Chapter 27: "Glorification" II – The Collapsing Stage II
Rolo, Sayako and a supporting team were walking past a gate in the Tokyo Settlement as Rolo froze the security guard with his Geass.
It was almost midnight. Lelouch was back in the cockpit of the Shinkirou, floating right outside of the Tokyo Settlement as he stared at the Settlement sinisterly. "It's been a mistake for me to come back to the Tokyo Settlement, as it turns out that I have more than enough time to prepare for this," he then pressed the button of a remote controller to activate the Gefjun Disturbers installed on the trains that ran circular around the settlement, disabling all utilities and any Britannian Knightmare Frames of 5th or prior generations. The entire Tokyo Settlement was sent into darkness as a result.
"Attention to the Black Knights on the Ikaruga! Thanks to the Gefjun Disturbers, the lifeline, communication network and all Knightmare Frames of 5th or prior generations are brought to a halt, halving our enemy's forces as a result. All forces are to attack significant facilities in the settlement to deprive of its defence ability! We have to prevail before Schneizel and his forces arrive at Tokyo Settlement. Maintain our perimeter and isolate the Government Palace! Once we have brought Viceroy Nunnally under control, victory shall be ours!" Lelouch ordered his troops.
"The whole city went dark!" Tianzi exclaims, "What about the patients in the hospital? Were they okay?"
Kaguya wants to calm her friend down, but she is not in a good position to tell whether the patients in the hospitals in the Tokyo Settlement were fine during the 2nd Assault – Nunnally, the former Viceroy of Area 11, would be in a much better position to do this.
"Hospitals in Tokyo Settlement had backup power, so I'm sure any negative effects on them due to the power outage were minimized," Nunnally answers Tianzi's question to assure her that the patients in hospitals back then were fine.
"That's good to hear!" Tianzi is relief that the sick and feeble were not affected.
Inside the darkened Area 11 Government Palace, Lohmeyer was holding a lamp and rushed to Nunnally. "Your Highness, Zero… Zero has appeared!" she reported worriedly, obviously panicking about the sudden power outage.
Unlike the worried Lohmeyer, Nunnally, having been blind for almost eight years since that fateful day, was unaffected by the power outage and remained as calm as usual. 'Zero…' she mused as she was holding a pink paper crane on her hands.
"Zero's here?" inside the specially designed prison space for Kallen in the Area 11 Government Palace, the red-haired girl was exhilarated to learn that Zero was finally on his way to rescue her as promised when she was captured by Xingke in the Chinese Federation and handed over to the Britannian Government.
"Nice smile," Gino complimented, stunning Kallen, "this seems to be the real you. However, I apologize for not being able to allow your wish to come true as long as I and my Tristan are here," Gino spoke as he turned and walked away.
"Whoops, I spoke too soon," Gino jests himself for being too confident back then: Kallen did eventually rejoin Lelouch and the Black Knights.
"Dude, you were so cool," Rivalz envies how cool Gino was with that turn and the confidence he was oozing out. Only if he could have be half as cool as that…
"Well, I would have to thank Sayako-san for rescuing me from certain death, though," Kallen recalls that moment when she was almost being secretly executed by a Britannian military officer, only to be saved by an on-time Sayako who killed that officer before he could shoot Kallen down with his submachine gun.
"I am so glad that you were fine, Kallen!" Shirley exclaims from a row in front of Kallen's, "we would be so sad to lose you…"
Next to Kallen, Milly also looks at Kallen warmly.
"Thank you, Shirley and Milly," Kallen smiles warmly to the Britannian friends she truly cares about not as the fake Kallen Stadtfeld persona she used to deal with her Britannian "friends" at school, but as her real Kallen Kouzuki self. Deep in her heart, she can't thank enough of her Ashford friends – it was thanks to them that she has been able to get past her narrow Japanese-Britannian dichotomous worldview and finally embraces her Britannian side of heritage and fully accept herself as a Britannian-Japanese mix.
"…recorded," Anya takes a photo of the heart-warming moment of her Ashford classmates and friends.
"The F.L.E.I.J.A.? To load it onto the Lancelot?" inside a Britannian military warehouse, Suzaku couldn't believe what he had just been told.
"Power is needed to prevent Zero from escaping," Nina explained. Next to the Lancelot, Cecile and Lloyd both looked downcast as the F.L.E.I.J.A. was being loaded onto their brainchild, but they said nothing.
"But I heard that the F.L.E.I.J.A. is a strategic weapon!" Suzaku retorted.
"Suzaku, weren't you Princess Euphemia's knight?" Nina narrowed her eyes and questioned Suzaku's loyalty to the bespectacled girl's one and true goddess, "or are you unwilling to fight Lelouch?"
This stunned Suzaku, and he lowered his head and stared at the ground with a difficult facial expression on his face.
"Nina, you…" Shirley can't believe what Nina's just said on the screen. "You knew Zero was Lelouch?"
"Uhm… yes, but that was shortly before the 2nd Assault on Tokyo Settlement," Nina replied timidly, a big contrast to how assertive she was on screen just now, "His Highness informed me of Zero's true identity probably right after he had Earl Maldini to tail Suzaku."
"And you wanted Suzaku to shoot the F.L.E.I.J.A. at Lelouch?" Rivalz can't believe it, "how could you do that to your friend? And what about us? Did you want to kill us all as well?"
"No…!" Nina vehemently denies, "I'd never want to shoot the F.L.E.I.J.A. at you! I… I just wanted to avenge Princess Euphemia… I…"
"With a F.L.E.I.J.A.? The bomb that blew up Tokyo and Pendragon?" Chiba barks from the other side of the auditorium, "Just how many innocent people would be killed because of the blast? Asahina died because of that thing as well, you bitch!"
"I… I didn't know… I didn't understand…" Nina defends herself weakly and timidly, not knowing what to say exactly.
"You didn't know? You didn't understand?" Chiba is infuriated, "that's a barefaced lie! You were at the testing ground at the Dallas Research Institute, weren't you? You even said to Schneizel, and I quote, 'from now on, the war between mankind will change'! How would you not know what would happen when a F.L.E.I.J.A. warhead is launched? You are the worst mass murderer in human history!"
"Hell yea! You're the worst!" Tamaki yells as well, but no one pays any attention to him. Ohgi and Tohdoh also shoot stern gazes at the girl responsible for the creation of mankind's most devastating weapon to date.
All these harsh words and gazes tear down Nina's mental defence mechanism: the bespectacled girl collapses, inclines forward and buries her head into her arms, tears gushing out her eyes. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
Cecile immediately attends to and comforts Nina to calm her down, although she also doesn't know what to say on behalf of Nina; Chiba's accusation on Nina is fact-based, and there is no denying on anything that the hard-headed Japanese woman has just accused Nina of.
"May I just say one thing?" suddenly, a bespectacled man with lavender hair raises his hand up.
"Earl of Pudding?" Rakshata is surprised to see her usually cheerful and eccentric archrival putting up a serious face. When did that happen last time again?
"I'm not defending Nina from her sin in anyway, but as her mentor and a fellow scientist, I think I ought to elaborate on why she said she didn't know nor understand the implications of launching a F.L.E.I.J.A. warhead in the battlefield," Lloyd says in a rare serious tone, capturing the attention of the entire audience, "Nina has been a civilian for all her life, dedicating herself into the research of atomic physics. When she developed the F.L.E.I.J.A., all she saw were interactions among atoms and particles, as well as the ensuing chains of chemical reaction. As the Ashford student council members can attest, Nina was someone who had never been on a battlefield and always avoiding human interaction in her daily life. Therefore, she had little idea of how easily a human life could be destroyed by her creation, never factoring it into her theoretical models and calculations. That is what she meant when she said she didn't know nor understand."
"But that still doesn't shield her from her crimes…!" Chiba is not going to give up so easily the chance to bash the woman who invented the bomb that killed Asahina and so many of her fellow comrades and countrymen in Tokyo.
"I agree with the Earl of Pudding," Rakshata suddenly says, surprising everyone in the room, including Lloyd. Isn't she always bickering with the eccentric Britannian scientist? When did she stand with Lloyd together last time again?
