "I recall you mentioning it, yes. Just thinking about that gives me the creeps. How were you even able to get him to call it off, when he held such power over you? I mean, the two of you were only children. You had been placed in his care, he was the Prime Minister, and no one back in Britannia was going to help you."

"That's my secret," Lelouch said. "I don't care to talk about it."

"Is it that dark?" Milly pressed.

"No," Lelouch said. "What I gave to Genbu in the end wasn't anything that I valued anymore. It's not worth discussing now."

"I'll take your word for it then," Milly said. "But really, I still can't believe I was able to drag my heels for so long on a betrothal without suffering any serious backlash over it. For a time, I actually thought that I'd be able to escape from all of that, when the Ashford family fell from grace seven years ago. Yet..."

"Yet your mother still clings to the past."

"That's one way to put it..."

"You know that you can't let her dictate how you live your life, Milly, don't you? The desire to be your own person, and not be shackled to an arranged marriage, lay at the heart of your spirit of rebellion that awoke all those months ago in Coach Nu's Palace. You've come too far to turn from that path now, haven't you?"

"What... are you suggesting that I do?" Milly asked.

"You already know the answer to that."

"You're telling me... to steal my own mother's heart." She stared at him for several seconds.

"The relationship may not be quite as toxic as Queen's was with her stepmother, but it's clearly not healthy for either of you. If she refuses to listen to you in the real world, you'll have to get through to her in another way." He paused. "But we may not have to steal her heart, per se."

"What do you mean?" Milly asked.

"Do you remember Jeremiah's Shadow? In the end, we never stole his heart, but we managed to change it nonetheless, by persuading him that he could serve a master other than Britannia."

Milly frowned. "That only worked because Jeremiah was loyal to your mother. And his Shadow attacked us. It was only after his Shadow was defeated that it began to actually listen to what we were saying."

"I'll admit, there is a good chance that if we go searching for your mother's Shadow in Mementos that it will end up attacking us as well. That's the nature of Shadows, to go berserk against those who deny them or their wishes. But if we can gain the upper hand, you'll be able to force her Shadow to hear you out. That might just be enough to make your mother reconsider in the real world as well."

"That... may just work," Milly said. "But we'd need to have the others vote on it first. Stealing her heart or not, we'd still be going into Mementos with the intent of changing it, and all changes of heart are subject to an unanimous vote. That's the rule. And Knight-"

"You're thinking that he would vote it down?" Lelouch asked. He smirked. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. Some might say it's just semantics, but I think even someone as hardheaded as Suzaku can appreciate the difference between forcibly stealing someone's heart and persuading them to change their own heart. Plus, Suzaku is nothing if not loyal to those he counts as friends. I doubt that he'd be keen on standing by and watching one of them being forced to choose between a loveless marriage and cutting ties with her family for good. He opposed his father's plans to marry Nunnally too, though there wasn't anything that he could do about it at the time, and he wasn't keen on his own arranged marriage to Kaguya Sumeragi."

"I suppose you have a point there," Milly murmured.

"Sneaking into Mementos to speak your mind to your mother's Shadow may not be the 'right' way to do things per se, but it's the next best thing," Lelouch concluded. "Besides, I think we've all seen that Suzaku is willing to accept more shades of gray than he lets on."

"You've known Suzaku for a lot longer than I have," Milly said slowly. "I hope you're right."

xXx

"Let me see if I have this straight: you want us to track down her mother's Shadow, but you aren't going to steal Mrs. Ashford's heart. You, or rather, Diamond, is just going to try talking to her mother's Shadow, and we'll be there to protect her if the Shadow attacks... which it almost certainly will."

"You sound skeptical, Knight." Lelouch said. "Is it really so hard to believe?"

Suzaku frowned. "Either way, you're aiming to enact a change of heart."

"I don't deny that."

Suzaku turned to Milly. "You've tried talking to your mother about how you really feel, and she still won't listen to you?"

Milly grimaced. "Yes, but she hasn't listened to any of my opinions on the matter for months now. Often, she'll barely let me speak at all."

Suzaku sighed. "If you hadn't done that, I would have had to say no. Using the Metaverse to change hearts should only be a last resort. I'll admit, even now I have some reservations about this. But no one should be pressured into a marriage against their will either. As long as the change is coming from your mother, and isn't being forced upon her, I'll let you try. That's the least I can do for a friend."

"Thanks, Knight. I was worried there for a moment," Milly said. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"We may not always agree, but I think Knight's heart is usually in the right place," Shirley added, speaking up. "As fellow members of the Student Council and the Black Knights, we're all there for each other when times get tough. Diamond and the others helped me when I was in trouble; so I know I'm going to return the favor."

"Well said," Leila said, nodding.

"I agree as well," Euphemia said. "I believe in Knight."

