AN:
Hello readers! I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who kindly commented on this story. Your comments mean a lot to me and give me the motivation to continue writing this story, so keep on commenting! I may not be able to respond to each and every comment made, but I certainly read all of them and try to respond whenever possible.
As we enter Chapter 8 of the story, I would like to once again remind readers that this story is written based on the movie trilogy version, and the differences between the movie trilogy version and the TV animation version are far more pronounced than one might realize. If you have not watched the movie trilogy version yet, I encourage you to take a break from reading this story and watch the movie trilogy version first before continuing, as you will notice more and more divergence in how characters react to one situation and what characters do in another situation. There were some parts of the story, character development included, that the writers of the show have amended in order to provide the necessary logical basis for them to continue extrapolating the story into the ensuing Re;surrection movie.
That's all from me for now, happy reading!
Chapter 8: "Initiation" VI – The Witch and the Princesses
A downcast Lelouch was walking back to his house at Ashford Academy, apparently not happy with how Suzaku rejected his invitation and his insistence to join the Britannian side. Since it was late at night, he expected himself to walk into a quiet house where Nunnally and Sayako have already slept.
"Welcome back, Lelouch," a lime-haired girl sat next to Nunnally said nonchalantly as soon as Lelouch stepped into the room.
"Welcome home, big brother!" Nunnally greeted Lelouch happily.
"From your appearance, I'm assuming you have already eaten something already," C.C. said as she placed a blue paper crane on the table.
"Thank goodness. I thought you might have got yourself caught up in all the uproar caused by that 'Zero'," Nunnally continued, not realizing Lelouch was totally flabbergasted as he saw the lime-haired woman sitting next to her, "I tried calling you but you didn't answer your mobile phone. I wanted to tell you Ms C.C.'s been waiting as well."
"Huh? C.C.?" it took Lelouch two more seconds than usual to recollect himself, albeit still in a state of shock. C.C., the lime-haired girl, completely ignored the conversation between the vi Britannia siblings and continued to try folding a pink paper into a crane.
"Hehe, your friend goes by such an unusual name, only her initials," Nunnally chuckled, "I was just wondering, is C.C. your girlfriend?"
"Huh?" Lelouch still couldn't catch the flow of the conversation currently going on.
"He made a promise about our future together," C.C. suddenly said before turning to Lelouch and asked as if she was seeking reconfirmation and assurance from him, "Right?"
"A future together? You mean marriage?" Nunnally asked innocently.
Lelouch quickly denied it, though stuttering in the process, "No! No, that isn't what she was talking about. It's like a… she's kidding around."
"No, I am not," C.C. immediately said, confusing Nunnally even further.
"Hahaha! I never thought Lelouch could have such an expression on his face!" Milly can't hold back any longer and bursts out laughing, "Oh boy, I really wish I have taken a photo of that instant. It would have been worth the weight of gold among the female population of the Ashford Academy!"
"Indeed! It was good to see the smart and confident side of Lelouch, but seeing a totally shocked expression on his face once in a while is not bad at all!" Kaguya cheerfully adds, finding it funny to see that even the seemingly all-knowing strategist Lelouch can get flabbergasted.
"Nunnally, didn't you feel strange when this C.C. woman barged into your house?" Cornelia asks concernedly. Although it was something that happened in the past, Cornelia is still the elder sister who constantly worries about the safety and well-being of her younger siblings.
"I was a little wary at first, but she was so smooth in her conversation that she somehow convinced me that she really knew Big Brother," Nunnally recalls her first encounter with the lime-haired woman. It was strange – Nunnally might have been blind, but that didn't mean she wasn't a perceptive person; in fact, one can say that it was exactly because of her long-time blindness that made her even more perceptive than most people.
"Be careful, Nunnally," Cornelia puts her right hand over Nunnally's left, "it was lucky she didn't harm you back then, but in the future you must be careful about who can get close to you – I don't want to lose another sister that I love."
"I will, Big Sister. I promise," Nunnally leans slightly towards her elder sister with a smile on her face.