The tall Indian scientist continues despite the shock among the audience, "Just as what the Earl of Pudding has said, he is in no way defending Nina from her sin, but merely describing Nina's thought process in the development of the F.L.E.I.J.A. Her hands will never be washed clean with the blood the F.L.E.I.J.A. has brought to her, and she will always be haunted by the fact that it was her creation that took away so many innocent lives. All we ask," Rakshata takes a quick look at Lloyd, Cecile and Nina with a nod before looking back at the audience, "is that you would only blame her for what she's guilty of, which is the fact that her creation had taken away numerous innocent lives; but not what you think she's guilty of, such as she purposefully instigated a massacre."
Chiba is still not convinced and wanted to keep arguing on how evil and guilty Nina is, but before she can continue, Zero decides to step in. "Mrs Tohdoh, I understand how you feel about this. In fact, I understand that most people in the audience would never forgive Ms Einstein for opening the Pandora's Box and creating such a weapon of mass destruction. However, as always, I believe it would be premature to judge on anything before we have finished watching the entire 'truth' that C.C. has given to us in the three discs. Let's continue to watch the final disc for the time being before commenting further on matters concerning the F.L.E.I.J.A."
Nina is still sobbing while Cecile continues to comfort her. Chiba grunts in frustration, grudgingly acquiescing to Zero's request as she sinks back to her seat and turning her attention back to the screen.
Meanwhile, Lelouch had just finished issuing another set of orders to the Black Knights in taking control over the Area 11 Government Palace. He then contacted Rolo, "Rolo, how's the rescue mission going?"
"Sayako's team has just got in to do some preliminary scouting for us, and we're on our way to meet up with them," Rolo replied as he was walking towards the entrance of the Government Palace with his team members.
"Very well. Make sure that Nunnally's safe," Lelouch said. Suddenly, a warning signal appeared on the monitor of the Shinkirou: the Lancelot was approaching.
"Can you hear me, Zero?" Suzaku spoke through the open channel as the Lancelot stopped right in front of the Shinkirou and the Vincent piloted by Guilford, "stop your advance at once! This unit carries the latest warhead unit that could kill more than 40 million people, so before that…"
"Why would I believe in a word you say?" Lelouch snarled and cut off Suzaku before shouting, "Jeremiah!"
At Lelouch's order, a giant Knightmare Giga Fortress suddenly burst through the ground and attacked the Lancelot with electrical shockwaves and its giant green spike-like slash harkens.
"It can't be… Lord Gottwald?" Suzaku was stunned. How come a pureblood faction officer, Jeremiah no less, would fight for the Black Knights against Britannia?
"Suzaku Kururugi, when did you take the wrong path?" Jeremiah ignored Suzaku's question and demanded as he continued his attack, "Accept my teachings!"
Suzaku immediately piloted the Lancelot away from the Knightmare Giga Fortress, but Jeremiah immediately shot a bunch of missiles towards the Lancelot. "It's useless! Behold my unwavering loyalty!"
"So much for his 'friendship'," Chiba snorts, "Lelouch betrayed Kururugi and killed Euphe… Princess Euphemia, yet he expected Kururugi to hear him out and put aside all their differences to save Her Majesty, which that Kururugi bastard had, as much as I don't want to recognize it, magnanimously agreed to eventually; however, when Lelouch believed that Kururugi had betrayed him, he refused to listen to a word Kururugi had to say and attacked him fiercely."
"An unforgiving child asking for forgiveness from others. Well, very coherent to his character, no?" Rakshata ridicules with a sarcastic smile, "after all, he's the one who kept seeking the truth from others yet wrapped himself with lies to deceive others."
"Lulu…" Shirley is saddened by the scene. She understands that Lelouch's mentality was more fragile than it seemed to be due to the severe PTSD he had suffered since childhood, but to see Lelouch being so merciless to his supposedly best friend, the one of the two persons that he still cared deeply about despite his PTSD, is something very hard for Shirley to swallow.
"I guess Prince Schneizel's tactic worked," Milly remarks as she frowns at the scene, "he accurately took advantage of Lelouch's gigantic yet fragile ego and traumatized emotion by making it seemed like Suzaku had betrayed him, causing him to run on an emotional rampage and allowed his worst personality traits inherited from the Emperor to take over the helm of his mind."
"Madam President…" Shirley doesn't know what to say anymore. She is simply too sad and confused to what is happening on the screen.
'No, you're only half-right, Madam President,' Anya inwardly seethes under her perfect poker face, 'that mercilessness… half of it was from that bitch…!'
Kallen, meanwhile, feels uneasy seeing this side of Lelouch once again since the three-way confrontation inside the cave on Kamine Island. Now that she knows Lelouch's past as a child and how child Lelouch walked through that piece of wasteland filled with dead bodies and traumatized his mind, she feels that she has a better understanding of Lelouch's actions. However, the age old question still plagues her mind, '…Lelouch was a victim of PTSD forced onto him by the Emperor, but… Lelouch, just what did I mean to you?' she muses with frustration.
In the front row, Cornelia scowls at the scene. 'I see, so that's what Schenizel's aiming for: to burn Lelouch's emotional fuse and led him to go all out against Kururugi, hence ensuring Kururugi's loyalty to Britannia, at least while defending Area 11. To think that one of the most emotionally-emptied person was actually one of the most masterful in manipulating other people's emotion… it sounds paradoxical on the surface, but actually makes a lot of sense when one considers Schneizel's cerebral capacity to turn that into reality.'
Back on the Ikaruga, the scientist team were discussing the performance of the Sutherland Sieg, Jeremiah's Knightmare Giga Fortress, on the battlefield. Rakshata commented that it used a system so unique, it made the model not suitable for mass production. However, rare as it might sound, she was actually more curious on another matter that did not concern Knightmare Frames. "Actually, I am more curious to know why Orange has become our ally. Even the man who's nicknamed 'the Spear of the Empire' has defected to us as well..."
At the same time, out in the battlefield and inside the Vincent Commander Model, Guilford was sweating in confusion and astonishment. "What has happened? Why… why am I fighting against the Britannian army?"
However, the merciless Lelouch didn't give any time to Guilford to think further: he put his hand on his collar, impersonating Cornelia in Guilford's Geass-twisted mind, "Guilford, go assist Jeremiah to attack Suzaku Kururugi."
"Wait, Your Highness, Lord Kururugi is…" Guilford was still confused about the order. Why would his princess want to attack the Knight of Seven for seemingly no good reason at all?
"There is no time to explain – this is urgent. Could you trust me and fight for my sake?" "Cornelia" continued with a slightly pressing tone.
Just as the missiles shot by the Sutherland Sieg hit civilian buildings, causing the civilians to panic and ran for their lives in abject fear, Suzaku piloted his Lancelot above the Sutherland Sieg and warned Jeremiah, "if you are drawing innocent civilians into the fight, then I shall have no mercy on you…Ugh!"
Before Suzaku could finish his sentence, though, he quickly piloted his Lancelot to avoid an attack launched by a Vincent Commander Model. "Lord Guilford?" Suzaku couldn't believe that even the Spear of the Empire had betrayed Britannia.
"Kururugi! We serve our respective masters. I hope you would understand!" a geassed Guilford exclaimed as he was preparing to launch another round of attack at the Lancelot.
The present day Guilford still feels ashamed by how he fell for Lelouch's Geass so easily and fought for his real liege's enemy. 'What a fool I was…' Suddenly, a hand cups Guilford's right hand and stuns the Spear of the Empire: it is Cornelia's left hand.
'Princess…' Guilford inwardly thanks for Cornelia's understanding and generosity regarding his misstep.
Meanwhile, Zero watches the scene of how Jeremiah faithfully executed Lelouch's order with no regards to the innocent lives in Tokyo Settlement. 'I am right, Jeremiah is a man who places his loyalty to his liege above everything else, even the concepts of right and wrong. I just hope those extra orders I placed earlier have slowed him down from reaching here earlier than he really should…' the masked knight of justice muses worriedly, hoping his extra orange orders placed across Neo-Tokyo would slow the semi-cyborg down from reaching the auditorium prematurely.