Cornelia was still making it difficult for her to go anywhere unattended, but Suzaku had rendezvoused with her before joining them in Mementos. As the Knight who had been assigned to protect her by Schneizel, it was more difficult for Cornelia to sustain her objections as long as he remained by her side, and Euphemia still had duties she had to carry out around the Tokyo Settlement. Most of these were various social and goodwill functions that Cornelia couldn't be bothered with herself, especially with growing unrest in the Area. Yet at the same time Cornelia couldn't ignore the calming effect that Euphemia's work had on both the Britannian and Japanese inhabitants of the Settlement, and so this gave Euphemia a sufficient pretext to leave the Government Bureau periodically.

"I trust then that there are no objections?" Lelouch asked.

The assembled Black Knights, sans Xingke, who had returned to the Chinese Federation to protected the Empress, nodded in unison.

"It's decided then. Let us begin our search at once!"

xXx

"Adyeshach," Leila read as they entered the new area of Mementos that had opened after they changed Gao Hai's heart. "The Path of Insensitivity."

Visually, Adyeshach closely resembled Akzeriyyuth, with bony tracks and rib-like arches lining the tunnels, but the eerie purple ambience of Akzeriyyuth was replaced with a dark orange-red atmosphere that felt noticeably more oppressive. The scenery of Mementos had become progressively more distorted from a mostly ordinary but spooky subway, to something nightmarish, but now it was giving off a distinctly hellish vibe. Thankfully, the temperature hadn't gone up significantly, and the tunnels remained cool, but that did little to make Adyeshach seem less sinister.

He also saw now, and during the ride down to Adyeshach, the roots that Nunnally had spoken of earlier. They were clearly artificial in nature, pulsing with energy of their own, not unlike the blood-red veins that snaked down through Mementos, even as they tried to strangle the latter, almost like they were part of an enormous, parasitic plant. Mementos was fighting back against the invader, though. The Shadows were agitated, making them more numerous and more aggressive than before.

But soon, it became clear that the Shadows had split into two factions, just as Mementos itself seemed torn between two masters. There were still the lumbering, lumpy, hunchbacked Shadows that had previously inhabited Mementos, but there was now another type of Shadow that was sometimes seen fighting the former. They were recognizably humanoid in appearance, but were unusually tall and thin. Usually, they walked slowly, moving aimlessly down the tunnels, many looking down at their feet, though they could run quite quickly when provoked. Their bodies were featureless, appearing as if in silhouette, making them seem almost as if they were actual, albeit living, shadows.

However, like all ordinary Shadows, the newcomers to Mementos were masked. Theirs were white with a single hole for an eye on the right side, decorated with intricate patterns of red lines radiating out from interlocking circles. They seemed strangely similar to Kallen's description of the masks that the cult's artificial Persona-users had worn, leaving Lelouch with little doubt that these Shadows served his father.

While Mementos' original Shadows and those loyal to his father were each other's enemies, both were instinctively hostile to any Persona-users who dared to intrude upon their territory. However, the Black Knights were still able to take advantage of the Shadows' infighting by slipping past them while they were preoccupied with each other.

The new Shadows and the root-like cables weren't the only oddities that had manifested. In battle, some otherwise ordinary Shadows would be surrounded by a menacing purple aura of roiling energy. They were more passive than other Shadows at first, doing little other than muttering oddly to themselves, but if attacked, they would fight back like feral beasts. Scanning the enemy with her Persona, Leila cautioned that their energy readings were highly unstable, and when Kallen struck the finishing blow against one of them, the energy that had gathered around it converged before violently exploding outward, taking out the strange Shadow and the other Shadows nearby it.

"What the hell was that?!" Kallen spluttered, while Euphemia covered her mouth and let out a small gasp. "Some kind of suicide attack?!" Kallen scowled. "I'm already having flashbacks..."

Lelouch nodded silently. It had to have reminded her of the young Persona-users in the cult, who had been blown up when Marrybell struck the liquid sakuradite they had been carrying with her Knightmare's bullets. Kallen was used to the horrors of battle, but she should have never had to see something like that.

"I'm not sure, but I don't think it was voluntary on the Shadow's part," Leila said. "That energy was unstable to begin with, and when the Shadow suffered critical damage, it could no longer be contained... and thus, disaster struck."

"Shadows that bring disaster with them..." Lelouch murmured, recalling what Shi had said about some of the changes occurring in Mementos.

"What's that?" Milly asked.

"It indeed would be disastrous if any of us were too close to those things when they explode," Lelouch replied, "so maybe we can call them 'Disaster Shadows.' But we can also turn their self-destructive properties to our advantage, if we carefully plan around them."

Suzaku shook his head. "It may not be an honorable tactic... but I can't deny its effectiveness"

"And the name has a certain ring to it," Shirley said.