Just as how the present Cornelia is wary about C.C. getting so close to the younger Nunnally in the past, Lelouch was also wary about a stranger getting into his house with seemingly little trouble. He excused himself from Nunnally and brought C.C. into his room, and once they were in his room, Lelouch dropped his facade and threw C.C. onto his bed, coldly demanding for her identity.
However, the lime-haired woman seemed calm and stood up again, smirking smugly. "Nunnally has just told you my name, hasn't she? I'm C.C."
"That's not what I meant. You're…"
"Supposed to be dead?" C.C. finished Lelouch's question, and Lelouch scowled that he somehow was not in control of the flow of the conversation. Before Lelouch could say anything, C.C. continued as she tossed herself onto Lelouch's bed, "So, do you like the power that I gave you?"
"Hey! That's too much!" Shirley suddenly screams as her face reddens. Everybody in the auditorium looks to her.
"What's the matter?" Anya asks, not understanding why Shirley reacts so vigorously.
"She… she got onto Lulu's bed!" Shirley exclaims.
'Woah… you still got so many people who love you even when you are gone, buddy,' Rivalz exclaims inwardly as he looks at his orange-haired friend sitting in front of him. He sometimes really hopes he was born with Lelouch's handsomeness; perhaps even half of that would do the trick for making his high school life a blast he had always wanted.
"Calm down, Shirley, it's just his bed," Kallen tries to calm down her agitated friend.
"What? 'Just his bed'? You mean you have gone above and beyond that stage already?" Shirley turns her head back to Kallen, incredulous at her words.
"No! You have mistaken! I mean… I mean C.C. is a bitch who never acted according to social norms!" To this day, Kallen still can't understand: how come Shirley always jump three steps ahead in every conversation related to Lelouch?
"Alright, alright, you two," Milly wants to tease Shirley, but seeing how things are unfolding, she has opted to take on the role of a moderator instead. "CALM!" she shouts, and Shirley, Kallen and Rivalz all cringes.
"Prez, I didn't know you are still developing new spells after you have graduated!" Rivalz says.
"Well, I found out that the 'GUTS' spell is not enough to address each and every situation, so what's there to complain for me to put a few more under my sleeves?" Milly winks mischievously.
"…recorded," Anya decides to take a photo of her Ashford friends as the audience starts to turn their attention back onto the screen.
Back on screen, C.C. and Lelouch continued to talk about Lelouch's intention to accelerate his plan to obliterate Britannia with his new power. C.C. found the young man as interesting as she had expected and decided to stay inside his room to hide from the small faction of military that was chasing after her. She stripped off her straightjacket, took off her high heeled boots and threw them randomly onto the floor next to Lelouch's bed.
"What? You plan to stay here?" Lelouch demanded incredulously. Was this woman taking over his bed, naked?
"A gentleman would sleep on the floor." C.C. pulled the blanket up, covering her naked body swiftly and stared at Lelouch.
"I am not talking about that…"
"Me being caught would cause trouble for you too, right?"
"It's dangerous to stay together," Lelouch climbed onto the bed, trying to intimidate the foul woman who occupied his bed.
"If I wander the streets, they'll find me," C.C., however, ignored Lelouch's intimidation completely and continued.
"This isn't about you. It's about my situation…" Lelouch was angered by the woman's insolence. However, C.C. once again ignored him completely and turned towards her left hand side. "I hate stubbornness."
Back at present, Shirley is visibly shaken. Well, her shoulders are shaking quite noticeably. "I never knew… C.C. actually got onto Lulu's bed naked?"
"Welp, that's a lot worse than the 'just his bed' moment," Rivalz casually comments.
"Hey, would you stop quoting me to further agitate Shirley?" Kallen hisses, not wanting to get into another argument with Shirley. However, Kallen herself is not pleased to see the scene either. 'Damn you C.C… how come you have no shame and slept naked on a man's bed like that? Only if I can be in her stead… No! Kallen! What are you thinking?'
"Beep! Beep! It seems like there is someone else who is jealous of this C.C. girl!" Milly laughs.