Just as Suzaku was considering his options, Nina contacted him through the internal communication system. "Suzaku, launch the F.L.E.I.J.A.! You can eliminate Zero now!" the vengeance-seeking dark green-haired scientist exclaimed.
However, Suzaku refused. "I'm sorry, Nina, I will not use it," he mutters back to Nina before speaking through the open channel again, "but I shall stop Zero…!"
Then, the Shinkirou and the Vincent both shot beams at the Lancelot, forcing it to dodge here and there. However, even though it dodged the attack from those two Knightmare Frames, it still got caught by the electrical shockwave radiated by the Sutherland Sieg.
"Ugh…!" Suzaku endured the pain caused by the Sutherland Sieg's electrical shockwave.
"Great! Once I have eliminated Suzaku, there is no one to stop me from taking Nunnally back!" Lelouch smirked at the sight of Suzaku suffering from the electrical shockwave attack, showing no mercy to his supposedly "best friend" whom he believed to have betrayed him and blocked his way to save his dearest younger sister.
Shirley can't suppress her frustration anymore. "Lulu! How could you?" she screams at hearing how Lelouch was willing to go so far as to eliminate his supposedly "best friend" just to get his way. Even though she knew Lelouch did that because he fell for Schneizel's tactic, it was still too much for her to witness. Tears start to swell in the orange-haired girl's eyes.
Rivalz is shocked. The blue-haired boy is already torn between the thoughts of whether Lelouch should have complained about being betrayed by Suzaku given his past actions, i.e. that he only allowed himself to betray others but would not forgive others at the slightest sign of betraying him, even a false one. What Rivalz hasn't thought of in a million years is that Lelouch actually wanted to kill his best friend just because he didn't get what he wanted from the said best friend. 'I just don't know what to make of Lelouch anymore,' the blue-haired boy muses as he stops short at condemning the raven-haired boy, knowing that Lelouch had fallen right in where Schneizel wanted him to, as well as from earlier scenes that a large part of his seemingly merciless actions stemmed from the PTSD he had suffered for years, and the idea of blaming someone suffering from a psychological disorder doesn't sit well with Rivalz's mind as well.
Milly, contrary to her usual cheerful appearance, puts up the same poker face expression that she had put up when Emperor Charles was delivering his eulogy to Prince Clovis. 'I thought Chairwoman Sumeragi was being too cynical and calculative when she analyzed Lelouch's thinking for his meeting with Suzaku at the Kururugi Shrine. Turns out that I am the one who's too naive to see through Lelouch's facade to know what he was actually thinking.' However, same as Rivalz, Milly takes Lelouch falling into Schneizel's trap and his suffering of PTSD into full account as the tall blonde girl is formulating her opinion about Lelouch on the current scene, and she too believes that while it is hard for her to accept on an emotional level that Lelouch was being so merciless to his supposedly best friend, her logical self can still understand that Lelouch's act was to be blamed on Charles, the man who had caused all of the tragedies that had befallen Lelouch, Suzaku, Nunnally, Euphemia, Clovis and many others.
Just as Lelouch was getting excited at the prospect of eliminating Suzaku once and for all, a sudden attack was launched at the Shinkirou, only to be blocked by its Absolute Defence System. It was the Tristan.
"There is no such thing as defeat in the presence of a Knight of the Round!" Gino said as he pushed the right lever inside his cockpit up to transform his Tristan from Fortress mode to Knightmare Frame mode, attacking the Sutherland Sieg from the back and thus freeing Suzaku from the electrical shockwave attack.
"Sorry for the trouble, Gino!" Suzaku apologized for dragging Gino into the fight.
"Just be more frank and happy already," Gino responded to his colleague and friend with a smile.
Just as Milly and the TV crew were screaming and running away from the battlefield for their lives, Lelouch was busy typing in commands on his control panel of the Shinkirou. "Such amount of forces… damn Schneizel, he anticipated a decisive battle to take place in Tokyo?" Lelouch cursed.
Cornelia sneers in amusement. 'Lelouch, you really liked to look down at all your siblings, didn't you? What in the world made you think that Schneizel couldn't anticipate your moves when it was more than obvious to Britannia long before the formation of UFN that the inaugural Chairwoman of the UFN Supreme Council was a Japanese, and the initial military force the UFN contracted with was the Black Knights that originated from Japan?'
On the 13th floor of the Area 11 Government Palace, Rolo was communicating with Lelouch as the young assassin used his Geass to get two more security guards killed.
"That's right, I still need more time to meet up with you there," Lelouch said through the speaker.
"Understood. I have already cleared through the 13th floor," Rolo replied as he slipped back the blade into his Swiss Army knife blade holder, "don't worry, I will definitely find out where Nunnally is."
"Alright, I'm counting on you, Rolo," Lelouch said as he cut the line. However, he immediately narrowed his eyes after cutting the line as he mused, 'As long as I have got back Nunnally, you are of no further use to me anymore, Rolo.'
At the same time, Rolo was staring at the locket attached to his Swiss Army knife and mused, 'Leave it to me, Big Brother. I will definitely find out where Nunnally is… and kill her. All Big Brother needs for his family is me and me alone.'
Shirley cringes at the scene. 'I was right! Rolo would not allow anyone to be close to Lulu. Had I really got close to Lulu back then, I could be…!' Behind her, Rivalz and Milly are shocked as well – they have never seen such an emotionless face on the brown-haired boy before!
"What the…?" Cornelia is stunned by the scene not because of how ready Lelouch was to throw that Rolo boy away, but how ready Rolo was to find and kill Nunnally. She unconsciously has her right hand reaches out and holds onto Nunnally's left hand.
"Big Sister, I'm right here," Nunnally tries to calm Cornelia down, "and before you get even more worried, no I have never met Mr Rolo on my way out of the Area 11 Government Palace."
Cornelia looks at Nunnally and immediately pulls the young Empress into her embrace. "My goodness, Lelouch had actually sent someone with the intent to kill you to fetch you? That's unacceptably careless of him to do that!" Cornelia exclaims as she still reels from the fear that she has almost lost another dear younger sister of hers because of Lelouch, "by the way, where's this Rolo boy at now, Lady Ashford?" Cornelia turns and asks Milly.
"Do you know where Rolo is?" Milly asks Rivalz, to which the blue-haired boy shakes his head and replies, "I got a call from Lelouch almost a day after the F.L.E.I.J.A. blast at Tokyo and I asked him where Rolo's was, but he never told me."
Cornelia tenses up as she learns that the whereabouts of the Geass assassin is still unknown, but then recalls Villetta had been working with him while at Ashford. "Lady Ohgi, do you know where this Rolo boy is right now?" she asks impatiently.
"Ehm, I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I don't know where he is now," Villetta answers, "I have never seen him again after I've left Ashford Academy to meet with Kaname in the Chinese Federation."
"This is a serious security matter, we have a Geass assassin who is after Nunnally's life roaming free out there!" Cornelia is agitated by the fact that there is a loose threat to her younger sister's safety, and she is not going to let the tragedy that had befallen Euphemia to happen again.
"Your Highness, I think you probably don't need to worry too much about this Rolo boy coming after Her Majesty again," Cecile suddenly chimes in the conversation.
"Why are you so certain about that?" Cornelia looks at Cecile and asks unsurely.
"Your Highness, after the ascension of His Majesty and throughout the Battle of Mt Fuji, we have not encountered this Rolo boy, nor had His Majesty ever mentioned anything about him to us," Cecile explains, "and if you recall from earlier scenes, this Rolo boy was a skilled assassin and, had he been available, His Majesty would have sent him to assassinate His Highness already before the Battle of Mt Fuji could even take place. Given how loyal this Rolo boy was to His Majesty as shown in the footage, the fact that His Majesty didn't send him to assassinate His Highness is a proof that this Rolo boy was likely dead already by then."
"What? Rolo is dead already?" Rivalz can't believe it. How could that be?
