Chapter 14: "Initiation" XII – Younger Sister or Best Friend?

Ohgi sat on a big, black box inside a warehouse owned by the Black Knights, opening a bento box. It was rice with an assortment of vegetables, egg, meatball and Vienna sausages made like little and cute octopuses.

'That woman…' Ohgi smiled as he looked at his bento. To think that a Britannian woman was making him a lovely bento…

"Excuse me…" a senior member of the Black Knights sounded out from the side.

Ohgi tensed and immediately closed his bento box, "Hmm?! No, this isn't what you think!"

"Damn, you lucky bastard!" Tamaki is so jealous of Ohgi right now. He is of course happy for his friend, but dang, how come an average-looking dude like Ohgi could just randomly pick up a beautiful, competent and loving woman from somewhere and effortlessly made her his girlfriend? This is not some "Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Women in a Rebellion?" or "HanMachi" bullshit – reality doesn't work like that!

"Uh… Prime Minister Ohgi? Sir, can I call you master? You have to teach me how to do that!" Rivalz looks at Ohgi in awe. Sure, he had witnessed countless times when Lelouch effortlessly made all the girls nearby going crazy on him, but that was because Lelouch had an unbelievably good-looking face, dangerously dazzling purple eyes, demonically high intelligence and impeccable manners due to his imperial upbringing. By comparison, Ohgi is by all counts an average man, having no particular outstanding qualities, yet he was still able to woo the beautiful Coach Villetta without much effort, a woman who, in Rivalz' mind, would be considered as a cool beauty. Rivalz is painfully aware that he is pretty average when compared to Lelouch, and seeing how Ohgi was successful in his love life has given him enormous hope in his quest for the attention and affection from the blue-haired boy's long time crush, a popular TV anchor and heiress to the Ashford Academy no less.

"Uhm… well, that is… err…" Ohgi stutters, not knowing what to say. 'I really hadn't done anything in particular!' the tall Japanese man screams in his mind. Meanwhile, Villetta blushes at being teased by her former students, mainly Shirley and Milly.

"…recorded," Anya takes a photo of the blushed Villetta.

"…We have visitors. They were introduced to us by Kyoto," the senior member said without paying much attention to Ohgi's comical facial expression. The visitors turned out to be the Four Holy Swords. Ohgi immediately stood up and greeted them.

"I'll get straight to the point," Ryoga Senba, the oldest member of the Holy Swords began in his husky voice, "we've come to you today to ask for your help."

"How do you mean?" Ohgi didn't understand.

"Lieutenant Colonel Tohdoh has been apprehended. He sacrificed himself so that we could escape," Senba explained.

The scene then cut to Ashford Academy, and Lelouch was speaking on the phone with Ohgi while standing on the staircase. "I see. We'll help them. The Black Knights fight for justice; there's nothing odd about that. We'll use assembly method B-13 and take the section Knightmare Frames via course 18, you can have Diethard handle it. Also, alert those who are to rendezvous with us," Lelouch instructed Ohgi before cutting off the line.

'Splendid! To think that an ace card such as Tohdoh would actually come my way!' Lelouch mused as he smiled.

"Yea, fighting for justice my ass," Tamaki spats. Now that everyone has heard what Lelouch's true thoughts about the Black Knights and the Japanese, even someone like Tamaki knows that Lelouch was simply bullshitting whenever the raven-haired boy pulled up the justice card to justify the actions of the Black Knights.

"Senba-san, Urabe-san, Asahina…" Chiba, the lone survivor of the Four Holy Swords, looks at her deceased comrades on the screen sadly, "only if you could survive to witness the independence of Japan from Britannia…"

It was a nice day in Ashford Academy. Lelouch, Suzaku and Nunnally were sitting in the forecourt of a nice building, enjoying the weather. Lelouch sat by himself and was reading a book, while Suzaku and Nunnally were chatting as Nunnally was drawing on an electronic draw board.

