AN:
Hello readers! I am genuinely surprised and thankful for the numerous comments and reviews you have left for the previous chapter. As we continue to see how the cast members react to "the truth" being unfolded before them, I notice that there seems to be a need for me to clarify the background character setting of Cornelia li Britannia in the movie trilogy universe compared to her TV animation series counterpart that, if left unexplained, might cause confusion on her reactions to "the truth" in successive chapters.
Briefly, the Cornelia in the movie trilogy universe differs from her TV animation series counterpart in the following ways:
As Viceroy of Area 11, she prioritized the maintenance of law and order in Area 11 over avenging Clovis: in one of the video commentaries for the movie trilogy, Director Goro Taniguchi has explained that during the scene when Cornelia first landed on Area 11's soil and was received by Euphemia, the production team instructed Junko Minagawa, Cornelia's Japanese voice actress, to speak her lines with the intention of prioritizing the maintenance of law and order in Area 11 and, by extension, the protection of the well-being of Britannian civilians over any other objective, avenging Clovis included. (Bonus info: The production team also made some changes to the acting directions given to Norio Wakamoto, the Japanese voice actor for Charles zi Britannia, causing the Charles in the movie trilogy universe to be slightly different from his TV animation series counterpart. Those changes will be duly reflected in my story as well later on)
She did not direct her army to massacre innocent Japanese civilians: since Cornelia prioritized the maintenance of law and order in Area 11 and did not actively seek to avenge Clovis, the Saitama Ghetto Ambush never happened; the Battle of Narita was in fact the first battle between Cornelia and Zero in the movie trilogy universe.
There is no evidence that she treated Britannian civilians as expendables:since the Lake Kawaguchi hostage incident was not shown in detail in the movie trilogy version, there is no clear evidence that Cornelia would treat Britannian civilians as expendables like how Lelouch treated those in the town right under the Narita Mountains. Coupling with the changes made to the movie trilogy mentioned in #1, it becomes inconceivable that someone who wanted to maintain law and order and to protect the well-being of Britannian civilians would simultaneously and casually treat them as expendables in war or, in the case where the situation forces Cornelia to sacrifice Britannian civilians to achieve an important military objective, that she would be as remorseless in doing so as Lelouch did at the Narita Mountains.
She did not express dissatisfaction regarding Euphemia's choice of personal knight: If you have watched the movie version closely and focused on Cornelia's scenes, you would have noticed that there is no mentioning of Cornelia's hatred or blatant discrimination against the Elevens. While she is definitely not at Euphemia's level when it comes to treating the Numbers as equals, the Cornelia in the movie trilogy version is actually not as racist as her TV animation series counterpart was. One clear indication of that would be that the Cornelia in the movie trilogy version did not express dissatisfaction regarding Euphemia's choice of picking Suzaku as her personal knight.
Since I am writing my story based on the movie trilogy version instead of the TV animation series, the reactions Cornelia gives towards "the truth" would be based on the movie character setting instead of the TV animation series character setting. Hence, and I know this could be difficult for some readers to do because most readers' impression of Cornelia is built heavily on her performance in the first season of the TV series, I would ask that readers to see Cornelia based on this new setting instead of the one based on the setting used in the TV series.
That's all from me for the moment, happy reading!
Chapter 12: "Initiation" X – Battle of Narita
The artificial landslide caused the Britannian army to lose more than 80% of its forces at the Narita Mountains. Cornelia's team was isolated from the rest, and military advisers back in the G1 were finding ways to rescue the Viceroy of Area 11 from the perilous situation. Unfortunately, since the reserve forces had been ordered to go and assist Darlton's assault on the JLF, there were few units besides the purist faction that the G1 could deploy to help the Viceroy.
The Black Knights took this opportunity to move forward. "Guren Mk II, move to the planned point! We'll break through the rest of their line and take Cornelia," Lelouch ordered.
"Fight to the death!" Villetta assumed leadership of the purist faction after Jeremiah's MIA, trying her best to stop the Black Knights. The screen then shows a lot of the new recruits of the Black Knights were killed or severely injured in the process.
Seeing Villetta's success in stopping the Black Knights, the G1 decided to send in air forces to assist Cornelia to fall back. Euphemia, however, noticed that some unknown units were approaching behind her elder sister's team. The unknown units turned out to be JLF Lieutenant Colonel Kyoshirou Tohdoh and his "Four Holy Swords": Nagisa Chiba, Shougo Asahina, Ryoga Senba and Kosetsu Urabe.
"What?" Cornelia was surprised when a customized Burai Knightmare Frame seemingly came out of nowhere and assaulted her team from behind.
"Protect Her Highness!" Guilford roared, ordering the rest of the troops to protect the Viceroy of Area 11.