However, Milly seems to have connected the dots. "I see, so that's why Lelouch didn't tell you where Rolo was when you asked him; he probably didn't want to break the news to you himself," she explains to Rivalz. Rivalz is visibly saddened upon hearing what Milly has just said.
Cornelia contemplates Cecile's reasoning for a moment and finally accepts that it is sound. The purple princess nods to the blue-haired scientist in acknowledging her deduction. Nevertheless, she still turns to Nunnally and says, "Just be extra careful, Nunnally. I don't want you to get hurt or anything."
"I will, Big Sister," Nunnally nods and buries her head into Cornelia's enormous chest, assuring her elder sister that she will remain vigilant to any threats against her.
Just as Kallen was knocking the glass wall of her special prison in the Area 11 Government Palace frustratingly and felt useless of not being able to fight Britannia outside, Rivalz and Shirley were sitting in the dark school hall of Ashford Academy with many of their fellow students. Ashford Academy had been designated as an emergency evacuation centre by the Area 11 Government for Britannian citizens to stay away from the warzone.
"I wonder where Lelouch is at such time of crisis," Rivalz asked worriedly, wondering if Lelouch was able to get out of the warzone in time.
"I don't know…" Shirley was downcast, now recalling that her dear Lulu might be a member of the Black Knights, and thus was probably in the battlefield now.
"Shirley, haven't you contacted Lelouch recently?" Rivalz was surprised that even Shirley didn't know where Lelouch was, considering how the two were sort of acknowledged by everyone as a couple.
"Not really…" Shirley replied, recalling how she recalled that Lelouch was probably a member of the Black Knights when a strange force suddenly hit her on the street on a rainy day, and how a mysterious teal-haired man appeared before her and warned her not to dig deeper into Lelouch's possible ties with the Black Knights.
"Now I understand why Shirley didn't know," the present day Rivalz says as he sees the scene.
"It's good that you two were both in a safe place and not being dragged into the battlefield like last time," Kallen says.
The present day Shirley is as downcast as her past self on the screen, but for a different reason. 'If I tried harder to connect with Lulu, perhaps I could bring him back to the right track and be more considerate to other people?' Although Shirley has seen so many scenes that show how merciless, ruthless and callous Lelouch was, as she knows that those were the results of the severe PTSD that Lelouch had suffered from, she still believes, deep in her heart, that the real Lelouch was the same boy that had selflessly helped a pair of wronged elderly in a traffic accident during Shirley and Lelouch's freshman year at Ashford Academy. 'Please, Lulu, show me that I'm right about you!' Shirley prays. She may know the truth about the Zero Requiem, but mentally and emotionally, she still wants to see direct proof that on a personal level, her dear Lulu was indeed a fundamentally good person after all.
As the battle between the Shinkirou and Tristan was going on, so was that among the Lancelot, the Sutherland Sieg and the Vincent Commander model. Suzaku piloted the Lancelot to destroy one of the Gekkas accompanying the Vincent Commander model while dodging the Sutherland Sieg's attack.
"Please, Zero!" Suzaku pleaded, "Please, hear what I have to say, just this once!"
However, Lelouch had no intention to listen to what Suzaku had to say. "Hmph, it means nothing to me. Whatever a traitor like you say, I won't… Hmph? Damn!" Suddenly, the Shinkirou's alarm system was activated, and Lelouch noticed that the Mordred was quickly approaching him. He immediately turned on the Absolute Defence System and blocked the Mordred's tackle.
"Anya? Please wait!" Suzaku pleaded.
"Suzaku, leave that to Anya!" Gino's image appeared on the Lancelot's pilot monitor.
"Let's see if it's your shield that is harder, or if it's my Stark Hadron Cannon that is more powerful," Anya said in her usual monotone voice while pressing the button to fire at the Shinkirou, resulting in a large amount of energy in dark red surrounding the Shinkirou's Absolute Defence energy shield, pushing the Shinkirou backwards quickly and disabled its communication with the Ikaruga.
"Was Lelouch aware of what he said to Suzaku was perfectly applicable to himself?" Gino observes.
"You know him, he's a hypocrite," Chiba snorts, "he's beyond hopeless." Next to her, Tohdoh frowns as well, but doesn't say anything out loud.
"We've lost contact with the Shinkirou! It has entered into a battle with the Knight of Six!" an operator on the Ikaruga reported to Ohgi, the General Secretary of the Black Knights and the commander of the Ikaruga.
"What are your orders to Nakagawa's team?" another operator asked Ohgi.
"There's also the matter of Issaku Kujukuri to consider," a third operator also asked Ohgi, awaiting for his instructions.
"Ah… uhm…" sadly, unlike how determined he was in declaring his love to Villetta when confronting her somewhere in the Chinese Federation, Ohgi simply stuttered and had no idea what to do with the multiple and simultaneous battles happening over the Tokyo Settlement, putting the entire command chain of the Ikaruga on hold.
Seeing Ohgi being indecisive, a bespectacled senior member of the Black Knights volunteered, "I will take care of the matters regarding Nakagawa's team."
With one big burden off his shoulder, Ohgi finally had the capacity to think how to throw the other big burden off his shoulder as well, asking another senior member of the Black Knights with teal hair next to the bespectacled member, "Hey, is there any nearby ally to back up Zero?"
"Ally? At this moment?" the teal-haired senior member asked incredulously.
Ohgi had no answer to that as the teal-haired senior member returned the heavy burden known as decision-making to him, and all the tall Japanese man could do was to look at the two senior members and continued to be indecisive.
Kaguya and Tohdoh both scowl at Ohgi's performance as a leader. 'Is that the current Prime Minister of Japan?' Tohdoh muses with disapproval, 'We're now at peacetime and things are still thankfully running alright, but what if there's a sudden international crisis breaking out? Can Ohgi really handle it and make sure that our fellow Japanese are safe?'
'This is pathetic, for Japan to have such an indecisive person as its leader,' Kaguya muses with frustration well-hidden under her face as she tightens her fists, 'Lelouch might have been ruthless, but that didn't deny the fact that he was a charismatic, effective and brilliant leader. Only if he wasn't being expelled from the Black Knights… I need to know what exactly happened prior to my arrival at the Ikaruga that day.'
Ohgi himself is a bit embarrassed by his own performance as the commander of Ikaruga as well. 'God… I'm so not suited to be a leader. Only if Naoto's still around…!'
"Are you alright, Kaname?" Villetta asks worriedly as she sees her husband's mood is sinking.
"Chigusa…" Ohgi turns to his wife and decides not to worry his wife too much, "I'm fine, just that seeing this battle being replayed feels a bit... tense."
However, Ohgi has grossly underestimated his wife's ability to observe, for his wife was the only one who could deduce and realize Lelouch's supernatural power entirely on her own accord, as well as a capable military officer who had once served as the captain of an OSI team. 'Kaname is getting insecure about his ability to lead,' the First Lady of Japan observes. However, she says nothing more but instead grabs Ohgi's left arm and places her head on his left shoulder.
"Chigusa, what…" Ohgi is surprised by Villetta's suddenly action.
"Shhh. Just let me be like that for a while," Villetta whispers lovingly into Ohgi's left ear, and this quickly charms Ohgi into a state of happiness.
Villetta smiles as she sees the man she loves is finally able to calm down.
Back in the Area 11 Government Palace, Lohmeyer was on the phone, reporting to Schneizel regarding the status of Nunnally. "Yes, Viceroy Nunnally is now onboard of the escape craft, but we can't do much unless the Gefjun Disturbers are no longer functioning…"
Nunnally frowns deeply on her wheelchair as a security guard pushes her wheelchair onto the escape craft. As Viceroy, Nunnally felt the obligation to stay at the Government Palace until the very end; however, the evacuation order was issued by Schneizel, the Prime Minister of Britannia, and she was in no position to go against that order. Furthermore, if she insisted to stay at the Government Palace, all her staff must also remain inside the Palace with the Viceroy, which would mean that she would be forcing her staff to die should Zero prevail. That was not something Nunnally wanted either.