"Huh? Frog? As in those things that sit on lily pads and go croak?" Nunnally asked as Suzaku was reminiscing his time as a child, catching crawdads by tying a string to a frog's back leg.

"Yeah, but in Japanese, they go 'kero-kero, kero-kero'". Suzaku tried to describe to Nunnally what frogs were.

"Huh? Kero?" the blind girl tried to repeat the voice of a Japanese frog, giggling.

'If things continue at this pace and keep proceeding according to plan, I won't be able to stay with Nunnally any longer. When the time comes, there has to be a person who can protect Nunnally. The best scenario would be that person is the reason for Nunnally to live. If it's Suzaku…' Lelouch glanced at Suzaku as he was musing his next steps in creating a gentler world for Nunnally.

Suzaku noticed Lelouch was glancing at him and asked, "Hmm? What's up?"

Lelouch turned and said in a serious face, "Suzaku, would you…"

"Suzaku!" suddenly, a female voice from afar interjected. It was Cecile, running towards the three teenagers from the outside, "Lloyd's finding you for an urgent matter!"

"Who's that?" Lelouch whispered to Suzaku as the blue-haired woman was getting closer to the trio.

"She's from the military," Suzaku whispered back.

Cecile stopped right in front of the forecourt and looked at Lelouch and Nunnally while asking Suzaku, "Your friends?" Suzaku answered in the positive.

"I'm sorry, but I need to pull Suzaku away from you for a while," Cecile apologized to Lelouch and Nunnally as the blind girl said goodbye to her friend.

"Suzaku, when you're back, I have something I'd like to discuss with you. It's… important," Lelouch said in a serious face again.

"Uh-oh, seeing you with that serious face makes me nervous," Suzaku chuckles, "I'll see you later then." Suzaku then ran off with Cecile.

"Well, it seems that Suzaku's really important to them. I'm glad," Nunnally said softly, smiling. Lelouch turned and looked at his younger sister.

Unbeknownst to him, a seemingly worried C.C. gazed at Lelouch behind the corner of the house.

Nunnally stares at the screen and she feels nostalgic to the simpler times at Ashford Academy. Gone were the days where all she needed to worry was whether her Big Brother would come back home to have dinner with her.

Zero is surprised to learn that Lelouch actually wanted him to protect Nunnally at such an early stage of all the events that have occurred in the past two years. 'I have no idea Lelouch wanted me to do that all the way back then. I wonder why he hadn't followed it through, though. Or had I missed something in between?'

Cornelia sees how Lelouch was, in Britannian terms, finding a knight for Nunnally. She turns to her younger sister, "Would you have picked Kururugi as your knight if given the chance?"

Nunnally thinks for a moment. "I think I would. I adored him as a close childhood friend I have acquainted during the most difficult time in my life. Of course, I was not a princess anymore back then, and even if I still were, I would have no way to know whether Suzaku would be willing to serve a Britannian princess, but I'd be happy if Big Brother, Suzaku and myself could stay together forever."

Cornelia smiles and jokes, "And to think that Euphy had chosen him to be her knight… Kururugi was certainly popular among the younger Britannian princess population."

"Yes, we fought to be Big Brother's wife when we were children, and we fought, unknowingly, for the same man to be our knight. We seem to be destined to be rivals on issues related to men," Nunnally giggles.

At the back of the auditorium, Cecile still can't believe she had accidentally bumped into the future Emperor and Empress unknowingly. "Who would have expected to see two members of the Britannian Imperial Family sitting casually in front of a house in a school in Area 11?"

"Well, the same goes to discovering a future Knight of the Round," Lloyd comments, "and while we're at it, the creator of the F.L.E.I.J.A. as well. Area 11 was truly an interesting place."

It was night time. A Britannian jailer walked through a dark corridor and finally arrived at Tohdoh's cell. A wordless Tohdoh in white straightjacket closed his eyes and knelt inside his cell.