However, the newly appeared customized Burai Knightmare Frames were no easy foes: they have slashed down quite a number of the Sutherland units and had Cornelia and Guilford surrounded.
"Your Highness! Leave them to us!" Guilford cried as he blocked one of the customized Burai Knightmare Frames with his Knightmare Frame Lance.
Cornelia, being a master tactician she was, quickly formulated a counter-attack plan. "Right, let's use their attack to get back to them. Guilford, after you have driven them back, meet me over at point 9," she ordered her loyal knight.
"9?" Guilford thought for a brief moment and understood his princess' intention, "Roger."
On the other side of the battle, Lelouch received information about JLF attacking Cornelia's units as he was pondering their next steps. 'Someone else understands my intent? How excellent,' he mused.
"Did you customize those Japanese Glasgows, Rakshata?" Lloyd immediately focuses his attention to the customized Burais.
"Call my children 'customized Burais', Earl of Pudding," Rakshata corrects Lloyd while showing a smug grin, "I have incorporated the concept of Japanese katana to give them a re-usable weapon comparable to a Knightmare Lance."
"AHA! Samurai vs Knights?" Lloyd says cheerfully.
"That's right. We had comparable Knightmare Frames to fight against Britannia, unlike 8 years ago!" Chiba says proudly and shoots a challenging glance to the warrior princess.
However, Cornelia does not take Chiba's bait and instead comments on Villetta's performance, "Lady Ohgi had performed well after Gottwald lost to Lady Kouzuki. I should have recommended her for a peerage back then."
"Tch, had she not intervened, we would have won already!" Tamaki complains as he thought back how Villetta and her fellow purist faction soldiers had halted their advance for quite a while.
Ohgi doesn't know what to say. On the one hand, he wants to defend his wife, but she was their enemy back then and defending her would infuriate Chiba and Tamaki; on the other hand, if he sided with Tamaki, it would become him attacking his wife openly, and that's the last thing he would do. 'Argh, I should just say nothing,' Ohgi muses.
On Tohdoh's advice, Major General Katase, the de facto leader of the JLF, had ordered a total assault on the Britannian army, preventing Darlton's units from backing up the Viceroy. Meanwhile, Guilford received the latest information from Villetta on the Black Knights' estimated movement, and he suddenly realized that the Black Knights were heading to point 9 as well, the place where Cornelia intended to launch a counterattack against JLF.
"Princess Cornelia!" Guilford screamed at full volume through the communication system.
"…I can hear you, Guilford," the warrior princess responded with a somewhat playful voice, even though the situation was far from alright: she was blocked by the Guren.
Back in the G1, the military advisers advised Euphemia to send the G1 in to rescue the Viceroy.
"We can't," surprising everyone, Euphemia flatly rejected the idea.
"But Lord Guilford has been completely pinned down. If this goes on, the Viceroy's life is at stake…" a military adviser tried to persuade the Sub-Viceroy.
"We can't!" Euphemia exclaimed, but she was clearly struggling and her voice was shaking, "There's a field hospital right here, with the civilians. They've been evacuated from all over the area and brought to this point. Besides, the G1 base is our command centre. The Viceroy has strictly ordered me not to move it no matter the circumstance, that's why… I…"
"Oh, Sister Euphy…" Nunnally realizes Euphemia's dilemma: on the one hand, as Cornelia's younger sister, Euphemia wanted nothing more than the safe return of her beloved elder sister; on the other hand, as Sub-Viceroy, it was her responsibility to see that civilians and injured persons congregated around the G1 not harmed by enemy forces.
"Be proud of her," Cornelia taps on Nunnally's shaking shoulder, slightly startled the young Empress. "But Big Sister, if she chose not to intervene, then that would mean…" Nunnally hesitates.
"That would mean I may die," Cornelia says calmly, "and that Euphy had splendidly carried out my orders and fulfilled her responsibility as Sub-Viceroy of Area 11."
Nunnally is going to protest to Cornelia on how willing she is to sacrifice herself, but Cornelia quickly explains before the young Empress is able to say anything more, "Nunnally, I am a soldier. My job is to fight for the country I serve, and that means I am always at risk of dying. That's a given risk of the career I have chosen and I do not complain about it."
Nunnally is still unhappy about the dilemma Euphy had to face, but she respects Cornelia's resolve and says nothing more. She holds Cornelia's hand tighter, in which the elder princess smiles and holds the young Empress back in return.
"Hello, hello!" Lloyd, Cecile and Suzaku suddenly showed up on Euphemia's G1 screen. "Greetings from the ASEEC crew!" Lloyd said in his usual cheerful tone.
"Insolence!" the military advisers immediately scolded, "You are irregulars. Your orders are to keep silent and observe."