"Whatever we call them, let's just be careful whenever they show up," Arthur said. "I may be a cat, but I certainly don't have nine lives."

xXx

Continuing deeper into Adyeshach, they encountered other variations within Mementos. In one area, there was only a single tunnel that was perfectly straight, and in other, the entire floor was pitch-black. Leila reported that the underlying Cognition in these areas heavily deviated from the normal range within Mementos. As such, they tended to draw the attention of The Reaper far more quickly within such areas. Leila likened it to the body's immune cells being rapidly deployed to any location where an injury or foreign matter was detected.

But eventually, they reached the Distortion within which the Shadow of Milly' mother lurked. In some ways, it was even a welcome return to their normal routine. Everyone had been a bit on edge from all the changes they had encountered in Mementos, but, save for Suzaku, they had all changed hearts in Mementos before, and even he didn't seem particularly fazed by the underground Palace's increasingly bizarre layout. Granted, the means by which they would change their target's heart would be a bit different this time, but it would still start off as it always did.

"What do we have here?" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow asked, catching sight of them as soon as they entered her Distortion. There wasn't any cover, so they couldn't have hidden from her even if they wanted to.

Lelouch could only recall seeing Milly's mother a few times in person, and it had been years since they had last met. Milly's parents rarely came to Ashford Academy. That in of itself wasn't unusual; it was a boarding school, after all. But considering the interest that their family had in the school, one would have been forgiven for expecting that Milly's parents would show up with at least some regularity.

Perhaps it was the lack of interaction with her that had prevented him from noticing before, but now he was struck by how closely Mrs. Ashford, or rather, her Shadow, outwardly resembled her daughter. They both had blonde hair, and it was even of similar length, but while Milly's hair framed her face, her mother's was swept to the back, ending in an elegant curl. To put it another way, where Mrs. Stadtfeld had tried for what she thought was a glamorous look before her change of heart, Mrs. Ashford's Shadow actually succeeded at pulling it off.

That impression was only furthered by her statuesque figure, which stood at least an inch or two higher than the already tall Milly, and was made even taller by the heels she was wearing. Yet she carried herself with an icy gravitas that sharply contrasted Milly's fun-loving nature. Strangely, Mrs. Ashford's Shadow also looked surprisingly young for her age, as if she was no older than her early thirties. Could it be-?

"She's not that young anymore," Milly whispered, answering his unspoken question. "She's still very attractive for her age, more than capable of turning heads, but even she can't halt the passage of time."

"Didn't anyone teach you that it's rude to gossip among yourselves when someone else is speaking to you?" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow asked crossly.

Turning his gaze back to the Shadow, Lelouch saw that she was dressed as she might have been before the Ashford's fall from grace, wearing the sort of intricately adorned dress that was popular with noblewomen back in Pendragon. It was blue, and had been cut to flatter her bustline, which Milly had evidently inherited from her mother as well. A pearl necklace sat around her neck, further drawing attention there, and an earring dangled on each side of her face.

"Indeed, she is living in the past," Lelouch agreed.

Like all Shadows, her eyes were a glowing, supernatural gold. They narrowed as she glanced from one of them to the next in turn. "Those look like the sorts of ridiculous costumes that my wayward daughter comes up with for those festivals of hers at school. She wastes so much time and energy on such frivolities, when she should be doing her part as the only daughter of the Ashford family to get back the status that we lost those years ago. Doesn't she care about her family? About me?"

"Mrs. Eleanor Ashford?" Lelouch asked, finally acknowledging the Shadow as he took a step forward.

At once, the Shadow's gaze locked on him.

"Wait a minute... you're the Black Knights, aren't you? Who asked you to come and change my heart?"

"We have someone who wants to talk to you," Lelouch said, not bothering to directly answer her question.

The Shadow looked as if it didn't know what to make of that, so Milly seized the opportunity to step forward and remove her mask. "Mother... please... listen to what I have to say."

At once, the Shadow's eyes flared. "So it is you! My ungrateful daughter!"

"Mother-" Milly started again, trying to speak, but the Shadow drowned her out no sooner than she did so.

"Do you have any idea what lengths I've gone to in order to find an acceptable husband for you?" Even the Shadow's voice seemed to contain a trace of Milly's in its own, but it was resentful, far more cynical, and betrayed her true age, to say nothing of the slight, unnatural reverberation that accompanied the speech of all Shadows. "Yet again and again, you selfishly scared them off!" The Shadow scowled. "It's not like our family has much in the way of influence these days. You're the only bargaining chip that we have left, if we're to reclaim what we've lost, and most nobles would only be interested in marrying a commoner for her looks."

"Mother, that's true, but that's why-" Milly said, trying to speak again.

"All you had to do was smile, nod, and let your charms do the rest," the Shadow said, continuing to speak over her daughter, "and then you would be sitting pretty as some lord's trophy wife." Her tone became sharper. "I was able to do it, so why can't you?"

Milly grimaced. "Yes, I know, mother. Before you married into the Ashford family, you had been a commoner yourself."