"Your executioner has been changed," the jailer informed the JLF lieutenant colonel, "It's going to be Warrant Officer Suzaku Kururugi. You ought to be glad that the executioner is someone you know," the jailer said sarcastically as Tohdoh slowly opened his eyes upon hearing the news.

Suddenly, the wall behind the jailer collapsed and buried the jailer alive before he could have reacted to it, destroying the bars of Tohdoh's cell in the process. A stunned Tohdoh saw the Guren and a customized Burai Knightmare Frame standing right in front of him. A masked man was standing in the opened cockpit of the Burai.

"Zero…" Tohdoh murmured as he recognized the masked man.

"Kyoshirou Tohdoh," Zero greeted, "the only Japanese who, seven years ago, brought the mighty Britannian forces to their knees in defeat."

"You mean Itsukushima? You want me to perform a miracle for you as well?" Tohdoh asked calmly.

"That was no miracle," Zero refuted, "It ended in victory because it was based on excellent intelligence work. That's why I want you to join me."

"That's enough. As Major General Katase, the man I pledged my loyalty to, no longer lives, I shall…" Tohdoh was tired of fighting against Britannia again, now that his liege no longer lived.

"Don't be a coward!" Zero snapped, shocking Tohdoh. "You must take responsibility! Responsibility for the miracle that you created!"

The present Tohdoh is infuriated to seeing the scene for two reasons: that Zero had the audacity to come before him after killing Katase, the man Tohdoh has pledged loyalty to; and that despite Zero's cunningness, he was still right that Tohdoh would have to take responsibility of giving the Japanese a tint of hope due to the "miracle" he created at Itsukushima. His fists are shaking as he thought back how he pledged his loyalty to his liege's murderer unknowingly.

"To think that we went to the murderer of Major General Katase and sought his help to rescue Kyoshirou, even if we had no other options at that moment…" Chiba still can't believe they had unwittingly enlisted the help from the man who eliminated the JLF and subsequently worked under him.

Cornelia and Guilford look at how Leouch broke into the prison to rescue and recruit Tohdoh into the Black Knights. "We should have increased prison security back then," Cornelia says to her knight, "apparently, I have underestimated the Black Knights' motivation and ability to rescue Tohdoh."

"Your Highness, there wasn't much you could've done since we lost so many units at the Narita Mountains, and you've to diverge your effort in dealing with all the other resistance groups across Area 11 while defending the Area from possible aggression from the Chinese Federation," Guilford tries to offer some console to his sometimes overly responsible liege, "I believe we have done all what we could have done back then already, and Lelouch just got benefited from our sufferings due to that surprise attack at the Narita Mountains."

The warrior princess sighs; she knows her knight is trying his best to make her feel better. However, what Guilford has just said would still mean that she was still responsible for the success of the Black Knights because she had been too confident at the Battle of Narita, ultimately resulting in the considerable loss of units there. Cornelia speaks no more about it, though, not wanting to undo the kindness her knight has tried so hard to muster up for her. She instead gives an appreciative gaze and a smile to Guilford before turning back to the screen.

The Four Holy Swords piloted their Gekka Knightmare Frames to break through the Britannian defence at the prison and escorted a lorry into the prison quad, while the Guren escorted Lelouch's customized Burai out of the prison cell area to meet the lorry. The lorry's cover opened, revealing a customized Gekka equipped with a Brake Sword instead of the Revolving Blade Swords carried by the standardized Gekka Knightmare Frames. Lelouch's Burai's cockpit opened as the four Gekkas gathered around it and have the cockpits opened as well, the Four Holy Swords eagerly greeting the stoic Japanese man who stood straight on the Burai's cockpit. Tohdoh thanked his loyal subordinates for the trouble they've gone through to get him back out of prison, and instructed the Holy Swords as he jumped and entered his customized Gekka, "we shall eliminate the remaining forces here!"

"Roger!" the Holy Swords responded in unison as they got into motion.