"Yes sir, normally we would but…" Cecile tried to explain before Lloyd cut in, "But all of this waiting around is boring."
Euphemia realized that she could send in the ASEEC force to rescue her sister without jeopardizing her responsibility as Sub-Viceroy of Area 11. Just as if cued, Suzaku asked, "Sub-Viceroy, I respectfully ask that you would order us into the battle."
Zero looks at his younger self and the young princess he has sworn to protect. 'Euphy, I wish I could have saved you like how I saved Princess Cornelia back then, but…'
At point 9, Kallen engaged Cornelia and they fought fiercely against each other. After initial contact, Cornelia immediately realized that Kallen's Guren was not just another customized unit, but something completely different. As she was thinking about her next steps, Zero's Burai showed up on the cliff behind where Cornelia was, and he spoke through an open channel, "Can you hear me, Cornelia? This is checkmate."
"Zero?" Cornelia finally faced her brother's murderer.
"That's right. Should we celebrate for finally meeting each other? However, I request you to surrender to us first. There are a few questions I'd like to ask you," Zero said in an apparently respectful, but ultimately condescending tone, "And in case you are wondering, your reinforcements won't get here in time. I have won, Cornelia."
"You are a fool, Zero," Cornelia was infuriated and pointed to the Guren, "If I take this one out, I'm free and clear!" She quickly raised her Gloucester's left arm and fired the machine gun and slash harken at the Guren. The Guren dodged all her attacks.
"You've got some moves!" Cornelia praised her enemy as she tried to pierce her Knightmare Lance through the Guren, which was halted by the Guren's metallic claw. Kallen activated the Radiant Wave Surger and quickly caused the Knightmare Lance and the holding arm of the Gloucester to swell.
"Huh? Ugh!" Cornelia was indeed an ace pilot in her own right; she quickly decided to sever her Gloucester's right arm to avoid further damage, which was proven to be the correct move. Nevertheless, that didn't save her Gloucester's left arm from being shot by Lelouch's Burai from behind, causing her machine gun to be destroyed.
"Coward! Attacking from behind!" Cornelia growled.
"Really? Are you saying that your attack plans don't contain a trace of cowardice?" Lelouch showed no mercy to his elder sister and retorted with a sarcastic tone.
There seemed to be no hope for Cornelia: Darlton's units have been surrounded by the JLF; Villetta's purist faction had been gunned down; and Guilford's units have been surrounded and blocked by Tohdoh and his Holy Swords. "Damnit, if this continues, Her Highness will be…" Guilford gritted his teeth.
"Guilford, my knight," Cornelia spoke through the open channel, "I wish that Darlton and you will serve Euphy together."
"Your Highness?" Guilford has a bad feeling in his stomach. His princess wouldn't…
"I shall not surrender. As an imperial princess, I shall fight till my last breath!" Cornelia declared as she piloted her Gloucester towards the Guren to launch her final attack.
"Princess Cornelia!" Guilford's eyes wide opened, screaming his liege's name.
"Huh, what a stale choice you've made," Lelouch was not impressed by his elder sister's resolve and snorted at it.
"Big Sister!" Nunnally exclaims as she holds her elder sister's hand tight. "What were you thinking? Why did you throw away your life so easily?"
"As I have said back then, as an imperial princess, I shall fight to the last… huh?" Cornelia tries to explain to her younger sister, but she is halted when the young Empress pulls herself into Cornelia's chest and hugs tightly, tears falling out of her eyes.
"No, you shall not! You have only one life to live! How would Sister Euphy go on without you? And Lord Guilford, your loyal knight?"
"Nunnally, I…"Cornelia is a bit shocked at how Nunnally vigorously reacted to her determination to fight to the last and doesn't know what to say. After a brief moment, all Cornelia can come up with is, "I'm sorry…"
"I didn't know that Big Brother pushed you to the verge of death until now, but I wouldn't have wanted you to throw away your life like that had I known what happened back then!" Nunnally continues as she sniffles, calming down herself, "I have never asked him to do anything such as killing my other siblings, and if I had known, I would have stopped him from harming you and Euphy, the two big sisters I look up to and love with all my heart…"
Cornelia is touched at hearing Nunnally's words. She closes her eyes and hugs Nunnally back gently. "I'm sorry, Nunnally, I'm so sorry. I… I promise I will never throw my life away like that ever again."
Cornelia then turns to her knight. "And while we're at it, I should apologize to you as well, my knight."
Guilford immediately sits straight. "No, not at all, Your Highness. I was the one who should apologize to you for not being able to back you up when you most needed…"
Kallen sees how upset Nunnally becomes upon seeing the scene and feels a great deal of guilt filling her heart. She can't help but apologizes to Nunnally. "Nunnally, I am sorry, I…"
However, Cornelia shakes her head. "Don't apologize, Lady Kouzuki. You were doing your job and there was nothing wrong in what you did in fighting me."