Cornelia nods with an approving smile as she sees how Nunnally took her responsibility as the Viceroy of Area 11 seriously. 'Not wanting to abandon one's noblesse oblige to one's people even in the face of grave danger is a necessary quality to be a fitting ruler. You are way better than Clovis, Schneizel and Lelouch in this regard. I'm proud of you, Nunnally.'
Meanwhile, in the specially designed prison space for Kallen, Sayako had just killed three Britannian military officers attempting to kill Kallen.
"Sayako-san!" Kallen was so happy and relieved to finally see an ally coming to rescue her.
"I'm so glad that you are alright," Sayako smiled back, "Master Rolo is on his way to receive Lady Nunnally, and I have a present for you, Kallen-sama," the ninja maid then opened a suitcase with Kallen's battle suit inside.
After releasing Kallen from her, both of them went to a dock inside the Government Palace, where the Guren was parked. Sayako looked at the Guren and explained to Kallen, "I think Lady Ashford's former fiancé was behind the changes made to your Knightmare Frame, and there is a user manual on it. What do you think?"
Kallen stared at her Guren in awe as she finished tying her headband on her forehand. "It looks… kinda different, somehow."
Lloyd is amused by Kallen's reaction to the altered Guren. "AHA! So you liked my design, Lady Kouzuki?" he asked cheerfully.
Kallen did like the changes Lloyd made to the Guren because those changes made the Guren even more powerful, plus it gave the Guren a cool-looking pair of energy wings. Kallen is about to speak her mind, but she suddenly feels a stern stare at her; it's from Rakshata.
'Crap… I'd have to be really careful here,' Kallen realizes that she is in a fix right now. After another brief moment, she finally stutters, "Well… that's certainly… an interesting change to the Guren."
"Really! To be precise, how interesting is it?" Lloyd is getting more and more excited to hear Kallen praising the changes he and Cecile had made to the Guren, completely oblivious to the murderous aura oozing from his Indian counterpart sitting right next to him.
"Err…" Kallen really doesn't know what to say. She really likes the change, but she cannot tell that out loud in front of Rakshata!
"Alright, I think we should move on and continue," Zero decides that this is the time for him to intervene, now that Cecile is not available to do that because she is taking care of Nina.
"What? But we still haven't heard user feedback from Lady Kouzuki…" Lloyd still doesn't want to give up, but then he notices a stern stare from Cecile, accompanied by a smile that usually appears before Cecile is enraged. "Gulp," Lloyd swallows a mouthful of saliva and decides to stay quiet for the moment.
"…recorded," Anya takes a photo of a scared Lloyd and a relieved Kallen.
Schneizel continued to direct the Britannian forces after he had finished his call with Lohmeyer. Under his direction, all the Gefjun Disturbers were destroyed, thus restoring power in the Tokyo Settlement.
"Now we can reinforce our lines with Knightmare Frames of 5th or prior generations, as well as restoring the defence system of the Government Palace," Kanon observed as he stood next to Schneizel, who was sitting on his throne.
"The tide is now in our favour," Schneizel offhandedly commented.
On the other hand, as light came back to the Tokyo Settlement, the Black Knights realized that they didn't have much time left to capture Viceroy Nunnally. "We have not much time left. Kinoshita! Have you not found the Viceroy yet?" Asahina demanded.
"The special ops team has only told us they've released Captain Kouzuki… Ugh!" Kinoshita was reporting to Asahina, but suddenly something disconnected the communication.
"Kinoshita!" Asahina exclaimed as a Britannian unit destroyed Kinoshita's unit and sent his cockpit straight to a wall of a building structure, causing it to explode and killed Kinoshita instantly.
"Damn! There's nobody here!" On the other hand, Tamaki and his team were looking for Zero. "Where's Zero? My best bud!" Tamaki yelled impatiently, unaware that his "best bud" was right above him, fighting the Mordred.
"I hate to say this again, but Tamaki, you're really an idiot," Rakshata ridicules.
"Hey! I'm about the smartest guy around here!" the proud red-haired Japanese man protests immediately. How dare Rakshata looks down to the one and only Shinichirou Tamaki?
"Up there, Tamaki! Up there!" Kallen mocks Tamaki by trying to shout to the Tamaki on the screen to inform him of Zero's position.
"Damn! Why are y'all treating me like an idiot?" Tamaki explodes. However, no one pays any attention to him except Anya, who takes a photo of him exploding, metaphorically of course.
Just as Tamaki was trying his best to find his "best bud" on the battlefield, Anya was piloting her Mordred to keep its Stark Hadron Cannon shooting at the Shinkirou's Absolute Defence System.
"Just a bit more…" Anya said in her signature monotone, but then something went wrong: an extrasensory interference was hitting Anya's mind, causing her to suffer from severe headache. "Ugh… something is…" Anya groaned in pain as the Mordred's attack stopped, the Knightmare Frame itself fell down to the ground.
"What happened to you, Anya?" Shirley asks the pink-haired girl sitting next to her worriedly.
"Well, we did overwork a bit that night, that's probably the reason why Anya felt tired," Gino, on the other hand, simply thinks that Anya was overworked, and the burden was too much for a young girl like her to handle.
"…yes, I felt exhausted and lost control of the Mordred," Anya says in her usual monotone. Although she now knows what exactly that extrasensory interference was, she keeps it to herself because she knows the vileness of Marianne will soon be revealed to her daughter and her niece, and the pink-haired girl doesn't want to spoil the excitement of seeing the audience's reaction to the true nature of Marianne being exposed that the pink-haired girl has been patiently waiting for throughout the screening event.
"Ugh… what happened to the Mordred… Ugh!" Lelouch was wondering what happened to the Knight of Six when she fell off right before the Mordred was about to pierced through the Shinkirou's Absolute Defence System, but the situation didn't let him to think further, as the Shinkirou's four limbs were all tied and pulled towards all four directions by four Vincent Commander Model Knightmare Frames.
"Well, well, Zero. How rash were you, as the commander of an army, to sneak around on your own," a male voice ridiculed through the open channel. It was Luciano Bradley, the Knight of Ten, in his Knightmare Frame, the Percival.
"Another Knight of the Round again?" Lelouch snarled. Just how prepared Schneizel was in this battle?
"Now you shall be exterminated," Luciano declared sinisterly as the Percival reconfigure its claws into a spinning MVS particle drill-lance, "the important thing to you: your life, of course!" he screamed sadistically.
Meanwhile, Sayako was keying in commands into the control panel at the dock inside the Government Palace, while Kallen had just finished putting on her battle suit and hopped into the cockpit of the altered Guren.
"Is the basic system the same?" Kallen asked as she put the key to start the system. On the monitor, it showed the following:
Created by: Rakshata Chawla
System modified by: Lloyd Asplund
LPS and Energy Wings added by: Cecile Croomy
Produced by: Camelot
The present day Rakshata seethes and grits her teeth. 'How dare you defiled my child, Earl of Pudding? And you too, Cecile Croomy!'
A Britannian Flag then appeared on the screen, showing the words:
Superlative
Extruder
Interlocked
Technology
Exclusive
Nexus
[S.E.I.T.E.N.]
Eight Elements
"We're still trying to determine Master Zero's current position," Sayako said, "Shall I transfer the I.F.F. data?"
"Yes, please," Kallen thanked Sayako as she started to activate the new Guren.
"Uhm… Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements… that should be the name," Sayako was a bit confused by the super long name given to the new Guren.
"Please confirm the activation," Kallen said as the runway for her Guren to launch was cleared by members of Sayako's team.
"Activation confirmed," Sayako confirmed as she continued, "After the Guren's launched, we shall return to our original mission."
"Understood. I'll leave the Viceroy to you. I'm going to save Zero," Kallen responded.
"Right," Sayako replied before she announced, "Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements, launch!"
"Launch!" Kallen exclaimed.
And the Guren rushed out of the dock, breaking through the wall of the Government Palace painted with a large Britannian Coat of Arms and shot through the battlefield like a red comet, eliminating countless Britannian units in lightning speed.