'Now all the tasks at hand have been cleared, and Nunnally's knight has already been chosen. That leaves only…' Lelouch mused as he smiled briefly, before suddenly seeing an incoming slash harken flying to his Burai, only to be blocked by the Guren. It turned out to be a lone Lancelot approaching Lelouch, Tohdoh and the Holy Swords.

"Damn! Why's he here?" Kallen cursed; she still could not forget how she narrowly lost to that damn white machine back in the Narita Mountains.

"Well, how convenient — the one problem left to contend with has come here on his own," Lelouch smirked as he saw the Lancelot showing up. With the Guren and the help from Tohdoh and the Holy Swords, it was time for him to get rid of this annoying obstacle once and for all.

"And here we go, round two with the 'Knight of Error'," Kallen hisses as she realizes what is going to be shown next.

"Round two?" Tianzi asks curiously.

"Yes, he has been such a nuisance since the beginning, blocking us each and every step on our way," Kallen recalls all the confrontations she had with the white grim reaper of Britannia. "You can see that at this point, we have already defeated every Britannian units standing in our way already, but then this guy, a Japanese no less, came out and blocked us from rescuing General Tohdoh. What a pain in the ass he was!"

"It's actually ironic that the one who posed the greatest threat to the Black Knights in their fight against the Holy Britannian Empire was not even a Britannian, but one of those being ruled over and oppressed," Kaguya adds in.

Gino also joins in the conversation. "Yea, it's such a blow to all those propaganda back then, about how superior Britannians were compared to all the other races and ethnicities."

The Lancelot rushed to fight the Holy Swords with its VARIS particle rifle, MVS and Blaze Luminous shield, but unlike all his previous battles besides the one with the Guren, the Gekkas stood their ground and kept their pace up with the Lancelot.

"They're skilled fighters," Suzaku realized he was dealing with some veteran insurgents this time.

"AHA! Aren't those new enemy models amazing?" Lloyd spoke with Cecile as he was observing the battle inside a faraway office building using his binoculars.

"So that's the one? The white Knightmare Frame that's given such trouble to Zero?" at the same time, Rakshata was observing the battle through live video images shown inside the Black Knights' hideout as well.

Lelouch informed Tohdoh that he had a plan to defeat the Lancelot, and Tohdoh decided to instruct the Four Holy Swords to obey Lelouch's commands. After the Holy Swords acknowledged and obeyed Tohdoh's command, Lelouch immediately ordered all units to distance themselves from the white machine.

"Its initial attack is always straight on and never feints the first move. Once you dodge that attack, he immediately moves to avoid your offensive. Check the data I'm sending you…" Lelouch passed out a series of instructions as the Guren and the Gekkas dodged the Lancelot's attack, before yelling, "Point S-5-7!"

Asahina's Gekka appeared from the corner of a building and rushed to point S-5-7, taking Suzaku by surprise. "Hey, he's really coming this way," Asahina smirked. The Lancelot took aim at Asahina's Gekka with its VARIS rifle as fast as it could, but Asahina was quicker and manoeuvred his Gekka to hit the VARIS rifle off the Lancelot's right hand.

"Right! So now the next move will be falling back to the rear. Point X-2-3!" Lelouch instructed. Tohdoh's customized Gekka emerged from the corner of a building near Point X-2-3 as soon as the Lancelot landed at the point.

"And with that… check!" Lelouch declared, with confidence oozing out.

However, the situation proved to be a bit more complicated than playing chess: even though Tohdoh was a master swordsman himself and his Gekka launched the attack swiftly, the Lancelot was somehow able to react to it as its pilot read through Tohdoh's attack, thereby dodging Tohdoh's fatal blow and only allowed the Gekka's Break Sword to pierce through the upper part of the Lancelot's cockpit.

"My sword technique was read?" Tohdoh was surprised. "However...!" the customized Gekka's Break Sword sliced through Lancelot's cockpit horizontally, removing its cover.

"Oh shit! The Lancelot doesn't have an ejection block on it!" Lloyd cried out as he saw the dangerous situation Suzaku's currently in.