"But, but I…" Kallen is frustrated that she has no way to expel the guilt that has filled her heart.
"…It's Big Brother's fault," Nunnally suddenly says to Kallen.
Everyone in the auditorium is shocked. Did Nunnally just say her Big Brother was at fault?
Nunnally continues. "Kallen, Big Brother tricked and coerced you and the other members of the Black Knights into fighting Big Sister's elite army at Narita without letting you know who you were fighting against and who you were fighting for beforehand; he engineered a landslide and showed no remorse to the innocent lives being taken away by it due to his miscalculation; and he forced Big Sister to the verge of death while mocking her. He was clearly the one at fault there."
Tohdoh joins in as well. "As a military commander myself, I'd like to point out that contrary to what Lelouch had said, Princess Cornelia had not a trace of cowardice in her assault plans against the JLF; it was a battle based on pure military strength, and she did not utilize any underhanded methods at all by any acceptable military standards. She also fought honourably against Kouzuki; I would have done the same had I been in Her Highness' position. I might have been her enemy, but that would not prevent me to vouch for her integrity as a soldier." Cornelia turns and nods to Tohdoh to show her appreciation, and Tohdoh nods back to convey the meaning "not at all" to the warrior princess.
Next to Anya, Shirley sinks deep into thought. 'Lulu, why would you want to hurt your elder sister like that? I don't know much about politics or the military, but Princess Cornelia is as honourable as one could get, as far as I can see. You could have simply communicated with her and sought her help, and I am sure she would have only been too happy to do so. Why?'
Just as Cornelia was ready to launch her final attack, a blast suddenly occurred at point 9, stunning all those present. After the smoke was cleared, a Lancelot holding its VARIS particle rifle appeared and quickly jumped and landed in front of Cornelia's Gloucester.
"Viceroy, are you alright?" Suzaku asked respectfully, "I have been sent to assist you."
"Special Corp? Who authorized you...?" Cornelia was surprised at the Lancelot's appearance at this juncture.
Tamaki and Ohgi, who accompanied Lelouch in their Burai Knightmare Frames, were shocked to see the Knightmare Frame that finished all of them with apparent ease back in Shinjuku. Lelouch was furious that his checkmate against Cornelia was nullified by a rule-breaker. "Again? It's him again?" Lelouch quickly raised his Burai's machine gun and shot at Cornelia's disarmed Gloucester, but all the bullets were blocked by Lancelot's Blaze Luminous shield.
"Guren MK II, destroy that unit immediately! It's interfered with us enough!" Lelouch ordered Kallen while still being furious.
Kallen complied and started to fight Suzaku. She dodged Suzaku's VARIS (Variable Ammunition Repulsion Impact Spitfire) shots and MVS (Maser Vibration Sword) slashes while grabbing the Lancelot's left land cruiser with its metallic claw as Lancelot was throwing a left kick at the Guren. Suzaku immediately abandoned the land cruiser as soon as he saw Kallen activating her Guren's Radiant Wave Surger to cause it to explode.
Seeing the Guren being kept busy, Cornelia grabbed the opportunity and ordered Suzaku, "I'll leave that to you. I shall defeat Zero!" She piloted her armless Gloucester towards Zero's Burai and shot her slash harken.
"Now, you'll pay for Shinjuku!" Kallen cried as she piloted her Guren to engage with Suzaku's Lancelot. Suzaku was amazed at how the Guren was able to dodge his attack. "Huh? It's as agile as the Lancelot?"
The two 7th generation Knightmare Frames began to engage in what could be described as a fast-pace Knightmare Frame MMA-style combat, using both advanced weapons and bare machine arms and legs to try to bring down the other. After a few exchanges of quick punches and ferocious kicks, Suzaku fired his VARIS but Kallen blocked the shot using the Radiant Wave Surger, before the cliff collapsed and causing the Guren to fell down. Lancelot retreated and hurried back to Cornelia's Gloucester.
"Argh!" Kallen exclaimed as her machine slid down the cliff, damaging the Guren's metallic claw in the process.
"Ohgi, How's the Guren?" Lelouch demanded.
"The right hand is wrecked. We've got to fix it," Ohgi dutifully reported.
"Grrrr… Retreat!" Lelouch ordered, understanding that without his ace pilot, he stood no chance in defeating the cursed white Knightmare Frame, "All Black Knights units, move to your escape points! This is becoming a war of attrition. Retreat!" Lelouch himself pulled his Burai up the cliff and escaped as he spoke.
On the other side, Cornelia's Gloucester ran out of fuel and halted midway in the valley. She was visibly pissed at the situation she was in.