"No I am not!" Kallen snaps back, only to see the sly smile and narrowed eyes of her blonde friend. 'Damn! I stepped right into her trap!' Kallen decides to look away to hide her reddened face.
'Even in death, you are still popular with the girls… well, excessively popular with exceptionally beautiful girls,' Zero looks at his Ashford friends and shakes his head, sighing.
Seeing his intimidating tactics failed, Lelouch sighed and got back to the floor and started to tidy up C.C.'s clothes. "You sure take things casually, don't you?"
No answer from the lime-haired girl.
"How did you manage to survive before this? What did you do before now?" Lelouch continued, "And what's the deal with that so-called contract you spoke of…"
"Good night, Lelouch," C.C. cut off Lelouch mercilessly. Lelouch growled at how he couldn't get any answer from the mysterious woman.
"Huh! Serves you right!" Chiba spats as she sees how Lelouch was being ignored by C.C.
"What do you mean?" Tamaki doesn't understand fully.
"Lelouch didn't get any answer from this C.C. woman," Guilford explains, "I think Mrs Tohdoh is referring to the fact that Lelouch had been doing the same to Prime Minister Ohgi and Lady Kouzuki's group back on the train, not answering any of their questions but just kept saying whatever he wanted to say; it was the exact same situation in the scene we have just watched, only that it was C.C. who had total control of the dialogue and Lelouch couldn't get any answer he wanted from her."
"Ha! I knew it! Yea, it served you right, Brit!" Tamaki immediately spats at the scene where Lelouch was suffering from C.C.'s mistreatment as well, trying to make himself look cool and smart. But alas, everybody in the room, maybe even Tianzi, is smart enough to see through what the proud Japanese man is trying to achieve and have all elected to ignore him.
'Well, it's refreshing to see Lelouch to be the subjugated one,' Cornelia smirks, 'Also, good to see my dear brother has at least kept the good habit of keeping things tidy after all those rouge years outside of my watch.'
Somewhere inside the Imperial Palace in Pendragon, Schneizel el Britannia, 2nd Prince of the Empire, was doing some gardening with Earl Kanon Maldini, his trusted aide-de-camp.
"Code-R?" Schneizel asked while still kneeling down to fix the arrangement of the flowers on the fence.
"Yes, it was something that His Highness Prince Clovis and General Bartley Asprius wanted to present to His Majesty," Maldini said.
Schneizel stood up and turned to his aide-de-camp with a warm smile, "Ah, the one that was transported under the guise of a tank of poison gas, you mean? Why wasn't it being presented to His Majesty immediately?"
"It was because it possesses some kind of special power, and they would like to understand it first before presenting to His Majesty," Maldini answered in a tone that could be considered a bit too feminine by normal Britannian male military officer standards. Schneizel narrowed his eyes.
"Your Highness?" Kanon asked after a brief moment of pause.
"How about Code-R?" Schneizel asked.
"It was said that the Code-R subject was dead during the events of the Shinjuku incident," Maldini explained.
"Well, then that means only Bartley knows about it?" the gallant prince responded.
"Yikes, they are so gay!" Tamaki once again jumps out of the audience and offers his rather blunt comment.
"Mr Tamaki, you shall refrain from insulting members of the Imperial Family," Guilford decides to step in. While his one and only liege is Cornelia, Guilford still feels the need to defend other members of the Imperial Family, no less the current Prime Minister of Britannia, from unworthy insults.
"I am just telling the truth! They look gay!" Tamaki insists, not backing down.
"That's quite enough, Tamaki," Tohdoh interjects, "it is unworthy of you to comment on someone's… romantic inclinations, especially that of a foreign dignitary's."
"General Tohdoh is right, Tamaki," Ohgi chimes in, "we may criticize him if he has done something wrong as Prime Minister of Britannia, but I don't think it's appropriate to attack on something that's so personal and irrelevant to the well-being of the general public."