"What? We still haven't installed it on the Lancelot?" Cecile exclaimed with disbelief. How come such an important component still hasn't been installed in the most advanced Knightmare Frame of the Empire?

And so the identity of the mysterious pilot of the Lancelot was finally revealed to the long frustrated Lelouch: it was none other than his best friend, the son of the last pre-war Prime Minister of Japan and Lelouch's handpicked knight for Nunnally, Honorary Britannian Warrant Officer Suzaku Kururugi.

"Oh, I remember that night," Ohgi recalls, "I was shocked when I saw the pilot of the Lancelot was a Japanese."

"Damn right! Who'd have thought that the Brits would have put a Japanese to pilot their best machine?" Tamaki chimes in.

"Even the Six Houses of Kyoto were shocked to learn that Suzaku was the pilot of the Lancelot," Kaguya says, "we knew that he had abandoned Japan and joined Britannia a long time ago, but never in a million years we'd expect him to beat the odds, rising above all the expendable Honorary Britannian troops and actually became a Knightmare Frame pilot in the Britannian army, not to mention that he had been piloting such an advanced model."

"Well, that didn't matter now. Besides, I think we can all expect to see how Lelouch would start planning to get rid of Kururugi ruthlessly like how he got rid of everyone else prior without a blink in the eye," Villetta says, predicting what's going to happen next based on what she has seen on the screen so far and her own experience dealing with the Treacherous Emperor while serving as the Captain of the OSI (Office of Secret Intelligence) at Ashford Academy.

Kaguya, Cornelia, Guilford and Gino all nod in agreement, expecting Lelouch to once again cast away his "friend" like how he declared he would "play it dirty", as he had so brazenly put it when taking his time off in the pub with C.C., to get what he wanted. Knowing that Suzaku came out of that battle without a scratch, they are also curious to see how he fought his way out of Lelouch's ruthlessness and survived in the jail-break incident.

Milly, Shirley and Rivalz, however, disagree with Villetta's prediction. Milly and Shirley simply refuse to believe the raven-haired boy, who had been so gentle to his little sister, was a heartless monster, while Rivalz believes he knows better. 'Lelouch was the kind of guy who liked to talk dark but didn't actually mean everything he'd said,' the blue-haired boy muses. He looks at Milly and she nods to him, silently agreeing that Lelouch would not act as Villetta's predicted.

Kallen, on the other hand, is torn: she would have been of the same opinion as her Ashford friends and disagreeing with Villetta, but her much longer and more confusing interactions with Lelouch have greatly shaken her belief upon the revelation on the screen of how Lelouch viewed the Black Knights thus far. Then, a sudden realization strikes her as she recalls what happened next after the revelation of the true identity of the pilot of the Lancelot. 'Lelouch, you…' she muses.

Not too surprising to the present audience, Lelouch was shocked at the revelation of the true identity of the Lancelot's pilot.

"No way…" the young rebel leader refused to believe what he saw. How could he be the pilot of the cursed white machine?

Tohdoh and Kallen didn't fare much better either, as Suzaku was Tohdoh's former student in the art of swordsmanship, and Kallen's classmate at Ashford Academy. The fact that Suzaku was a Japanese also made it even more unbelievable to Kallen that Suzaku was the pilot of her Guren's current archrival in the Britannian army.

After a brief moment of shock, Kallen regained her sense and asked Zero pressingly and unsurely, "Zero, what now? Give us our next instructions! Zero!"

However, Lelouch was immobilized, his facial expression shaking, 'All this time… it was him? Suzaku…!' he mused in disbelief.

On the other hand, Suzaku quickly readjusted himself and continued his fight against the jail breakers, crossing his MVS against Tohdoh's Break Sword. The two machines entered into a sword-locked position.

Suddenly, the customized Gekka's cockpit opened and Tohdoh emerged from it. "Stop it, Suzaku-kun!" Tohdoh spoke up.