It wasn't something that the Ashfords usually spoke of, doubtlessly because of how sensitive Mrs. Ashford was to the matter, but Lelouch recalled reading that when he looked into their backgrounds. At first, he had thought that it made for a clear parallel to his own mother, whom the Ashfords had thrown their support behind, but when he actually met her, the stark differences in their personalities had forced him to conclude that any apparent resemblance was superficial at best.

"Exactly!" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow said, bringing his attention back to the present. "I finally had what I dreamed of for all of my life! Prestige, respect, and a wealthy husband! And then, like the stroke of midnight, my happy ending was taken away! I had to go back to what I was, and grovel as a commoner again!"

"You talk of your own happy ending, but don't I have just as much right to pursue my own dreams?" Milly countered.

"I don't see what you're complaining about. That Earl agreed to marry you, but if you want to marry for love, then you have no idea how this world works. Securing one's financial and social position has to come first. With those doors open to you, few desires are beyond one's reach. Love comes later. That Earl may only be interested in the Ganymede and all the developer's data from the third generation for now, but give it some time, and you'll have him wrapped around your finger. Or you would, if you actually tried."

An ugly expression crossed the Shadow's face. "It's his fault, isn't it? That torch you've been carrying for him all this time has been holding you back."

Who was she talking about?

"You had a chance, you know," the Shadow continued, glaring at Milly. "You could have both restored our family to its former glory and satisfied your own desires. No, it's worse than that. Not only would we have noble status, we would have risen higher than ever before! We would have been part of the Imperial Family! Yet you kept fighting it! Why? Was it just because you couldn't accept that your mother knows best for you?"

There wasn't any doubt now; Milly's mother definitely believed that the reason for her daughter's opposition to an arranged marriage was because she was in love with someone else, specifically himself. Coach Nu had made the same mistake. Milly just liked to tease him. She didn't actually-

Behind him, Leila murmured, "I suspected as much. In all likelihood, you would have been introduced Diamond eventually, whether you had remained in Pendragon or not. The prospect of solidifying their alliance through a political marriage would have been too much for her family to resist. But that's already occurred to you, hasn't it?"

"Never mind that," Kallen started.

"Does Diamond really-?" Shirley continued.

"You still don't get it, Mother," Milly said sadly. "You never did. And how can you say you know what's best for me, when you scarcely took an interest in my upbringing until I was useful to you? I was practically raised by Grandfather, with the help of maids and governesses!"

"And look what a fine job that doting old man did!" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow sneered. "You are right though," she said, softer now, dark energy starting to swirl around her. "I should have taken a more active role in raising you myself. Not only have you become a disobedient daughter, but you've gone and involved yourself in the Black Knights... so you leave me no choice but to discipline you myself." Her voice rose sharply. "I am your mother, and you will do as you are told, Millicent Ashford!".

"Everyone, prepare to defend yourselves!" Lelouch called out.

The dark energy converged, transforming Mrs. Ashford's Shadow. When the darkness cleared, and the Shadow's berserk form became visible, Lelouch saw that that Mrs. Ashford's blond hair remained, but her lower body had become dark red and crystalline, almost as if made of glass. The Shadow hovered slightly in the air, a long cape trailing behind it, and with intricate gold patterns forming a sort of skirt, though the material in between them was also glass.

"I refuse to continue living the life of a commoner any longer!" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow seethed. "I'm tired of being pathetic garbage, coated in the cinders of my dream! I'll seize my former status back, by any means necessary!"

"Focus on protecting Diamond!" Lelouch ordered. "She's likely to be her mother's primary target!"

"I'll deal with anyone who stands in my way!" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow snapped back. She regarded him curiously, a malicious look spreading on her face. "If that's my daughter in that ridiculous costume, then you must be Lelouch. Since you've caused me so much trouble, I think I think I'll actually start with you!"

A conjured blade drove toward him. He made sure to regularly start battles with Personas that were at least resistant to physical attacks when possible, as they were the most common means of offense used by Shadows. But if the blade struck him, it had a good chance of knocking him off-balance, even if it didn't cause much damage on its own. That would give Mrs. Ashford's Shadow an opportunity to press her attack and force his allies to break formation, allowing her in turn to dictate the pace of the fight until they could seize back the initiative. He had miscalculated.

"Lancelot!" a voice called out. At once, the mechanical white knight intercepted the blow, parrying it with its own sword. In the corner of his eye, Lelouch saw Guren Jigoku diving in as well. Kallen must have also summoned her Persona to defend him, but Suzaku had been slightly closer, and so his had arrived first.

"Hey, that's my job!" Kallen said crossly.

"He's safe," Suzaku replied. "What is there to complain about?"

"This is no time for bickering, you two!" Lelouch said. "Continue to intercept its attacks, and begin to probe its defenses! We need to get it to stand down!"

