"Let me see if I have this straight," Cornelia said, with one of her hands holding her forehead. "You used the chaos in the Chinese Federation as cover for raiding one of the cult's facilities, co-conspiring with the Glinda Knights to do so?"
"That's correct," Lelouch replied.
"Who went on the raid?" Cornelia pressed. "Given how well you say the facility was defended, you or the Glinda Knights must have been equipped with Knightmares, and not just in the Metaverse. Moreover, unless your groups are much larger than you've led me to believe, you must have had highly talented devicers among your number, if you were able to defeat such a numerically superior enemy force."
Lelouch said nothing.
"So, you still refuse to betray your allies," Cornelia said. "My working theory has been that the core members of the Black Knights are largely one and the same with the Ashford Academy Student Council. By choosing to remain silent, you've done nothing to contradict that notion. Yet most members of the Student Council are known to have been present in their classes at Ashford Academy during the timeframe in which your raid must have taken place. There are just two notable exceptions: Kallen Stadtfeld, and Junior Student Council member, Alice Liddell." Cornelia scowled. "The latter is an obvious pseudonym, and upon closer investigation, there are certain... irregularities in their enrollment documents. Would they be your devicers?"
Lelouch kept his face expressionless. Cornelia obviously didn't have the full story yet, but just the fact that she had been able to connect Kallen and Alice to the raid, and figured out that neither of them were quite whom they claimed to be, was alarming enough. Damn!
"No matter," Cornelia said. "We'll find them and bring them in for questioning soon. I'm much more interested in what you said about the facility's 'Director'. Not only was he leading the cult's Cognitive Psience research program, he was also a Persona-user himself."
"Yes," Lelouch nodded.
"Furthermore, he claimed to have had an agent capable of using their Persona to erase other people's memories, and you believe that there may have been others with similar powers." Cornelia leaned in. "Are you sure of this? You were not there to hear that yourself, so by all rights I should dismiss it as hearsay." She shook her head. "You have to realize just how convenient an ability like that is to your story. If any details don't match events as I remember them, you can just say that the cultists have secretly tampered with my memory."
"I trust my fellow Black Knights," Lelouch said firmly.
"Even though one of them turned you in," Cornelia replied with slight sneer, though whether it was at his presumed naïveté, or at the disloyalty of the one who had betrayed him, he couldn't quite say.
He still couldn't fully recall all of the details leading up to his capture, but fortunately, he still had time to gather his thoughts before they got to that part of his story.
"That's beside the point right now," Lelouch said. "The loyalty of the one who brought me the information regarding the Director is unquestioned. As for whether your own memories have been tampered with, Cornelia... if the cult used such a power to cover up the truth behind my mother's murder, it most likely would have been used on everyone who was around the Aires Villa at the time, and you were my mother's head of security." He grimaced. "It almost certainly was used on Nunnally and myself. Anya's photo proves that she was there with us, at least for a time, even though neither of us had any conscious recollection of it."
"Photographs can be doctored," Cornelia replied. "But... if that picture was genuine, and she recognized you, then she had a duty to report your survival to His Majesty." The frustration in her voice was obvious. "So why didn't she? Did you find some sort of leverage on her? Perhaps you found leverage on the Knight of Three as well. You would have had plenty of opportunity to do so, with both of them attending your school."
Cornelia sighed and shook her head. "Truth be told, I don't remember Lady Alstreim ever coming to the Aries Villa." Her expression hardened. "But let's suppose that she did for a moment. Why would the cult specifically choose to hide Anya's past, yet forget to erase her memories of you, and leave that photo on her device?" Without warning, she slammed a fist on the table. "It doesn't make any sense!" Her eyes bored into his. "Were my memories tampered with or not?! You must know! You've been inside my heart!"
"The Metaverse is indeed a window to memories that have been long forgotten," Lelouch said slowly as he gathered his thoughts, not wanting to say something that he might contradict later as his memories finished returning to him.
His lack of a direct answer seemed to only worsen Cornelia's temper.
"It's bad enough that you stole Clovis' heart, and tried to take my own... but you admitted to using the Metaverse to access Nunnally's subconscious. To do that to your only full-blooded sister..." Her fist trembled with anger.