"They're right, Tamaki. We can criticize you for being a dickhead who kept screwing our operations up, but it wouldn't be fair if we all criticize how much you liked to pretend to be a tough and cool guy to woo pretty young girls who have just joined the Black Knights back then, would it?" Kallen smirks as she joins the conversation.
"Hey! That's not what it was! I have always been a cool guy!" Tamaki freaks out a bit and hurriedly try to muster up his defence for his sorry ass.
While the bickering is still going on among the old members of the Black Knights, Cornelia is sent into deep thought by the scene. 'Schneizel was aware of the Code-R project right from the beginning? Was it just me who did not know a thing related to Geass before I broke into that secret underground Geass facility in the Chinese Federation?' she tightens her fists, frustrated at this realization. 'Damnit! So I was the silly one who frantically ran around, trying to figure out what everyone else had long known already!'
Back in Lelouch's room, Lelouch was looking up information related to Suzaku on the internet, while C.C. was sitting on his bed, eating pizza while reading magazines. She was only wearing an oversized white shirt to cover her body. Several magazines and newspaper were scattered on the floor.
"She…!" Shirley is aghast. "She was trying to seduce Lulu!"
Kallen doesn't say anything, but her shoulders are visibly shaking. 'Damnit, witch! I know you were terrible with keeping the room tidy and all that, but at least have some decency when being alone with a guy in the same room!' she hisses inwardly.
"Lucky dude…" Rivalz mutters, clearly envying what his buddy had in his room. 'I wish I had Prez sitting on my bed in that outfit…'
"Are you fantasizing something?" Milly puts up an evil grin on her face while staring at her blue-haired friend and not-so-secret admirer.
"Yes… I mean no! Not at all, Prez!" Rivalz quickly shakes his head vigorously.
"So, what did 'Orange' turn out to be anyway?" C.C. asked.
Lelouch frowned and sighed. "For someone who isn't willing to answer any questions, you certainly do ask a lot of them."
C.C. was unfazed by Lelouch's verbal jabbing. "If you don't want to answer my questions, you don't have to. Just as I don't."
Lelouch sighed again, but decided to answer her question anyway to get her off his back. "There is no 'Orange'. It's something I made up. But, the more they claim to be comrades of like-mind, the easier it is to divide them with the thorns of suspicion."
C.C. smirked at hearing Lelouch's answer. "Everyone is looking for you. Because of you, the world is going through an upheaval. So, is this it? Is this what you wanted to see?"
"No, not really," Lelouch put on his school uniform jacket, "This uproar's simply a means to an end, to bring the world into even greater chaos."
'Big Brother… I really didn't want you to do that,' Nunnally muses with a sad expression on her face.
"I knew it! Lelouch never cared about the Japanese at all!" Chiba snorts, "He simply wanted to bring more chaos to the world, so that he could snatch the throne when everyone else was busying with tidying up the mess he had stirred up!"
Ohgi and Tohdoh remain silent, but their serious facial expression suggest that they too are not too happy to hear what Lelouch had just said on the screen.
'A means to the end… did you sacrifice Euphy to bring the world into even greater chaos as well, Lelouch?' Cornelia grits her teeth and tries her best not to burst out for the sake of her other living younger sister. Seeing that, Guilford silently places his hand on Cornelia's.
"Thank you," Cornelia whispers to her knight… and lover.
Outside a court building, a confused Suzaku was walking out of the building, not understanding why he was suddenly proclaimed innocent and not guilty of murdering Clovis.
"Out of the way, please!" a young girl's voice suddenly came from above Suzaku's head, "Look out!"
"No!" Cornelia exclaims, "That's…"
'Euphy…' Zero tightens his grip on the armrests of his chair as he knows what's going to happen next on the screen.
Suzaku immediately looked up – a girl with long, pink hair was falling from the sky! Suzaku immediately threw away his duffel bag and caught the falling girl with his arms. It was thanks to him being an exercise nut that Suzaku was strong enough to ensure the girl unharmed. Suzaku asked concernedly, "Uh, are you alright…?"