"Right!" the two of them said in unison.

"Give me a moment," Leila called from the rear, "and I'll analyze its defenses!"

"Out of my way!" the Shadow shouted, summoning spears of light, not unlike those that Shadow Shirley had cast so long ago. This time, though, Lelouch had enough time to prepare for her attack.

"Daisoujou!"

The mummified Buddhist monk appeared before him. Resistant to physical attacks and immune to bless spells, it would offer him a good deal of protection against Mrs. Ashford's Shadow. He allowed himself a laugh as her spell was nullified before it could harm him. And of course, both Lancelot and Guren Jigoku were too fast to allow themselves to be hit by it, especially when the Shadow had so blatantly telegraphed its attack.

Even if Mrs. Ashford's Shadow were to get some glancing hits in, Euphemia was on standby with her Persona, ready to provide healing to any among the Black Knights who needed it. He too would focus on support for now, while Leila completed her analysis, and have Daisoujou concentrate his powers, so that he could strike with maximal effectiveness as soon as a weakness was confirmed. Given that Mrs. Ashford's Shadow was using bless magic, it was likely highly susceptible to curses, but there was no need for him to rush.

Kallen and Suzaku's Personas were making their own attack runs now, seizing on the momentary delay before the Shadow could ready another spell. A flurry of gun, physical, and nuclear attacks pelted the Shadow. Each could have been a plausible weakness for it as well, whether by shattering or melting the glass that made up its lower body. However, the Shadow managed to remain upright under the onslaught, though it looked worse off for wear afterward.

"Ugh! You really do keep vulgar company. What am I to do with you, willful daughter of mine?"

"Why don't you try actually listening to what I have to say for once?" Milly retorted. She grasped her mask. "Medea!"

The hooded witch took to the air.

Milly threw out her hand toward her mother's Shadow, an action her Persona mimicked. "Agidyne!"

A column of fire erupted underneath her mother's Shadow. Part of its cloak caught fire, covering the Shadow's body in soot as it burned.

"No!" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow cried, clutching her head, as if in agony. "How can you do this to your own mother?! I told you, I've had enough of these cinders!"

Her reaction was obvious in retrospect, though. Mrs. Ashford had a pathological fear of being stuck as a commoner, which she had referred to as being 'coated in cinders'. Plus, with how Cognition worked in the Metaverse, it translated into a very real vulnerability for her.

"Good work, Diamond!" Lelouch shouted.

"The target's defenses are down," Leila announced. "I suggest feeding those flames to press our advantage."

"Right on it!" Arthur smirked. "Garudyne!"

Master Cat conjured a powerful burst of wind, which turned the flames into a conflagration that engulfed the Shadow.

"Aaargh! Stupid cat!" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow cried as it fell to the ground in a smoldering heap.

"This is our chance! Launch an all-out attack!" Lelouch ordered.

The Black Knights charged, pummeling Mrs. Ashford's Shadow. Battered, it tried to rise once more, but Lelouch wasn't going to give it the chance to resume its attack.

"Seth!" he shouted, switching Personas.

A black dragon appeared appeared before him. It was somewhat stronger than his other Personas, and he had bribed Shi and Tsu for the privilege of summoning it. Seth innately possessed fire magic of its own, in addition to an extremely powerful ranged skill, easily capable of killing a lesser Shadow in one shot, and crippling those lucky enough to survive. Normally, calling upon Seth would mean leaving himself horridly exposed to bless magic, but he had made sure to pass along the necessary skills to cover its weakness during fusion.

For now though, he was drawing upon Seth's magical talents, empowered by the state of heightened concentration that Daisoujou had helped him achieve.

"Agidyne!"

Another column of flame blasted Mrs. Ashford's Shadow, burning away what little remained of its cape. Almost every inch of the Shadow's once pristine glass surfaces was now blackened by soot, and the Shadow collapsed once more.

"Diamond, let's finish this!" Lelouch called out.

"Right!"

Mrs. Ashford's Shadow barely tried to fight back as the Black Knights beat it into submission with their second all-out attack. The darkness that had empowered the Shadow dissipated, leaving her kneeling on the floor, once again human in appearance, but still covered in soot, and with much of her blue dress in tatters.

"I had no idea that you were so strong," Mrs. Ashford's Shadow said, looking up at Milly as if truly seeing her for the first time. "So what now? You're going to steal my heart, aren't you? That's what the Black Knights do, isn't it?"

Milly frowned in annoyance. "How many times do I have say it to you? I just want you to listen to me! Jeez!"

Mrs. Ashford's Shadow sighed. "I guess I have no choice... certainly not when I'm in this position. I look like a mess... like some servant, consigned to the most menial and degrading tasks. But it might not hurt to really listen... for a change."

Milly shook her head. "I knew we'd probably have to fight, but I really didn't want to see you like this. Here." Going over to her mother's Shadow, she knelt by its side, and wiped some of the soot from the Shadow's face.