"Is that… Kouzuki?" inside the cockpit of her Akatsuki Command Model Zikisan Knightmare Frame, Chiba was stunned to see the new Guren shooting out of the Area 11 Government Palace, "but, that machine is…"
"That's a badass way to get back to the battlefield," Gino smiles at Kallen.
"I've been confined for so long, I needed some good exercise to stretch my arms and legs," Kallen smiled back with pride.
Cornelia, being a specialist in Knightmare Frames herself, is stunned by the performance of the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements. 'When two top Knightmare Frame scientists worked together, great things happened. But what's even more amazing was how well Lady Kouzuki could pilot it. Only if I could also get a dip and try to pilot it…'
Back to the battle between the Shinkirou and the Percival, Lelouch was struggling to defend himself from Luciano's attack with all four limbs of the Shinkirou being tied up by Luciano's henchmen.
"At this rate, it's a battle between our energy tanks," Luciano smirked sadistically as he ordered his henchmen, "Abraham Squadron, don't let him go, no matter what!"
"Yes, my Lord!" The Squadron answered in unison.
As Lelouch was frantically typing in commands on his keyboard, one of the operators on the Ikaruga contacted him. "Zero, can you hear me? Zero?" the operator asked worriedly.
"Where're my reinforcements?" Lelouch asked impatiently.
"Tamaki will be there soon, but we've picked out a fleet over the Pacific!" the operator reported.
"What about it?" Lelouch's shouted, losing his patience. Who cares about what happened over the Pacific when he's now facing a dire situation?
"Zero, it's me," Ohgi took over from the operator, finally being somewhat useful for once, "the enemy over the Pacific seems to be the Britannian Emperor's flagship…"
"What? He is coming to Area 11 as well?" Lelouch asked incredulously: not only was Schneizel here, but even his immortal father was coming over to Area 11 as well?
The scene then cut to the inside of the flagship Great Britannia, where the Emperor sat on his throne with a stern look on his face.
"What? His Majesty had also come over to Area 11?" Guilford can't believe it. The 98th Emperor of Britannia was going to supervise over the battle, or even fight on the battlefield as well? But that's unheard of!
Cornelia shakes her head. "No, Guilford, now that I have learnt the truth behind father's actions, I don't think he cared about the battle at all."
"But, Your Highness…" Guilford is still confused, "then why did His Majesty flew himself to Area 11 if he wasn't going to supervise over or the battle in the battlefield?"
"He ended up going to Kamine Island, and while I didn't know why he's there back then, now I know it was something related to Geass," Cornelia replied, "let's keep watching, I think everything's going to be revealed to us very soon."
Similar to the present Cornelia, Schneizel also thought that their father was not going to join the battle as Lloyd, Cecile, Nina and Kanon were all looking at the monitor that estimated Great Britannia's estimated flight route to, and arrival time at Area 11.
"What makes you so certain of that?" Kanon asked with a soft tone.
Schneizel narrowed his eyes filled with displeasure, something that almost never happened on the otherwise always calm prince, "Do you think His Majesty would care about the mundane affair known to us as 'today'?"
"Wow, that's a rare sight to see," Gino observes, "I've never seen any emotion other than a gentle smile showing on His Highness' face."
"Which means that His Highness was seriously upset by His Majesty," Milly comments. The tall blonde girl is actually shocked: what could the Emperor have possibly done to upset the otherwise no emotion Prime Minister to such a degree that displeasure was actually showing on the latter's face?
Back on the battlefield, Tamaki was leading his team to shoot at the Percival from the ground. "Let Zero go!" Tamaki exclaimed with a prideful smile, "Or you'll have to deal with me, this great Shinichirou Tamaki, his best bud… Ugh!" Sadly, before Tamaki could even finish his sentence, the Percival quickly shot back at his Gekka and set its cockpit ejected. "Damn! Why does this happen to me every time?" Tamaki yelled with frustration.
"Hey! What did you… huh?" Tamaki was ready to rebut any passive aggressive attack from Rakshata, but strangely, Rakshata didn't say anything at all this time round.
Tamaki is confused at the situation, but suddenly optimism fills his mind, "I see, so you've finally see how great this Shinichirou Tamaki actually is…"
"It gets old to tease you every time for the same thing, you know," Kallen cuts in and quips.
"…" Tamaki's mouth is wide-opened; he is utterly defeated by Kallen's revelation of the inconvenient truth to him.
Seeing Percival being distracted by the rather useless Tamaki, Lelouch thought he had got a chance to fight back. "Right, it's now!" He opened the cover of the Diffusion Structure Phase Transition Cannon on the Shinkirou's chest, wanting to blast the Percival into pieces. Sadly, Lelouch had gravely underestimated the battling prowess of the Knight of Ten as the Percival quickly pierced and destroyed the prism of the cannon.
"I've been waiting for that, Zero," Luciano ridiculed in a sadistic tone, "the moment you're going to attack. Now, let me take away the important thing from you!" The drill-lance then started drilling the prism.
"This… this can't be…" Lelouch was outgunned and had no way to stop Luciano's attack. He closed his eyes and screamed, "Nunnally…!"
Suddenly, the battle instinct of the Knight of Ten alerted him about some irregular movements on the battlefield, causing him to quickly pull back his Percival from attacking the Shinkirou. A flash of red lights then immediately went through the Abraham Squadron in inhumane speed, destroying all four of them without them even realizing when it got hit. One of those who died was Kewell Soresi, a former pureblood faction member who was forced leave Area 11 to join the Abraham Squadron under Luciano after the faction was utterly disgraced by wrongly condemning Suzaku as Clovis' murderer.
'Kewell…' Villetta feels a tiny bit of sorrow as she sees her former comrade had fallen in the battlefield. As an ethnic minority within the Britannian Empire, Villetta joined the pureblood faction not because she believed in its ideals, but because she wanted a way to break through the glass ceiling that had prevented her competence to be accurately reflected and evaluated in the highly stratified Britannian society; once she was absorbed into the OSI and elevated to be a baroness, she left the faction with no regrets at all. Nevertheless, for her old colleague to die in such a meaningless way because of the fallout of Zero's debut is still a sorrowful thing for her to witness.
As the Abraham Squadron were utterly destroyed, the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements floated right in front of the Shinkirou, the former's red energy wings spread and energy oozing out from them.
"Oh…" Luciano let out a sadistic sound as if he had found another prey at his mercy.
"K… Kallen?" Lelouch couldn't believe what he saw. Was that the Guren? But the wings…
"Zero, I'm here. Your elite guard Kallen Kouzuki is back to the battle frontier!" Kallen proudly announced her presence in the battlefield.
"Thief!" on Schneizel's airship, Lloyd exclaimed as he saw his new toy being stolen by the Black Knights. "How dare you took away my… my…"
"Oh, not quite," next to Lloyd, Cecile smiled at Lloyd with a tint of anger because Lloyd had apparently forgot her contribution to the new Guren, "I did some of the upgrades too, remember?"
"Oh, right. It's actually a collaboration…" Lloyd quickly acknowledged Cecile's contribution to his new toy, but immediately got back to panic mode, "What am I talking about? With a capable devicer, even at 60% output, that unit can cut the other Knightmare Frames to ribbons!"
"Earl of Pudding… and those are Cecile's energy wings?" on the Ikaruga, Rakshata was enraged to see how her child had been defiled by a Frankenstein and his assistant. "How dare they altered my Guren like that?"
"Well, but that means Kallen's back to us," Ohgi didn't really care about the bickering between the scientists – all he cared was Kallen getting back safely to the Black Knights.
"We now have our full team back!" Tohdoh also smiled in his Zangetsu as he saw Kallen was back on the battlefield.
"…less Tamaki," Kallen quips. Apparently, what Tohdoh considered to be a full team didn't include Tamaki in it.
"…" Tamaki is still in his defeated mode and doesn't respond to Kallen's quip.
"Are you ok?" Ohgi is a bit worried about Tamaki.