Suzaku was shocked to see that it was his former teacher that he was fighting against. However, he quickly changed his facial expression and asked angrily, "So you are bending your principles just to live on?"

"You are disappointed at me?" Tohdoh asked before challenging Suzaku, "Very well, then keep to your schedule and execute me!"

"What the hell was Kururugi saying?" Chiba was furious: how dare he shouted at her husband like that? "It's him who bent his principles as an honourable Japanese and succumbed to the oppressors, eventually becoming one of them!"

"Damn, that kid was full of nonsense!" Tamaki spats. "What the hell did he actually mean, anyway?"

Kaguya frowns as she covertly shoots a disapproval glance towards the present Zero. "I've always known my cousin as a hard-headed idiot; I just didn't expect him to be that hard-headed to the point of having it fossilized."

"Fossil? You mean dinosaurs?" Tianzi asks her friend innocently.

Kaguya smiles and nods, "Yes, Suzaku's a dinosaur. Possibly an Archaeopteryx."

"Archae…" the young Chinese girl is struggling with such a difficult and foreign word her friend suddenly throws at her.

"Lady Sumeragi, it may interest you to know that Archaeopteryx was not exactly a dinosaur, but a transitional form between early theropod dinosaurs and true birds… urgh!" Lloyd suddenly interjects the conversation and flashes his knowledge in palaeontology, only to be stopped by Cecile as she pulls his right ear.

"Hey, when did the Earl of Pudding acquire such taste in palaeontology as well?" Rakshata is surprised that her long-time rival also knows something about ancient biology.

Behind Nunnally, Zero remains visibly unfazed at all the incoming harsh comments from his fellow Japanese against him, though. 'Tohdoh-sensei, I was delusional about using the excuse of following the rules set by Britannia to seek my own salvation for my sins. I'm sorry I said that to you,' he muses.

Inside the customized Burai, Lelouch had still not recovered from the shock. "Why are you there… You can't be, because you… have to be by Nunnally's side…" his voice was shaking with a mixture of shock, sadness, anger and fear.

"Regardless of winning or losing, you will achieve nothing unless you're prepared to sacrifice everything. That goes for countries as well as individuals!" Meanwhile, Tohdoh gave his former student a final lesson before closing Gekka's cockpit to continue fighting. Suzaku acknowledged respectfully and did the same.

On the other hand, Kallen kept pressing for further instructions from her leader. "Zero, do we capture him? Or do we do something else? Zero?"

Seeing Zero not giving any instructions, Senba took over the helm instead and bellowed, "We're destroying the white Knightmare Frame! Got that?"

"Hold on, wait for Zero's orders!" Kallen exclaimed.

However, the Four Holy Swords did not have the same level of loyalty to Zero as Kallen to do that. "We're not waiting! Captain Senba, take Spinning Life or Death Formation!" Chiba instructed.

"Understood!" Senba bellowed as the Holy Swords started to pilot their Gekka to encircle the Lancelot.

"Wait!" Kallen pleaded.

At that, Lelouch finally regained himself and yelled, "Stop! Not now!"

"Don't worry, it's a synchronized four-way attack and he'll never dodge it!" Asahina informed Zero, smiling with confidence and a small hint of despise for the masked man's lack of acumen in actual Knightmare Frame battle.

"Warrant Officer Kururugi, release the harken booster at once!" Lloyd picked up the speaker and instructed Suzaku immediately, "The password is my favourite food!"

"Oh my goodness, just how much do you love that food?" Rakshata sneers at the lavender-haired scientist.

"Well, it's easier to remember that way!" Lloyd responds nonchalantly.

"For the activation of such a destructive weapon? You're out of your mind," Rakshata chides. Seriously, punch in "pudding" and you will be able to destroy things with a 7th generation Knightmare Frame?