"I'm sorry! I wasn't aware you were down here until I had leapt," the pink-haired girl apologized while looking into Suzaku's eyes, revealing her beautiful face.
Suzaku was dazzled by how pretty the girl was, and stuttered in his response. "Uhh… don't worry. I, eh, I wasn't expecting a girl to come falling out of the sky and into my arms, either."
"Oh, my…" the pink girl seemed to realize who the man catching her from the sky was.
"Huh? Is there something wrong?" Suzaku asked.
The girl lowered her face and gazed at the ground for a while. Then, suddenly and out of everyone's expectation, she turned back to Suzaku and flashed a big, innocent smile, "Yes, there is something wrong!"
"Huh? There was something wrong? What's wrong?" Tianzi is puzzled by the pink-haired girl's words. Then, the young Chinese girl suddenly realizes something and asks in horror, "Is she being chased by bad guys?"
"Hmm… I am not sure, but I don't think that's the case," Kaguya immediately hugs her little friend and tries to calm her down.
"Wow, talking about first encounter," Gino chimes in, "Quite a conventional, or perhaps quite unconventional way for a knight in shining armour to save a damsel in distress."
"So that's how Euphy set her eyes on Kururugi," Cornelia watches her late sister's image on the screen with complicated feelings, "Sadly, her feelings were ultimately betrayed; Kururugi abandoned her ideals and joined forces with Lelouch to pursue world domination through force and terror."
"Sister Euphy was still the mischievous fairy I once knew," Nunnally giggles as she sees the image of her ex-rival who fought with her to be Lelouch's bride, "I am pretty sure she had Suzaku wrapped around her little finger with that smile, Big Sister, and I don't think Suzaku had ever escaped from that since that very moment," she says as she hears Cornelia's thoughts.
'Well… not too far from the truth, Nunnally,' Zero quietly muses with a smile, reminiscing his very first encounter with Euphemia.
Cornelia ponders for a moment. It was apparent that Suzaku eventually became the right-hand man of the most infamous tyrant in history, but for some reason, her instinct and her understanding of her beloved full-blooded younger sister tell her that Nunnally is actually right. 'This is so conflicting. All available evidence suggests that Kururugi eventually dumped Euphy's ideals, but for some reason, I can't help but to feel that Nunnally's right on this. I wonder just what exactly had happened to Kururugi? Did Lelouch geass Kururugi into following him?'
Just as Cornelia sinks into her thoughts, the Japanese audience starts to react violently to the sight of the pink princess. "Tsch, that damned witch, pretending to be innocent and pure!" Chiba scowls.
"That's right! I almost forgot the whole ordeal by now, but she was the Princess Massacre who killed a lot of Japanese!" Tamaki barks.
Kallen also growls as she sees the image of the massacre princess who fooled the Japanese by her innocent look into a death trap, but she refrains from saying anything out of her new found respect for Cornelia. Even Ohgi and Tohdoh have serious expression on their face, oozing contempt to the late 3rd Princess of the Holy Britannian Empire.
Cornelia is about to explode upon hearing insults shot at her innocent and wronged sister, but someone is quicker to defend Euphemia. "She's innocent," Zero's metallic voice declares, surprising every one.
"What the hell are you talking about? She ordered the Britannian soldiers to wipe out the Japanese!" Tamaki hisses, not getting the point. However, those who are smarter than Tamaki, which means basically everyone else, gets what Zero is trying to say in one.
"Are you saying that Eu… Princess Euphemia was under the influence of Geass when she ordered the massacre?" Tohdoh asks with a serious tone.
"Yes," Zero gives a simple but clear answer.
Most people in the audience gasps. Lelouch geassed his half-sister into killing the Japanese?
"There is no way Lulu would have done that!" Shirley exclaims. It's impossible that the gentle Lulu would do such hideous things!
"Ms Fenette, are you suggesting that my sister willingly issued such a massacre order?" Cornelia fixes a stern stare at Shirley, fuming at what Shirley's words were implying.