"He's been quite active and vocal in commenting the footage from the beginning until just a moment ago, so why not let him take a short break? I'm sure he's exhausted and needed some time to recover," Villetta suggests as she tries to find some nice words to make the situation less embarrassing for Tamaki, her husband's best friend.
"…let's move back to the footage," Tohdoh says as he realizes how the scene exposes his true view on Tamaki's worth to the Black Knights, turning everyone's attention back to the screen.
The Percival started its attack at the Guren by firing missiles from its shield, but the Guren easily dodged them while launching its new and improved Radiant Wave Surger arm that can be fired like a Slash Harken and with the help of a Harken Booster to control its firing trajectory, instantly destroying multiple Britannian units in one blast.
However, none of this deterred the Knight of Ten's intention to take away the thing most precious to Kallen. "Eleven, do you know the truth on a battlefield?" Luciano asked, before answering himself, "Kill a man off the battlefield, then you're a criminal. But killing them all on it, and you're a big hero."
"Oh… so Mr Vampire of Britannia wants to be a hero?" Kallen retorted with contempt in her tone.
"Not really," the Vampire of Britannia answered, "I'm just saying how exhilarating it is to be able to publicly take away the thing most treasured by people: their lives!"
"You know, you're kind of a dick," Kallen hissed as she piloted her Guren's right arm to form a red, spinning energy disc, and then shooting it at the Percival and destroying its shield. The Percival was undeterred, though, immediately had its drill-lance spinning and ready to attack the Guren, but it was also destroyed by the Guren's new weapon with ease.
However, Luciano didn't seem the least bit worried. "I've finally got the distance closed," he smirked as he piloted the Percival to shoot its head slash harken at the Guren, trying to finish it off. But to his great surprise, the Guren easily grabbed the slash harken.
"Wha…" Luciano was utterly surprised. How was that possible?
That moment of surprise was all Kallen needed to claw on the Percival. "Question: what is the important thing to you?" Kallen asked back the question Luciano liked to ask his opponent before he finished them off, "your own life, I suppose?"
"Are you threatening me, Eleven?" Luciano is enraged. How dare a Number threatened him, the Knight of Ten, with his own question?
Kallen simply didn't care. "Farewell," she pressed the button and started to microwave the Percival.
"My life's being taken?" Luciano couldn't believe he's losing to a Number, "You damn monkey...!" he cursed at full voice before the Percival exploded.
"Great job, Kallen," Gino compliments, "You're certainly Knight of the Round-level Knightmare Frame pilot."
Kallen is surprised by Gino's sudden and unexpected praise. "Err... thanks Gino, but won't you feel bad that your colleague was defeated…?"
"Not him," Gino spats, "that guy's a monster. He's among our ranks simply because he's so good at killing people, His Majesty didn't want to waste his talents and recruited him to do the dirty work on His Majesty's behalf."
Cornelia also holds Kallen's fight against Luciano to high regard. 'While the new Guren may have outclassed the Percival considerably in terms of spec, its performance was still ultimately determined by the skill of the pilot. Being able to pilot that monster simply shows that Lady Kouzuki is currently one of the best Knightmare Frame pilots in the world, perhaps even on par with Lady Marianne.'
"Good job, Kallen!" Lelouch praised Kallen's performance, "now all we have to do is to go to the Government Palace to get Nunnally…"
"Zero!" suddenly, Suzaku's voice came through the open channel again as the Lancelot approached both the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements and the Shinkirou. Sadly, Lelouch had lost his trust in Suzaku and hissed with contempt at his best friend. The geassed Guilford tried to stop Suzaku, but Gino was quick to pilot his Tristan to block the Vincent Commander Model with ease. Suzaku then piloted his Lancelot to fire a shot with its VARIS particle rifle at the Guren, but the Guren easily deflected it, shocking Suzaku.
"So you have chosen Kouzuki over Stadtfeld, Kallen," Gino said.
"That's right," Kallen replied.
"Suzaku, leave Kallen to me," Gino was amused by Kallen's choice and decided to take her on.
"Well… you hear that, Suzaku," Kallen narrowed her eyes and hissed with a sinister smirk.
"I'm sorry, Gino, but she doesn't seem to be someone that can be treated so lightly," Suzaku sweated a bit as he piloted the Lancelot to draw out its MVS. He knew from his previous attack that this new Guren in front of him was not an enemy that can be easily defeated.
Tianzi frowns at Kallen's evil expression on the screen. "I don't like that face!" she exclaims.
Kallen is embarrassed. "I… I'm sorry, Your Majesty, it's just that… that…" and she doesn't know what to say. 'Damn! Why did I smirk like Lelouch?'
"Lady Kouzuki's a warrior, Your Majesty," Cornelia steps in to get Kallen out of the sticky situation, "there are times when a warrior's so tensed, hyped or angered for an upcoming battle that him or her would lose control over his or her facial expression. In this case, Lady Kouzuki was apparently infuriated by Kururugi going against her liege once again, as well as being provoked by Lord Weinberg's words, hence resulted in that facial expression."
"But, it's still scary…" Tianzi is still not convinced.
"I believe I also had a similar expression when I was engaging Zero on the rooftop of the Government Palace," Cornelia continued, "I don't like it myself, but I see it as an essential mechanism to let out pressured steam inside one's mind. I'm sure General Li also had those moments when he's fighting his hardest for you, too."
And bingo, Cornelia hits the jackpot. "Xingke also had such moments?" Tianzi is surprised, but quickly accepts that such facial expression is necessary for one to fight if Xingke also had those expressions when fighting for her, "ok, I understand. Sorry, Lady Kouzuki, I didn't know," the young Chinese girl nods to Cornelia and apologizes to Kallen.
"…oh! That's no problem, Your Majesty," Kallen herself is surprised by Cornelia's explanation, but quickly regains her sense and replies politely to the Symbol of Unity of the United States of China. After that, she nods to Cornelia with a smile, thanking her for getting her out of the embarrassing situation. Cornelia simply nods and smiles back at Kallen before turning her attention back to the screen.
As Tohdoh's forces were rushing to Schneizel and slashing Britannian units here and there while Kanon organizing defence around Schneizel's airship, the confined Cornelia was fidgeting her left arm to push out a hidden weapon under the cloth to undo her restraints. Once the weapon was out, she used it to break through the door of her room, causing a small explosion that was immediately detected by the internal sensory system of the Ikaruga. An operator swiftly reported the unusual energy reaction within the Ikaruga due to Cornelia's escape to Ohgi, but Ohgi mistook the escaping fugitive as Villetta.
Back at the Area 11 Government Palace, Lohmeyer was inside an escape craft and ready to take off, while Rolo was slowly walking towards it with a serious face, ready to kill Nunnally once he had found her.
Meanwhile, Sayako made a timely and much needed report to Lelouch, "Master Zero, we have found the Viceroy. Master Rolo is going to escort us out of here as soon as he has stolen a Knightmare Frame."
"Really? Great job!" Lelouch was relieved after having fought two Knights of the Round consecutively, "with this, all conditions for victory are ensured!"
"This is probably the first genuine smile Lulu had shown after his meeting with Suzaku at the Kururugi Shrine," Shirley observes before musing quietly, '…even though his most treasured person in the world was about to be killed by the person he sent to receive her.'
Meanwhile, Suzaku was in a difficult situation fighting Kallen: his VARIS shots had no effect on the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements. "Doesn't it have a weakness? Where's it?" Suzaku exclaimed impatiently as he kept trying various attacking methods on the Guren.
"Suzaku, your opponent is not Kallen! It should be Zero!" Nina scolded Suzaku, not understanding that Suzaku was fighting Kallen precisely because Kallen was blocking him to get to Zero.
"Kallen! Defeat Suzaku here! With that, no one will be in our way!" Lelouch ordered his best warrior among the ranks of the Black Knights and one of the few who knew about his true identity.
"Escape now, Lord Kururugi!" back on Schneizel's airship, Lloyd screamed in front of the communication system.
"The Lancelot, as of now, is no match to…" Cecile also pleaded Suzaku to retreat.