"Lloyd, I think you really need to upgrade your sensitivity in matters relating to password safety," Cecile smiles dangerously as she turns to her boss. "When we're back to the Dallas Research Institute, I'll have you to check and change any password that can be easily broken in case your favourite food is known to the intruders," her soft hand once again reaches Lloyd's right ear bead.

Lloyd nods in fear.

Suzaku immediately punched "pudding" into the system, and all of a sudden, four slash harkens were shot out at incredible speed in all directions, disengaging the Revolving Blade Swords the Gekkas were holding in an instant. Tohdoh and the Four Holy Swords were shocked; how could that happen when they were in their invincible Spinning Life or Death Formation, moving at such high speed no less?

However, Suzaku gave them no time to stay stunned, as he quickly manoeuvred his Lancelot to turn around and throw the MVS, stabbing Senba's Gekka and slowed it down considerably. Asahina immediately came before Senba and fired his machine gun to shield and assist the elder Holy Sword. "Are you alright?" Asahina asked concernedly.

"That's an interesting fighting style he's using!" Senba chided as he regained full control of his Gekka.

"Circle around to the left, Asahina!" the ambitious Chiba bellowed. "This time we'll…"

"Stop it!" Zero roared, stunning Kallen and others.

"Stop the fight… we have achieved our objective already…" Zero ordered in a seemingly collected voice, but his body was visibly shaking to the audience, "use escape route 3… and withdraw immediately!"

"I'll give it to him that he's been thorough in his research about the Lancelot," Chiba hisses, "I have to admit that I was too ambitious back then to insist attacking when there's such a fearsome weapon on it."

However, Kallen immediately sees something different: Lelouch's withdrawal order this time was different than the one at Narita Mountains. During the Battle of Narita, while frustrated, Lelouch issued the order as a calm and calculated one; here, it was an order issued with disbelief and a tiny tint of fear, visible to Kallen now as the screen shows how Lelouch's body had been shaking as he issued the order. 'Wait, it can't be…' Kallen muses as she contemplates the trustworthiness of her new realization.

Some time after the rescue of Tohdoh, Lelouch was seen sitting by his desk in his room while C.C. lying on Lelouch's bed in her usual white straightjacket, bare-footed; her white high heel boots were thrown on the floor next to Lelouch's bed, and her Cheese-kun plush doll resting against the side of the bed.

"Well, aren't things working well for you?" C.C. asked sarcastically, "you've got all the cards you ever wanted: a frontline commander, veteran fighters, Knightmare Frame design and management experts and a media specialist. You've even found out who's piloting that damn white armour."

"Ugh...!" Lelouch eyes were wide-opened at the mentioning of finding out who had been behind the cursed white machine. He hammered his desk a few times due to immense frustration.

"…or are you going to stop right here?" C.C. asked.

"That…" the usually verbose Lelouch had lost his words. Apparently, he was still shocked to find out that Suzaku was the pilot of the Lancelot all along, fighting against the Black Knights.

"Well, then you will have to keep moving forward, no?" C.C. stared blankly at the ceiling while hugging herself.

"Tch… to treat Suzaku as an enemy?" Lelouch seethed through his teeth with the words he did not wish he would have to say.

"Why are you whining?" C.C. retorted as she got up of Lelouch bed, "Just use your Geass to make him your subordinate…"

"I can't do that!" Lelouch screamed as he turned his face to C.C. with a horrified facial expression, taking C.C. by a bit of a surprise.

"I… I can't do that…" Lelouch muttered after the emotional release from the yelling.

"Wait, are you telling me that after all his talking about using everyone else to get what he wanted, he actually hesitated in using Kururugi as his pawn?" Chiba says incredulously.

"I knew Lulu wasn't a heartless monster!" Shirley exclaims, "He did care for Suzaku!"

"That's right, Lelouch'd been pretending who he wasn't for most of his teenage years, so there is no reason to take his words at face value," Milly joins in to support her orange-haired friend, to which Rivalz also nods in agreement.

Zero is also stunned by this new revelation. 'Lelouch, you'd actually been torn about using your Geass on me because you considered me as your friend?'