"Err… no, Your Highness, I don't mean to…" Shirley freaks out. Well, who can blame her? She's just a civilian, a high school student to be exact. Being stared by a member of the Imperial Family who is also an accomplished general is a nerve-wrecking experience.
"Your Highness, Shirley means no offence. She's just obsessed with Lelouch," Anya decides to come to her friend's defense. With her status as the former Knight of Six, Cornelia cools down a bit and withdraws her gaze at the poor orange-haired girl.
"Let's keep watching to find out the truth," Zero concludes, and everyone puts their focus back onto the screen.
The screen then switches back to Ashford Academy, where a blue-haired female student, clearly geassed by Lelouch, was shown to be carving a mark on the wall as her green pupils were encircled by red rings. A casually-dressed C.C. was observing this afar from the rooftop while Lelouch was approaching her, explaining, "She is going to be marking the wall like that every day, because I used my Geass on her to make her doing it."
"Geass?" C.C. was intrigued.
"The name of this power that I have. That's what I heard when we first made contact," Lelouch explained.
C.C. seemed to be amused. "Are you testing how long this Geass power would last?"
"I need to know the specs of my weapon, don't I?" Lelouch then suddenly narrowed his eyes and tried to threaten C.C. again, "If you behave too out of order…"
"Do you think it would work on me?" C.C. was once again unfazed by Lelouch's threat and cut his speech short. Lelouch frowned.
C.C. suddenly pulled back her head and turned to face Lelouch. "Relax, you and I are accomplice, I won't do anything to endanger us or our unique partnership."
Lelouch still stared at C.C. with no trust in his eyes, but didn't say anything further.
"That's the cruelest Geass order I have seen so far," Anya says. Everyone is surprised; Anya has been a quiet viewer so far, offering no comment at all and focusing on taking photos of Shirley and her Ashford friends. Why comment now?
"Why would you say that? Didn't you see how Lelouch heartlessly ordered Clovis' Imperial Guards to kill themselves?" Ohgi asks, "I mean, don't get me wrong, those Imperial Guards were terrible people, but to flatly order them to commit suicide against their will was just downright inhumane. By contrast, ordering that girl to make a mark on the wall every day is innocuous in my opinion."
"You have just said it yourself: every day," Anya responds, "that girl loses her memory every day when carrying out that order, and there is no way out of it. That is a lot more inhumane than a one-off order such as having His Highness' Imperial Guards to commit suicide."
"Well, if you put it like that…" Ohgi struggles as he thinks about what Anya has just said.
"I agree with Lady Alstreim," Zero suddenly joins the conversation.
"Oh?" is the response from most people in the audience.
"Prime Minister Ohgi's observation that the committing suicide command is inhumane cannot be any further from the truth. However, it was a one-off suffering and as soon as the victim is dead, he or she is free from the suffering," Suzaku proceeds to explain his viewpoint, "the same cannot be said to those under a continuous command that the victim is impossible to fight against, though; the suffering is indefinite or, depending on the exact wording of the Geass command, a lifelong one." 'And because of your Geass command, I have to live for however long my beating heart wishes to be, and I must be roasted by my conscious for all the sins I have committed, Lelouch,' Suzaku quietly adds in his mind.
"Uhm, Prez, do you know what happened to that girl?" Rivalz asks. "I don't recall seeing that girl on campus, at least not since the end of the First Assault on the Tokyo Settlement."
"I don't know much about that as well, but my guess is that she has been evacuated from Area 11… excuse me, from Japan, shortly after the end of the First Assault on the Tokyo Settlement," Milly replies, "So I guess she should be somewhere in the Homeland right now."
"Doesn't that mean that girl is free from Lelouch's Geass now? I mean, if she is in the Homeland now, there is no way she could have executed Lelouch's order," Kallen chimes in.
"No, I don't think so," Zero says, "theoretically, that girl can still execute the wall-carving order by travelling all the way back to Ashford Academy and continue to carve on the wall, and since Lelouch's Geass commands are absolute, she is most likely still being subject to the effect of that command."
"What? But that would mean…" Kallen also realizes what would happen to the poor girl.