"Go chase Zero," she ordered Suzaku.
"But…" Suzaku hesitated.
"It's just that my energy filler was drained. Now go!" Cornelia bellowed.
"Right!" Suzaku obeyed and quickly turned around to chase after Zero.
Meanwhile, Tamaki and Ohgi were escorting the damaged Guren to the escape point.
"Hey, are we really gonna retreat?" Tamaki asked unsurely.
"We've achieved a technical victory here, so…" Ohgi explained.
"And so we have no choice but to use the JLF as our baiting shield for us to escape?" Tamaki said sarcastically.
"I don't like how you put it, but…" Kallen conceded that they were doing exactly what Tamaki had just said.
"Right, people aren't just pieces in a chess game," Ohgi said, "Zero wouldn't think like that. If he did, he'd end up using us as pawns as well. However that's not possible: his rage against Britannia is real. A person who knows rage would also know sorrow."
"How wrong the Prime Minister was," Rakshata comments on Ohgi's reasoning back then. "The rage against Britannia part may be real, but Lelouch ended up taking the Britannian throne himself despite saying that he would obliterate it, and he treated everyone as chess pieces on his chessboard. He was only concerned about whether the Guren was still functioning and never asked if Kallen was fine after the Guren crashed down the hill. This is especially in sharp contrast to how Princess Cornelia was more concerned about the whereabouts of her officers than her own safety when Kallen caused that artificial landslide, despite how Lord Guilford kept pleading her to fall back from danger."
Ohgi and Kallen both tighten their grips as they hear Rakshata's comment. Ohgi even wants to punch his past-self in the face: they were exactly being used as Lelouch's pawns! How naive was he to think the exact opposite?
"Thank God everyone's fine," Nunnally is relieved to see that everyone she cares about was fine in that battle. Both Cornelia and Kaguya cup Nunnally's hands on both sides.
"It was also a slap on the face of Emperor Charles," Tohdoh suddenly comments, shifting the topic of discussion, "for all his rant about Britannians being superior to other races, neither of the only two 7th generation Knightmare Frames at that time were piloted by pure-blooded Britannians."
The others among the audience nod in agreement. It was quite ironic that the supposedly most evolved Britannians could not pilot either the Lancelot or Guren to their full capacity as a Japanese and a half-Britannian could.
Just as Ohgi was reasoning why Zero would not use them as his pawns, Zero was in big trouble: he had been chased by the Lancelot, his Burai destroyed, and eventually being cornered by the cursed white machine as he was left with no way to escape.
"Calling the Special Corp head trailer, I have found Zero," Suzaku calmly reported and raised the VARIS to hold Zero at gunpoint, "I am going in for the capture."
And then Suzaku saw something he thought impossible. The lime-haired girl he had rescued from the capsule suddenly appeared in front of the Lancelot!
"Stop now. Don't even think about hurting him!" C.C. warned as she slowly walked towards the Lancelot, placing her right palm on the machine.
"Wait. What are you doing?" Lelouch asked incredulously, "That's a Knightmare Frame you are challenging!"
"It'd be a problem if you die," C.C. said as she activated her Code power, throwing Suzaku into a sea of images, "It'll be indirect contact but, it's worth a try."
"Hey, are you using Geass on the pilot?" Lelouch demanded as he walked towards C.C.
"I'm just feeding him some shock images," C.C. explained, "I can't tell what he's seeing, though. Anyway, now's the time to get away!"
"Stop joking!" Lelouch scowled as he tapped on C.C.'s left shoulder, "I'm not going to owe you favours… Huh?"
C.C. was shocked when Lelouch tapped her shoulder, immediately turning back to him. "Stop it, not now! Uhhh...!" However, it was too late; C.C.'s Code power began to run berserk and Lelouch saw images he had never seen before.
"This… this is?" Lelouch was shocked to see the images.
"Stop. Stop it. Stay out of my mind!" C.C. exclaimed as tears fell down from her golden eyes. "Stop it. Why…? I'm… being defiled…"
A string of images were shown on the screen: a woman was being tied up and rocks threw onto her by an angry crowd; a nun with the Geass Sigil on her forehead praying; a despaired C.C. knelt in a river naked, a horrific scar clearly seen on her left breast and under breast; a blue-dressed Marianne vi Britannia standing on the top of the staircase inside the Aries Villa; a shocked Genbu Kururugi, the last pre-war Prime Minister of Japan, being stabbed in the heart by a young Suzaku; as well as various images seemingly related to religion and the spiritual world.
"I… I had no choice but to do it!" Suzaku yelled as he saw the image of him stabbing his father to death. Suddenly, C.C.'s Code power stopped and allowed her to regain her sense, while the Lancelot went berserk and started to shoot randomly.