"As soon as I knew who Lelouch really was, it was obvious that you were going to try to set me up to marry him," Milly said. "The rest of the family eventually backed down from that plan, as they realized it would be too dangerous for all of us, but you still entertained it in the back of your mind. As you said, if it could be made to work, it would bring the Ashfords out of our fallen state and propel us to heights unlike any before."

Lelouch nodded to himself. There were no surprises there; as Leila had said, he had already suspected as much.

Milly sighed. "You'd always been somewhat distant from me, mother, often too busy at high society functions to have time for me, right up until the family was stripped of its noble rank. Even then, we maintained an agreeable enough relationship with each other. Though I was a bit lonely at times, I liked the freedom that I had." She chuckled. "I was definitely spoiled though. Given that I was being watched by the family's servants most of the time, they'd almost never say no to me. But that changed when we had our first big fight with each other. That was back when the family hadn't yet ruled out the possibility of using me to marry into the Imperial Family."

"Prince Lelouch would have been a perfect match for you, had circumstances allowed it," Mrs. Ashford's Shadow sighed. "He may have played the fool, but there's no way he could have failed to notice that you liked him. Yet you never made the next move. The opportunity passed, and he got together with the Stadtfeld girl." She shook her head. "But you couldn't be happy marrying anyone else." She shook her head. "For a time, I wished you could be more like Lady Breisgau; she knew how to bounce back from loss and get her prince."

Leila shifted uncomfortably, doubtlessly aware that Mrs. Ashford's Shadow was talking about the wrong prince. However, she chose not to say anything, letting the moment between mother and daughter unfold.

"But in the end, even she couldn't move on past her first love," the Shadow continued. "So why did you keep denying yourself, first of happiness, and then of security?"

"Yes, I did come to love him," Milly said softly. "I still do. But it wouldn't have been fair to him."

Lelouch became aware of a sudden silence, as if the others were all having a delayed reaction as they processed what Milly had just said. That... that had been a love confession. Was it... just her playing along with her mother's misconceptions, to facilitate a change of heart? But no... Milly sounded completely serious. She wasn't about to burst out laughing at his dumbfounded reaction, and say it was all a big joke, was she?

"Wh-what?" Shirley stammered, coming to the same realization. "All this time..."

"You too?!" Kallen demanded.

"So she hid her feelings in plain sight," Leila murmured.

"You never understood just how deeply Lelouch hates the Imperial Family," Milly said to her mother's Shadow, ignoring the sudden clamor behind her. "... Save for his sister and a few of his half-siblings, anyway. Had you taken any overt actions to pressure him into a political marriage, he and his sister would have vanished without a trace. He's never wished to return to living as a royal, because he knows all too well how they use people. And if I tried to push things myself, he would have suspected me of the same, and had nothing to do with me any longer. But while I knew any sort of deeper relationship couldn't work, I still wanted to at least be a friend to him, or even a sort of cool big sister." She let out a wry chuckle. "Heaven knows he needed one. And I wanted to see him laugh or smile every once in a while. If I could do that, I could consider my mission a success."

"That... I can understand completely," Shirley said softly. "He was so distant from everyone at first... I also wanted to get him to open up, and find out what made him tick. Really, you've been like a big sister to all of us on the Student Council. But then why-"

"But... what about our family?" Mrs. Ashford's Shadow asked Milly. "What are we supposed to do?"

"We may no longer be nobility, but we're hardly destitute, Mother; we're still a lot better off than most. I can say that I've been able to make so many friends that I never would have been able to, had I remained a noble. And you... you weren't quite being honest with yourself earlier. Maybe you started off looking for wealth and status... but you had another dream, didn't you? Don't you remember telling me once what it was like when you first met Father?"

The Shadow's eyes widened slightly. "It was a ball... a party thrown by your grandfather, hoping to help his son find a suitable match. It was open to all who wished to attend."

That was so like Headmaster Ruben. The extravagant parties he had thrown in his youth had forged connections that still served the Ashfords well in the present... but to think that Milly's parents had actually met at such a party...

"I knew that it could be my chance," Mrs. Ashford's Shadow continued. "And... when I saw him... I knew that he was the one I had been looking for all along..." Mrs. Ashford's Shadow grimaced. "I was... happy by his side. But I was all too aware that there would be those who would look down upon me, for my birth, and him, for marrying a commoner. And so I sought to transform myself into the quintessential noblewoman, so that we would be beyond reproach."

Cinderella. That was the self-image, distorted by fear and misguided desire, that had given form to Mrs. Ashford's Shadow.

The Shadow grimaced. "But I soon got myself lost in the lifestyle of a noble, with all of its plotting and vices. Not only that, the Ashfords were ascendant, on track to become one of the wealthiest and most influential families within the Empire. It so inflated my self-importance, that I neglected my only daughter, and I all but forgot the magic of the moment that brought my husband and I together. I let my heart be hollowed out, and when the Ashfords lost their noble rank, I thought that only reclaiming our status could fill the void that remained."