"She is probably in a mental hospital right now, likely to be diagnosed as having mental problems," Lloyd answers. The rest of the audience gasp.
"There is no way to help her?" Gino asks, feeling sick about the situation, "It would be cruel to her if we keep locking her up in a mental hospital just because of that stupid command!"
"Your Majesty, would you be able to ask your Government to locate the girl?" Anya suddenly asks Nunnally.
"Huh? Uhm yes I can do that, Lady Alstreim," Nunnally is taken by a bit of a surprise that Anya would make such request, "but even if we found her, there is no way we can lift that Geass command from her…"
"Your Majesty, if you can locate this girl, we will be able to remedy the situation," Anya asserts.
"Wait, so a cure has developed for geassed people, Lady Alstreim?" Cornelia quickly notices what Anya has just implied.
"Yes, Your Highness," Anya replies with her usual poker face, "and also to cure the disconnected memory that those who were geassed have suffered so far."
Milly and Rivalz gasp at hearing that. So they are indeed being geassed by Lelouch?
Seeing the audience may dive into asking more questions about Geass, Zero silently taps on Nunnally's shoulder, and Nunnally immediately understands Zero's intention. She claps her hands a few times to gain the attention from the audience and says, "I am sure we will eventually get to the point where all the relevant information regarding Geass are revealed to us as we watch the contents recorded in the three discs. For now, let's continue and concentrate on those discs instead of asking questions that, without sufficient background knowledge that the discs are supplying to us at this very moment, may not be well-explained and prone to misunderstanding. Zero, please kindly contact Schneizel and ask him to help locate this girl as Lady Alstreim has requested; she has suffered too much already and it is my duty, both as her sovereign and as my brother's sister, to remedy the situation."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Zero replies, "it will be done, at once." He bows and quickly excuses himself away from the auditorium to make the call.
The scene then shows Bartley being escorted back to the Britannian Homeland in straightjacket. Then, the camera goes back to filming Lelouch's room, where Lelouch was explaining his findings about his Geass power to C.C.
"To use my Geass, I need to have direct eye contact with the subject. Transparent objects like eyeglasses present no problem. The effective range is approximately 270 metres, and a subject appears to have no memory of events before, during, or after the power is used. I think this is due to damage caused by the Geass interfering with the brain of the subject. Also, Geass seems to be optical and follows the laws of light, and therefore can have it reflected using a mirror."
C.C. was listening while changing her casual outfit back to the straightjacket she had worn since becoming Clovis' prisoner and experimental subject. Lelouch, being the gentleman as he was, did not look at her for one moment when she was changing.
"In the short time you had, you've learned a lot about your Geass," C.C. complimented Lelouch's efficiency.
"Err…" Shirley is glad that Lelouch didn't look at C.C., but is nevertheless frustrated to learn the fact that there was a woman who sleeps on Lelouch's bed naked and changes her clothes in his presence. Rivalz, on the other hand, is apparently jealous about Lelouch having a pretty girl stripping and changing clothes while placing no barrier to prevent him from looking at her. 'Damn, only if I am half as handsome as him!'
"AHA! So His Majesty's Geass was quite limiting after all!" Lloyd says upon hearing Lelouch's explanation of the supernatural power, oblivious to the whole C.C.-changing-clothes-in-the-same-room-as-Lelouch-was-in thing that Shirley and Rivalz are so concerned about.
"Indeed it was," Cecile agrees with her boss, "if what he said were true, then his Geass is limited by physical presence, means to activate, effective range, optical properties and, perhaps most importantly, the frequency of using it on the same person."
"And it seems that my hypothesis about Geass twisting one's neural network was correct," Rakshata smiles as her hypothesis was affirmed by Lelouch's own findings. Nothing excites a scientist more when his or her hypothesis gets is affirmed by others!
Back on the street, Suzaku met up with Lloyd and Cecile, and the scientists revealed the true identity of the pink-haired girl Suzaku had escorted for the entire afternoon since they met.