Kallen, however, isn't as quick as Shirley and Milly to have her confidence in Lelouch rebounded; the more she sees from the disc, the more she is confused. 'I… I really don't know what to believe in anymore. Which side of you was your true side, and which side of you was your facade, Lelouch?'

Villetta is surprised to see that Lelouch actually had a quandary in his mind about using Geass on Suzaku and made him his subordinate as well. 'He was so cold-blooded when he used my relationship with Kaname to threaten me to join him back then,' Villetta muses as she recalls how hopeless she was when Lelouch suddenly appeared in the secret OSI operation room under Ashford Academy when she was held at gunpoint by an emotionless Rolo, 'and given how he was being caught and turned in to the His Majesty by Kururugi, I assumed Lelouch and Kururugi were mortal enemies. I'd never thought that they were close friends to a point where the heartless Lelouch actually didn't want to use Geass on him.'

C.C. closed her eyes and paused for a moment, before tuning her voice into a serious one as she got off of Lelouch's bed and started to walk towards him, "Stop being naive. You started your campaign to destroy this world for your younger sister. And now you're…"

However, just as C.C. reached Lelouch's chair and knelt down next to Lelouch, the raven-haired boy cut C.C. off and stood up, walking towards the window. "I know! The only ones who should kill are those who are prepared to be killed!" he then looked down and saw through the window, gazing at a wheelchair-bound Nunnally and a Sayako standing behind the wheelchair, enjoying their time in the garden right outside of the house.

"Then, make a decision; you shall decide," C.C. continued in an unusually serious tone, "is Nunnally, your younger sister, more important? Or is your so-called friend more important?"

Lelouch stood with his right shoulder holding up slightly above his left, palms stretched into the shape of claws. "That's simple: I can't return to the days when I was powerless!" he scowled as he raised his head once again, with a shed of tear falling out of his right eye, "therefore...!"

"You know, it was C.C. who was the real heartless one," Gino adds. Everyone turns to him upon hearing his words.

"Why would you say that?" Tamaki asks.

"It's simple, she's got no qualms in having Lelouch to use his Geass on Suzaku, something that even someone as callous as Lelouch was vehemently against. Isn't persuading a callous person to do something that even a callous person finds repulsive the very definition of being callous?" the tall blond man reasons.

A row before Villetta and Ohgi's, Nunnally remains silent about what she has just seen on the screen. She is thinking inwardly. 'I am so glad that Big Brother didn't lose the entirety of his humanity after all; he at least cared about Suzaku and didn't treat him like a chess piece in his games. Otherwise, my sins would have only got even greater than it already is.'

Suddenly, Nunnally's left hand is cupped; it is her elder sister.

"Nunnally, I know what you're thinking, but please don't take it as your responsibility," Cornelia says softly, "you didn't ask Lelouch to do what he did; it was his choice to do the things he did, however good his original intention might have been. Also, we now know that Lelouch hesitated in using his Geass to succumb Kururugi, and it was C.C. who was trying to push him to do that."

Nunnally sighs. "Big Sister, can I really just shrug it off like I am innocent, though? After all, Big Brother did all the horrible things in my name…"

Cornelia hugs her younger sister. "You know, I may not agree with everything Lelouch did, but I understand him as someone who also has a younger sibling to take care of. If anything, Lelouch would have wanted you to live under the light happily and leave all the regrets and sins to him in the shadow. That's simply how elder siblings think when it comes to the well-being of their younger siblings," Cornelia explains.

Nunnally thinks for a moment and giggles, "and I think to be troubled by this sort of question is the burden that younger siblings such as Euphy and I have to bear." Cornelia rolls her eyes a bit at hearing that, but then the two sisters hug each other lovingly.

"Well, we've finished the first disc. Shall we move on to the next one?" Rakshata suggests.

Nunnally nods and turns to Zero. "Would you be so kind to put the second disc into the machine?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Zero replies respectfully and does so immediately.