"I had her permission." He had Nemo's permission, to be precise, but Nemo was Nunnally, more or less.
"So you say," Cornelia murmured darkly. "Though I wonder if she knew what she was really agreeing to... If she did..." A flash of realization crossed Cornelia's face. "Wouldn't that mean that your sister knew that you were a Black Knight?" Her expression quickly changed to one of dread. "Is she one of the Black Knights herself?! But... how could she, with her-"
"Nunnally has never been part of the Black Knights", Lelouch said firmly, though perhaps a bit too quickly. He appreciated that Cornelia was showing concern for Nunnally, but her quickness to anger had caused so many problems for them in her Palace...
Cornelia's eyes narrowed suspiciously, picking up on his evasiveness. "She's not part of the Black Knights... but she still knows about the Metaverse, doesn't she, Lelouch?"
"So what if she does... hypothetically speaking?" Lelouch asked. "Would you hunt down Nunnally too, just as you pursued the Black Knights?"
"I swore to bring any enemies of the Empire to justice," Cornelia replied harshly. "Even if they are family."
"Now you're just lying to yourself, Cornelia," Lelouch countered. "Besides, isn't it clear by now that the cult and those behind it are the true enemies of the Empire's people?"
"Says the man who swore to destroy Britannia."
"Britannia in its current state has to be done away with. I make no apologies for that, Cornelia. But my grudge has never been with its ordinary people." He let out a laugh. "Though in a way, the Britannia I sought to destroy, and the one you hope to defend, never really existed in the first place. It's all been just a massive charade, meant to help Father and the cult move their pieces into place, and keep the world distracted while they prepare to initiate Ragnarok. That will destroy both the empire and its people."
Cornelia grimaced, and tightly clenched her hand into a fist.
"Don't you want to discover the truth behind everything, Cornelia?" Lelouch asked softly. "The truth that our father and the cult has tried to hide?"
"I am trying to find the truth," Cornelia growled. "You don't have any idea of how much trouble it was for me to be able to talk to you like this. And I'm not talking about how difficult it was to capture you, either."
Cornelia fell strangely silent, as if she was wrestling with herself, trying to decide whether or not to say something. Yet at long last, she did so.
"Like so much else in your story, it's almost too incredible to be believed. But...do you recall, Lelouch, how I said at the start of this interrogation that, even as the Viceroy, things are out of my hands?"
It had not escaped Lelouch that Cornelia had referred to him by his name, instead of 'Zero'.
"Yes," he replied.
"The men who beat and drugged you earlier were intelligence officers. Perhaps you still had enough lucidity at the time to realize that on your own. But they almost didn't allow me to speak to you; they answer only to the Emperor." She frowned. "And those who speak in his name..." she added after a moment, as if the words left a bad taste in her mouth.
"But you managed to persuade them," Lelouch said.
"The threat of force usually succeeds where reason does not," Cornelia replied, a hand trailing down to caress the hilt of her sword at her side. "It doesn't matter if you have a benefactor who claims to speak for the Emperor, if they're not there to save you."
"You were so determined to hear the truth of why I targeted you, that you threatened the Emperor's own agents."
"And to learn what, if anything, Euphy had to do with this whole mess," Cornelia said. "But now I wonder just how involved you've gotten Nunnally as well."
"You know that your actions won't be ignored, Cornelia."
"I'll deal with that later."
"But you said something else interesting," Lelouch continued. "Twice now, you've mentioned someone claiming to speak on the Emperor's behalf. But they aren't someone whose authority you respect, such as Schneizel in his capacity as Prime Minister, or a Knight of the Round. Just listening to you, I can hear the resentment in your voice at being forced to follow this person's orders."
"When did this turn into me being interrogated?" Cornelia snapped. "But you're right. Soon after the uprising in the Chinese Federation, a man came to me bearing the Imperial Scepter."
Lelouch couldn't fail to grasp the significance of that. The Imperial Scepter was the symbol of the Emperor's authority, instantly recognizable to any Britannian. Any individual granted the Imperial Scepter was to be obeyed as if they were the Emperor himself, taking precedence over all other chains of command, even capable of ordering the Knights of the Round.