"What? Euphy… is a princess?" Suzaku can't believe what he had just heard, turning back and look at "Euphy", who was happily playing with a stray cat in front of a stall, "…impossible! There were no security details near her…"
"If you are looking for her security detail, aren't you the one who has served that purpose already?" Cecile explained as she smiled.
"Ehm… does this count as a date?" Lloyd suddenly asked a question quite irrelevant to his profession.
"Not really!" Suzaku frantically explained, "I was just being requested to accompany her…"
"Suzaku!" Euphemia suddenly called her "temporary security detail" while she picked up the stray cat she had been playing with, "See, a cat!"
"Yes!" Suzaku freaked out upon hearing the princess called his name and ran to her, "at once!"
"So he really didn't know about her identity," Lloyd casually commented.
"Well, she was still a student until a few days ago," Cecile added, "had it not been Her Highness Princess Cornelia appointed as the new Viceroy of Area 11, she would probably have stayed in the Homeland."
"That's Arthur!" Kallen exclaims as she sees the cat Euphemia was holding on her hands, "so that's how we got our student council mascot?"
"Seems like it!" Milly agrees, "Where is Arthur now, by the way?"
"Arthur is with me now," Zero says as he comes back into the auditorium, after calling Schneizel and conveying Nunnally's order to him.
"Oh? I didn't know you like cats?" Kallen asks, knowing that it has always been a one-sided relationship between Arthur and Suzaku.
"Yes, it seems that Arthur has been close to Her Majesty, and so I thought it would be a good idea to bring Arthur with us, since you will all be graduating eventually and Arthur may feel lonely when everyone's gone," Zero explains.
It was evening time and Euphemia was in her princess attire again, receiving the arriving new Viceroy of Area 11, her elder sister Princess Cornelia, at the airbase. Cornelia, being a strict person, lectured her younger sister that they would have to refer to each other by their official titles precisely because they were full-blooded sisters. Euphemia obediently complied.
Cornelia was satisfied with Euphemia's answer and gave her a warm smile. The smile quickly faded when she turned to a local official and asked, "So, how about the important matters of Government?"
"Yes, Your Highness," the official respectfully answered, "The first order of business is a welcoming party we've arranged for Your Highness and…"
Cornelia, however, was uninterested in hearing such trivial things and pointed her gun towards the official, shocking both the official and Euphemia.
"Sloppy, senile, corrupt… Where is Zero? I want the enemy of the Empire caught! Get Zero!" Cornelia bellowed.
"Your Highness, you were quite down to business," Gino says as he sees what happened upon Cornelia's arrival at the then Area 11, "but still, it may not be a bad idea to relax a bit first before getting serious with work."
Cornelia is about to respond to Gino's comments, but Kallen quickly cuts in, much to the surprise of the Princess and, arguably, the rest of the audience. "I agree with the Princess' method of doing things," Kallen reasons, "I mean, if I were in her place, I would probably do the same. Why would I waste time on some parties that serve no practical purpose besides doing some useless chit-chatting?"
"Wow, Kallen, I would have never thought that you actually stand with the Princess," Gino is amused, "weren't you sworn enemies?"
"Yes we were, but not anymore," Kallen explains, "I mean, Corn… err, Her Highness has obviously grew out of the prejudice she once held deep in her belief; the same applies to me as well, after all that happened in the past two years or so. I can now appreciate her virtues without that biased 'you are a Britannian, so you are shit' lens that I once used to see the world around me."
"Lady Kouzuki, I thank you for your kind words on behalf of my sovereign," Guilford bows to Kallen, genuinely surprised by her appreciation of his princess.
"Oh… it's nothing," Kallen quickly waves her hands, "I… I, err, I merely pointed out that Cor… I mean, Her Highness was right to get right down to business…" Kallen then met sight with Cornelia, in which the older woman gives her an appreciative smile. Kallen's smiles back to the princess, but with a little red on her cheeks.
'Hmm… seems like Kallen and Big Sister hit it off quite well,' Nunnally smiles as she sees the interaction between the two lady warriors in the room.