"We can still rebuild, and make a better life for ourselves, and those around us," Milly told her mother's Shadow. "We don't need to be nobles to do that. We just need to live every day the best we can. That way, when all's said and done, we can look back and know that, no matter what trials were thrown at us, we led lives worth living."

"I.. was such a fool," Mrs. Ashford's Shadow said. "But maybe you're right. Maybe... the two of us can start again. But... are you sure that this is what you want? You'll never have the same security that you would as a noble."

"As long as I have my friends with me... absolutely."

"Very well... I'll return to my other self." The Shadow smiled faintly. "I know it will be strange hearing this from me, but... thank you, Milly."

Mrs. Ashford's Shadow then disappeared into light.

Standing up, Milly turned to face the others.

"Well... I'm guessing I've made things a bit awkward..." she said, her expression uncharacteristically sheepish. Her words started coming out too quickly. "But since I was coming clean with my mother anyways, I just had to get that off my chest. Otherwise, I might have just let it stay buried in my heart - I didn't want something like that to fester inside me."

Realizing how quickly she was speaking, Milly took several deep breaths, forcing herself to slow down. "After what my mother's Shadow said, I'm sure that some of you would have had plenty of questions for me. It was just best that I air it now, on my own terms. I value all of our friendships too much to want to let something like that come between us."

She let out a nervous laugh. "It's funny. Now that I've finally confessed how I really feel, I might just be able to actually try to move on from those feelings..." She sighed. "If I had just been a bit more honest with all of you from the start, things may have worked out differently. But... I just waited too long... and it's only what you do that counts."

"Milly, I..." Lelouch fumbled, forgetting to use her codename, but the words quickly died in his mouth. He didn't want to hurt Milly's feelings, but the idea of her liking him in that way was so far beyond what he had considered plausible that he simply had absolutely no idea what to say. After years of viewing Milly as a close, if highly mischievous friend, who always liked to mess with him, it was hard to view her in any other way. Moreover, he was keenly aware that if he spoke carelessly now, the effects that his words could have on their relationship would be impossible to predict.

Perceptive as always, Milly quickly picked up on his discomfort.

"Don't think that I'm trying to put you on the spot, Zero. That's the last thing that I want..." She shook her head. "Why don't we all return to the real world... give ourselves some time and space to think things over. But don't worry... we're still all in this together! I'll be there, whenever you're ready... whether it's for Black Knight business, or to talk things over."

"I think that's a good idea," Euphemia said. "I'm sure no one here wants to say something in haste that they might regret later."

"I agree," Suzaku said. He turned to Lelouch. "You upheld your word today, Zero, and I'm glad to see that you did, but... I don't envy you right now."

xXx

"You were gone for quite some time, big brother," Nunnally said as he returned to the Clubhouse. The TV was broadcasting the evening news in the background. "Were you down in Mementos with the others?"

"Yes, I was," he replied. "We changed the heart of Milly's mother."

"You should have invited me! I would have been happy to help. She's my friend too, after all."

"You were busy enough dealing with the Knight of Six," Lelouch replied. "We didn't need to make her any more suspicious of us by calling you away from her." He paused. "Did you know that Milly has had a crush on me for at least the last several years?"

"I can't say I'm surprised. It's hard to blame her, or any of the others, for being attracted to you, really. You have the gift of naturally drawing others to you, big brother."

"I didn't pick up on it at all," Lelouch groaned. "I thought she was just teasing me the whole time."

"Girls often tease boys when they're interested in them," Nunnally shrugged.

"I see," Lelouch frowned. "It seems that I still have much to learn when it comes to understanding the feelings of others."

"That's true," Nunnally replied. "But you've already come so far. You'll get there eventually!"

"With any luck," Lelouch said. He paused again. "How did things go with Anya anyways?"

"We actually got along quite well! We even made a small deal together... though I think that Alice is more than a bit jealous of her."

"What kind of deal?" Lelouch asked warily.

"That I'd help her make plenty of new memories at Ashford Academy, and that she'll be my friend in turn. But that's not all... the power of the Moon Arcana flowed from my newfound bond with her."

"Nunnally.. the Moon Arcana is associated with illusion. If Anya truly embodies that Arcana, then she can't be what she seems."

"Oh, I know that," Nunnally replied. She frowned. "My memories relating to Anya may have been tampered with. This morning, when I couldn't remember meeting with her before she came to Ashford Academy, it just felt... wrong. You probably came to the same conclusion as well, big brother. We know that it's possible now, through Terry's power, and who's to say that there aren't others in the cult with similar powers? If so, I want to know why my memories were tampered with, and who exactly Anya was to us. Besides, you already hang out with that detective from time to time. There's more to him than he lets on... So how's that any different?"