"What has just happened?" Lelouch couldn't understand what he'd just seen.
"Idiot. Get away now!" C.C. stood in front of Lelouch and shouted, shielding him from the rocks splashed by Lancelot's random shooting. "Ugh!" a sharp rock pierced right between and above C.C.'s breasts, and C.C. grunted in pain.
"C.C.!" Lelouch exclaimed.
"Run! Ugh!" C.C. urged Lelouch to leave immediately as she kept taking the damage in pain.
"Wait, Prime Minister Genbu Kururugi was killed by his son?" Chiba asks incredulously. "I thought he had committed suicide to protest against military actions against Britannia?" Ohgi, Tamaki, Kallen and even Kaguya are shocked at the revelation. Suzaku actually killed his father during the war with Britannia?
"Yes, Prime Minister Kururugi was killed by Suzaku-kun," Tohdoh confirms, finally getting the long-hid truth out of his chest, "Lord Kirihara and other senior members of the Kururugi Cabinet had decided to bury the truth to prevent a drop in morale… and to protect Suzaku-kun from harm."
"That son of a bitch!" Kallen exclaims, "Was he really that determined to become a lap dog of Britannia at such a young age? What was he thinking?"
Lloyd thinks to himself silently. 'Killing his father at such a young age and bearing the guilt throughout his adolescence with no external intervention or help… I see why he had always been so reckless when piloting the Lancelot now. Perhaps he was actually seeking death through a KIA.'
Zero tightens his grips and his shoulder was shaking. 'I can't explain it or I'd risk revealing myself now. I am sorry… I had been extremely naive back then.'
While also shocked at the revelation of the true reason behind the death of the previous Prime Minister of Japan, Cornelia and Nunnally are more concerned about another image shown on the screen.
"Lady Marianne? C.C. knew her?" Cornelia asks unbelievably.
Guilford ponders for a moment and decides to offer his views. "Princess, it seems to me that the images just shown were related to C.C., Kururugi and Lelouch: the images of Genbu Kururugi being killed should be Kururugi's memory; all those religious-like images should be C.C.'s memory; and the image of Lady Marianne standing at the top of the staircase in Aries Villa should be Lelouch's memory."
"I see…" Cornelia considers her knight's deduction. "That's a very reasonable deduction. So the 'shock images' C.C. mentioned were most likely nothing more than a string of past memories of the people involved under the effect of her Geass power. But now I am curious: those images seemingly belong to C.C. looked as if they were from the medieval times, especially the one where people were throwing rocks at her, as if they were stoning a witch declared by an Inquisition Court to death…"
Both Nunnally and Guilford gasp at Cornelia's observation. "Your Highness, according to what we've seen so far, C.C. was immortal… that means she could theoretically be from the medieval ages and have lived until now," Guilford says.
'Just who's this C.C.?' Cornelia frowns as she finds the mysterious lime-haired girl becoming even more mysterious as she learns more about her.
"Your Highness! I am coming to you right now!" Guilford exclaimed as he had finally got rid of Tohdoh and his Holy Swords.
"Guilford, relay my message to all units: prepare to retreat," Cornelia calmly instructed his knight, who was surprised by such an order from Britannia's "Goddess of Victory". "There's no reason to waste the lives of any more of my men. Stay in formation and fall back cautiously," Cornelia continued, before bitterly admitting that she had been defeated this time.
On the other hand, the Black Knights were exhilarated. They had defeated Cornelia's army, one of the best in the seemingly undefeatable Empire!
"Say, Britannia sure had its hands full just dealing with the JLF!" Tamaki raised his left fist half way into the air and says.
"Yeah, that gave us the chance we needed to escape…" Ohgi agreed.
Kallen, however, was worried about something else. "Hey, where is Zero? I can't raise his Burai. You don't think he's been captured, do you?"
"And that's all the difference in the world we need to know," Gino observes.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Rivalz asks.
"You see how Lord Guilford, General Darlton and everyone in the Britannian army cared about Princess Cornelia, in which such feelings were reciprocated by Her Highness, who equally cared about the lives of her men; whereas Lelouch didn't seem to care one bit about the survival of his troops, and neither were his troops, save for Kallen, cared about their leader's survival after the battle." Gino points out.
Rivalz, Shirley and Kallen all cringe at Gino's observation. Rivalz and Shirley are mentally comparing how Cornelia and Lelouch treated their respective soldiers, and they both conclude that Cornelia definitely trumped over Lelouch as a worthy leader to follow; whereas Kallen is once again saddened by the seemingly one-sided feeling between Lelouch and herself.