"Doubtlessly, the arrival of this man pressured you into launching your crackdown."
"I would have cracked down anyway, with how I thought you were responsible for Euphy's kidnapping, and an uprising on my doorstep, which you actually caused, Lelouch. But yes, that man's arrival made the matter far more urgent. He expressed, in no uncertain terms, that His Majesty was displeased with my failure to apprehend you. If I did not capture you within a month's time, then the consequences would be most severe... for myself, and for Euphy."
"Our father is nothing if not heartless, but that's heavy-handed, even for him," Lelouch snarled. "It's not his style to intervene so directly. Most of the time, he's just sitting back on his throne, barely showing any interest in the world that he's planning to end, nor in his children, who are but unwitting pawns to him. Though I suppose he may have acted in this case, as I pose a direct threat to his plans... but he still couldn't be bothered to do it himself." He paused. "Do you know who the Emperor's emissary was?"
"I had never met the man before that day," Cornelia replied. "But now that I have heard your account, Lelouch, there's little chance of the resemblance being a mere coincidence."
"The resemblance to whom?" Lelouch asked, feeling a sudden sense of anticipation.
"The man who you called 'the Director'."
"So he survived the raid," he murmured. "I knew it was too much to hope for anything less." He allowed himself a smirk. "But I suppose this means you believe me now."
"Much of your story, yes. The rest remains to be seen."
She was still being stubborn.
"You know, Cornelia," he said, "It's likely that the Director was behind Euphy's abduction at the consulate as well."
"Do you have proof of that?!" Cornelia said heatedly, clutching the edges of the table so tightly that Lelouch was sure that she was going to break it. As he expected, any threat to Euphy, real or imagined, would provoke an immediate response on Cornelia's part, but she was wary of him trying to manipulate her. He was of course, but that wasn't mutually exclusive with it also being the truth.
"We know that the cult the Director leads is in charge of Britannia's Cognitive Psience research, and its Persona-users. It follows that the Black Mask, who kidnapped Euphy, most likely answers to him. The Director anticipated that we would be trying to infiltrate the Consulate, and sent the Black Mask to kill or discredit us." He shook his head. "I'd bet that the Black Mask was also responsible for the tip that Gao Hai received that someone was going to try to break into his office. And the Black Mask also personally tried to kill one of my closest allies in Mementos some time before that," he added, being careful not to name Nunnally.
"It establishes a pattern; since late summer, the Director has been trying, through increasingly overt means, to have us eliminated," Lelouch concluded. "It doesn't matter who he has to hurt to achieve that end... royal or not." He frowned. "In many ways, Euphy is the ideal target for him. The Director must know how dear she is to both of us."
"Then tell me what you know, Lelouch," Cornelia said. Her voice became almost conspiratorial. "I can stop the Director. But against an opponent like him, I need to know if there's anything else about him or his plans that you discovered between when you first began infiltrating my Palace and now."
Lelouch nodded. He still wasn't going to tell Cornelia everything; he would never sell out his friends. But he had taken another crucial step forward. The resonance of the Judgement Arcana within him was proof of that, a fact that heartened him.
He needed Cornelia on his side. As more memories flowed back to him, he was more certain of that than ever, and not just to escape the predicament he had found himself in.
"Very well then. As it happens, it didn't take us long to figure out how to enter your Palace..."
A/N:
After several chapters dealing with the cultist base and its aftermath, my betas and I thought that it would be a good idea to have another interrogation scene with Cornelia, to ease things back into her Palace arc proper, and to provide additional opportunities for character development.
The Imperial Scepter appears in canon during Akito the Exiled, in which it is Julius Kingsley who bears the scepter and is empowered to speak and act on the Emperor's behalf.
In other news, this chapter marks a certain milestone for the story. Besides being the 70th chapter, according to the site's internal count, it is now, when including author's notes, over half a million words in length. I think the actual word count is still a bit lower, as I think I've noticed the site overcounting on occasion, but it still brings a certain feeling of accomplishment. Thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, and enjoyed this story over the past (almost) two years and five months, as well as my beta readers!