"Anya reports directly to the Emperor. Though I suppose I can't rule out the possibility of Rolo doing the same." He shook his head and chuckled. "It's a bold gamble, Nunnally. But I won't deny that the rewards could be great indeed. Imagine subverting one of Father's Knights of the Round..."

"Breaking news," a voice from the television announced. "Amid growing unrest abroad, Viceroy Cornelia has announced several new security protocols, to be implemented immediately, and vowed to redouble efforts to capture the terrorist Zero and his accomplices, the Black Knights. Any with information about the Black Knights are urged to come forward. Those that do not will be considered equally guilty, and subject to the harshest penalties under Imperial Law. She then proceeded to remind those who would seek to disturb the peace of Britannia's might, launching a new wave of offensives against suspected terrorist cells throughout Area 11. They will soon see what it means to stand against our Goddess of Victory! All hail Britannia!"

"So, Cornelia's finally made her move," Lelouch scowled.

"She's going to catch a lot of innocent people in her crackdown," Nunnally frowned.

"There must be enormous pressure upon her from the Homeland to show results," Lelouch replied. "This is heavy-handed, even by her standards. They didn't say it outright on the news, but she's practically put the entire colony under martial law." He glanced at the news ticker, which provided more details on some of the measures that Cornelia was implementing. "A lot of those restrictions are usually reserved for Areas under Correctional status, to beat down newly conquered populations or punish them for rebellion. And she'll get even more draconian the longer she goes without capturing us."

"I think it's clear, who the next target of the Irregulars and the Black Knights needs to be," Nunnally said.

"We were always going to have to go after Cornelia sooner or later. If we can't best her, what chance do we have of stealing Father's heart?"

"I agree, big brother."

A/N:

At long last, the chapter is completed! I didn't want it to take almost two months, but work got totally crazy for a time, and I was only to work on a little bit of writing at a time. Plus, I seem to be having longer and longer chapters as the story becomes more complex.

It's never made entirely clear if Anya's device is a phone or not, so I hedged my bets. Speaking of phones, the character's phones in this story are generally more advanced than their canonical depiction in Code Geass, more in line with the smartphones of the Persona 5 side of the setting. This has been tacitly assumed since the start of the story. The Metaverse Navigator is, at its core, a supernatural smartphone app, after all. One could say that this is a minor setting update / a case of Technology Marches On. The first season of Code Geass aired in Japan in 2006, when the modern Smartphone, as exemplified by the iPhone, only came into existence in 2007.

As hinted by this chapter, Nunnally/Nemo's relationship with her mother is considerably more complex than shown in the original show, and is inspired by depictions of Marianne from supplementary materials and the novelizations of Code Geass. The incident that Nemo recounts, of Marianne holding Empress Gabrielle at gunpoint, is from said novelizations. However, due to their inherent nature as spoilers, I will not comment further on them here.

Disaster Shadows are originally from Persona 5 Royal. Like Fusion Alarms, their origin is different in this story than in Royal, but they neatly tie into the growing instability in Mementos.

Almost no information is provided about Milly's mother, not even a proper name. The most we "see" of her in the show is a telephone conversation with Milly, where we only witness and hear Milly's side of the conversation. However, it is clear that Milly's mother is one of the driving forces trying to push Milly into marriage, which made her ideal for the Mementos target near the end of Milly's Confidant.

My primary beta suggested the characterization of Milly's mother, to establish her as a shadow archetype to her daughter, what Milly could have become if she had taken a different path, hence the choice to give her a strong physical resemblance to an older Milly. Also per the suggestion of my beta, Mrs. Ashford's hairstyle was modeled after the real-life Grace Kelly, the actress who rose to become the Princess of Monacco in 1956, as we wanted Mrs. Ashford to outwardly project a similar feeling of glamour.

As for Milly's confession toward the end, it is very heavily implied in the original show that Milly has an unrequited crush on Lelouch. This is most clearly shown when she holds Cupid Day, and declares that whoever can successfully steal their target's hat must become their girlfriend/boyfriend, before announcing over the loudspeakers that anyone who brings her Lelouch's hat will get their club's budget increased tenfold. As such, I have consistently written Milly as having a crush on Lelouch, though like her canonical self, she had (mostly) kept quiet about it until now, only letting it peek through when teasing him.

Though to be fair to Milly, as was correctly pointed out in the reviews, Cupid Day was also, and originally intended to help get Lelouch and Shirley together, which it did in canon. It seems that Milly just briefly chose to act on her personal desires for once when she tried to bribe the school into bringing her Lelouch's hat.

But of course, Lelouch has had a rather different dynamic with Milly through her Confidant than with Kallen, Shirley, or Leila...

And last but not least, it's time to get the ball rolling for the sixth palace...

As always, thanks for reading, and until next time!