'Gino's right, Lelouch didn't care one bit about my survival right after the battle with Suzaku. Why did I not realize that until now? Looking at the whole battle from a third-person perspective, it is clear that Her Highness was a much worthier leader to follow than Lelouch was. I wonder how would I choose if I had the chance to redo things all over again, now that I am no longer blindly anti-Britannian, and that I know how Lelouch really thought about the Black Knights…'
Meanwhile, inside a dark, unnamed cave, Lelouch was taking care of a fainted C.C., cleaning her wounds and letting her rested.
'This woman… she is not a human, after all? Her wounds recovered in ways beyond normal, and she was definitely shot in head in Shinjuku, and yet…' Lelouch muses, 'Since Clovis confined her for his private experiments, she is most likely not connected with Britannia. Her vital signs are at human levels. I'd better analyze the blood sample later and photograph the wounds.'
Just as Lelouch was thinking what to do with C.C.'s blood sample, C.C. moved and started to whisper something.
"Huh?" Lelouch got closer to C.C. to hear what she was saying.
DRIP. A water droplet dripped from the hanging stalactite down to the lake.
"What?" Lelouch pulled himself back, with a surprised expression on his face.
"You finally called me by my real name," C.C. sleep-talked with a genuine smile on her face.
"Huh? What is C.C.'s real name?" Shirley wants to know. Not far from her, Milly, Kallen and even Rivalz show similar expression on their face – what is C.C.'s real name?
Back at the G1, Cornelia and Guilford were walking down the corridor.
"So, Zero escaped again," Cornelia said.
"It seems that Zero slipped away as JLF hammered our defences into confusion," Guilford reported.
"Despicable. Using someone else to cover his rear," Cornelia snorted at Zero's cowardice before continuing, "Oh, what about Kururugi?"
"We have retrieved him. We had to wait till his energy filler run out to finally stop him," Guilford answered.
"Wait? Was there a problem with his machine?" Cornelia inquired.
"Possibly, it went berserk," Guilford explained.
Inside the Lancelot, a visibly distressed Suzaku was shown to have his hands trembling uncontrollably, while Euphemia was right outside the cockpit of the Lancelot, looking at Suzaku with a worried expression on her beautiful face.
"That shock image had really shaken Suzaku," Anya pities her old colleague.
"Tch! That patricidal fool should be glad that he didn't face any consequence for his sin!" Chiba spats, apparently still mad at the real culprit that caused the collapse of the previous government of Japan, resulting in the proud nation falling into the hands of Britannia so easily.
"So we now know that C.C. is immortal, and her Geass power allows her to send shock images to her target and caused them to become mentally unstable," Rakshata observes.
"Still a lot less damaging and evil than Lelouch's, I'd say," Ohgi says, "At the very least, Kururugi seemed to have recovered afterwards, right? Whereas Lelouch's Geass was downright horrible and people could never recover from it."
Back in the cave, C.C. was finally regaining her conscious. Lelouch threw the white cloth soaked with C.C.'s blood into the lake while informing the awakening C.C. that he had removed the shrapnel from her body and cleaned the wound while facing away from her. However, what came next from C.C. was unexpected to the audience.
"That wasn't necessary," C.C. said in her monotone and without a trace of appreciation for Lelouch's help, "there was no point in protecting me at all. Your pride always gets in the way at the most ridiculous moments," she chided as she held Zero's cape tight to cover her naked body.
Lelouch was annoyed by C.C. and turned his head to her, before switching to a smug expression and said, "But then I learned something interesting from it."
DRIP. Another water droplet dripped from the hanging stalactite down to the lake. C.C., for the first time, looked visibly aghast.
"That's your name, isn't it?" Lelouch smirked as if he had found out one of C.C.'s biggest secrets.
C.C. scowled with displeasure. "You have a bad habit of eavesdropping."
Lelouch turned away from the lime-haired girl. "Well, it's a good name. It's a lot more human than 'C.C.'"
"What a joke," C.C. said in a sarcastic yet sad tone, "why would I need to be like human? After all, I… I… I've forgotten everything, every single thing. So what's the use of it? A human name?" tears fell down C.C.'s face as she touched the scar under her left chest.
Lelouch stayed silent for a moment before continuing, "It's a good time for me to say this: you've save me earlier today. You did that before and then gave me Geass. That's why I'll only say this once," Lelouch then turned away from C.C. and paused briefly, before finally whispering, "Thank you."
C.C. was pleasantly surprised by Lelouch's show of appreciation, tears accumulating at the bottom of her eyes. "No one has ever thanked me before," she said in a soft and gentle tone, "Well then, can you show your appreciation to me once more? Say it again like you did before."
"Huh? Oh, that name?" Lelouch asked.
"Just this once with tenderness like you treasure it in your heart," C.C. continued.
Lelouch stared back for a moment before closing his eyes and gave up, "Very well then."
C.C. lowered her face with a puppy-like expression, expecting to hear her long-lost name once again from the raven-haired boy.
The screen showed Lelouch saying C.C.'s real name, but the sound was muted.
"Was that fine?" Lelouch asked.
"It was bad. It was completely bad," C.C. chuckled, "It wasn't tender. There was no honesty or sympathy in it. You spoke it oddly and worst of all, it was cold."
"You're such a picky girl," Lelouch sighed, but a smile creeped up his face.
"Exactly. That's why I go by the name C.C.," the lime-haired girl smiled.
"Wait, so what is C.C.'s real name?" Shirley is not satisfied with not hearing C.C.'s real name. She is dying to know what C.C.'s name is, yet the disc actually mutes it?
"Damn, I guess C.C. edited it out when she made the discs," Kallen snorts. 'C.C. is showing everything behind the scene, yet she is still keeping her real name a secret? What a coward!' the red-haired girl hisses inwardly.
"Well, at least we now know that her name consists of 5 syllables, seeing how Lelouch mouthed it," Milly says. "What do you think it was?"
"Ce-cil Ca-the-rine"? Shirley makes a guess.
"Well, C.C. said 'my name' in singular, so it should be one name instead of two," Milly reasons.
"Chic-ken Cas-se-role?" Rivalz makes his guess, only to get cold stares from his friends. "Hey! I've got five syllables there, right?" Rivalz protests.
However, his friends ignore him completely and try to come up with another guess. "How about Caliburia? Ca-li-bu-ri-a?" Kallen guesses.
"That seems to be a possible name of C.C.," Milly considers.
Meanwhile, Nunnally is trying hard to recall what she saw in her head during her Big Brother's last moment to see if she can find out C.C.'s real name, but to no avail. 'I can't recall how Big Brother pronounced Ms C.C.'s name, perhaps because I was too shocked to learn about the truth behind his plan with Suzaku that I didn't pay attention to that part of his memory. Since Kallen got the discs from Ms C.C., I wonder if I can ever meet her again and ask her to tell me her name in confidence?'
Somewhere in a town, a lorry was running on the road before halted before a teal-haired man in military uniform, using a cane to keep himself up. The military man fell onto his knees right before the lorry.
"Tch! A soldier again?" a researcher sitting on the lorry seat hissed.
"No wonder our battalions fell apart," another researcher added, as the third researcher, who was also the driver of the lorry, pressed the horn in annoyance.
It turned out that the military man was none other than a wounded Jeremiah Gottwald. His right hand was holding a wooden cane and his left covering his left eye.
"I am not Orange," Jeremiah said with a desperate tone, before reacting to the lorry's horn and yelled hysterically, "Zero…!" He then fell onto the floor, unconscious.
"Poor Jerry," Anya says, although her face remains emotionless as usual. Next to her, Shirley also cringes as she sees Jeremiah collapsed and lost all his hope due to Lelouch's actions. 'How could Lulu do that to someone as nice as Jeremiah?' the orange-haired beauty muses in disbelief.
Cornelia looks at the miserable Jeremiah on the screen. "Guilford, I can say for sure that Gottwald had been loyal to us and did not purposefully leak our plans at the Narita Mountains."
Guilford nods in agreement. "Indeed, Your Highness. We shall then see what made Lord Gottwald to ultimately decide to switch side, after having suffered so much on Lelouch's hands."
A worried Kallen parked her Guren at the entrance of the unnamed cave and rushed into it upon receiving Lelouch's phone call. Lelouch was in his full attire as Zero, informing C.C. that someone was coming to pick them up.
"Zero, are you Okay? The others went on ahead and… Who's that?" Kallen ran into the cave, asking whether Zero was fine before spotting an unknown lime-haired girl in a white straightjacket standing behind her masked leader.
"Oh, you needn't worry. She's a very important partner of mine," Zero assured his ace pilot.
"Huh?" Kallen looked surprised before staring C.C. suspiciously and, equally detectable, jealously.
"C.C. and Lelouch sitting in a cave, while Kallen running into them, J-E-A-L-O-U-S," Milly hums while smiling slyly.
"Hey! It's not like that!" Kallen blushes and quickly protests to Milly's silly song, "I was just suspicious of her because she seemed to be coming out of nowhere!"
"Well, romance rivals do usually come out of nowhere," Milly isn't going to throw this chance of teasing Kallen away anytime soon.
"Argh! Why do you always like to tease others so much?" Kallen is frustrated and sinks back to her seat. 'I was not jealous of C.C. at all! Probably not…' the red-haired girl muses undecidedly.
Meanwhile, Cornelia muses. 'Well, it seems Lelouch did care about this C.C. After all the horrible display of him completely lacking empathy towards others, such was a welcomed change, however minor it might have been.'