"But, Zero is…" sadly, Suzaku's stubbornness knew no bounds, truly the Archaeopteryx of Britannia in terms of how fossilized his brain was.
"You…" "Self-centred brat!" Lloyd and Cecile were frustrated at how stubborn Suzaku was. Why wouldn't he just listen to them, who understood the abilities of the Knightmare Frames the best?
'I'm sorry, Lloyd and Cecile. I shouldn't have been that stubborn,' the present Zero quietly muses and apologizes inwardly to the two people who had been supporting him all the way since he woke up on that bed in Shinjuku after he had been gunned down by the captain of Clovis' Imperial Guard on that fateful day.
The situation was getting worse for Suzaku as time passed by: the Lanclot's VARIS particle rifle was destroyed by the Guren's energy disc, and the Blaze Luminous Shield-equipped left arm got dismantled, forcing Suzaku to switch to use the Lancelot's remaining right arm to hold the MVS.
"Fire it, Suzaku! If you fire the F.L.E.I.J.A…!" Nina yelled at the communication system at the topo of her voice.
However, Suzaku was determined not to use it. 'No, I can't use it. It's a strategic deterrent. If I use it…!' He piloted his Lancelot to swing its MVS and slashed against the Guren while kicking it with its left leg, but the Guren easily destroyed both.
"I… I can't win…" Suzaku couldn't believe it. All of his attack were nullified!
"Fare thee well, Suzaku!" Kallen shouted with a malevolent tone, piloting her Guren into position, ready to microwave Suzaku and his Lancelot into a chicken nugget this time round.
"Kill Suzaku, now!" Lelouch shouted at the top of his lungs. With this, he could finally eliminate his best friend and got rid of all the obstacles lying between him and his most treasured younger sister!
"Stop it!" suddenly, Nunnally, the young, crippled and fragile girl used her full force to slam on the armrest of her wheelchair while screaming at the top of her lungs, "How dare you, Big Brother!"
This shocks everyone, especially Cornelia. No one has ever seen the docile young empress to be so furious and forceful ever before!
"Nunnally, are you…" Cornelia quickly regains her composure and reaches out to Nunnally, only to see Nunnally's beautiful face to be flooded with tears.
"Nunnally…" Cornelia says worriedly.
"How… how can Big Brother… do that to… Suzaku?" Nunnally continues to cry, her shoulders trembling, "He's… trying to… he's… he's…" Nunnally knows that Suzaku survived from that battle, but that short scene that actually showed Lelouch ordering Kallen to kill Suzaku, her cherished childhood friend, is still too much for Nunnally to take in, causing a rare emotional eruption to the otherwise calm and gentle 100th Empress of Britannia.
Chiba is going to say something, but Tohdoh immediately catches her hand and shakes his head to stop her. It also helps not to exacerbate the situation that Tamaki, arguably the most vocal and tactless of all among the audience, is still out of commission at the moment.
Cornelia pulls Nunnally into her embrace and pats her back gently to calm her down. However, unlike last time when Nunnally broke down in tears upon seeing how Lelouch left Cornelia to rot on the rooftop of the Government Palace, Cornelia doesn't know what to say this time as she is not Suzaku, and is in no position to say anything to defend Lelouch in order to spare Nunnally's heart. All she can do is to keep patting Nunnally's back gently in order to allow her to sob out her frustration about Lelouch's merciless move.
Behind Nunnally, Zero is under his own pressure as well. He wants to comfort Nunnally, but at the same time, he can't reveal his identity to the audience just yet. Since he is the avatar of justice, he obviously can't defend for Lelouch as Zero to spare Nunnally's heart either. His hands are tied.
Just as Cornelia and Zero are thinking hard on how to placate Nunnally's frustration and sadness, a red-haired girl walked through the aisle and came before Nunnally – it is Kallen.
"Lady Kouzuki…?" Cornelia is perplexed. Why is Kallen coming in front of Nunnally?
Kallen takes a deep breath, claps her hands against her cheeks once with her eyes closed, and then kneels down in front of Nunnally's wheelchair, lowering her head. "Your Majesty, I beg for your forgiveness for my foolishness."
Nunnally is surprised by Kallen's sudden formality, the shock brings her out of her sadness and frustration temporarily. "Kallen, what are you…" she asks perplexedly. Why does Kallen suddenly kneel before her?
"Your Majesty," Kallen interjects Nunnally and continues, "I know I can't speak on behalf of Lelouch for his actions and thoughts. However, as all of us here know full well, Lelouch did not have the ability to kill Suzaku, whether in person or in a Knightmare Frame. It was I who was executing his wrong desire to kill Suzaku, which upsets you significantly. As Lelouch is no longer around, I believe I should take the responsibility and ask for your forgiveness on this matter."
"Kallen, you were merely executing his orders, you can't possibly be held responsible for those actions. You don't have to…" Ohgi doesn't agree that Kallen has to be held responsible for Lelouch's twisted and selfish desires. How can the younger sister of one of his best friends be held responsible for an order issued by the man who dared to threaten Chigusa?
"No, Ohgi-san," Kallen refutes Ohgi's suggestion, "I was the one who executed his command to kill Suzaku. There is no denying of it, and I will not shy away from the responsibility for the consequence such action had caused, even if…" Kallen hesitates for a brief moment, but ultimately decides to finish it, "…even if I was just his pawn!"
This shocks Nunnally. Being a smart girl, she knows that Kallen is simply trying to soothe her mind by defending Lelouch. 'Kallen must have had her own sorrow and sadness after seeing how Big Brother treated her, the Black Knights and the Japanese, yet she's still willing to apologize for his sin just for my sake… no, I've forced her to apologize for Big Brother's sin because I let my emotion ran wild! What should I do now? I should…'
Then, Nunnally forces herself to stop crying, hands wiping away the tears around her redden and swollen eyes. She faces Kallen and says with a regal yet still shaky voice, "Kallen, you're… you're hereby forgiven."
Kallen looks up to Nunnally. "Nunnally, you…"
"As Big Sister has just… explained to Tianzi, there are times… when warriors are caught by… the heat of a battle," Nunnally decides to utilize what Cornelia has just explained to Tianzi to deescalate the situation, "and while I am… I am still upset about Big Brother's … intention of killing Suzaku, I understand that you were in the heat of an important battle, and you were just executing your commander's orders. I will not blame you for that," Nunnally then smiles and pulls Kallen into her arms to hug her.
"Nu…Nunnally…" Kallen is pleasantly surprised that Nunnally is willing to forgive her. 'She's indeed much better than stupid Lelouch!' the red-haired girl hisses inwardly, before saying to the young Empress, "Thank you, Nunnally."
Cornelia smiles and nods approvingly at Kallen. 'She's willing to shoulder the responsibility, even if that was not entirely her fault… such a respectable young lady.'
However, unbeknownst to both of the lady warriors, Nunnally is thinking something else under her bright smile. 'Big Brother's sin is too big and enormous, and they were all committed in my name. In the end, it still falls to my shoulder to bear half of his sins, just like how Kallen shouldered part of Big Brother's sin in trying to kill Suzaku. I shall not shy away from the sins Big Brother had committed in my name any longer...'
Inside Schneizel's airship, Nina also shouted at Suzaku at the top of her lungs. "Fire the F.L.E.I.J.A.! You'll be saved by it!"
However, Suzaku still refused to do that as Kallen was about to microwave him into a chicken nugget, or more precisely, an Archaeopteryx nugget. 'But, if I do that…! Even if it costs me my life…!' Suzaku mused.Then, Suzaku's hidden true desire finally surfaced out of his subconscious. 'That's right. This is redemption. I have to accept it. This is where I'm going to… to…'
Sadly, something else would not allow Suzaku to realize his innermost desire to die: two red rings suddenly surrounded Suzaku's pupils, taking over Suzaku's mind. "I… need to live!" Suzaku muttered unconsciously, and swiftly piloted his heavily damaged Lancelot away from the Guren's Radiant Wave Surger attack. He then had the Lancelot to pull out the missile-launching gun from the back and activated it while opening the cover of the F.L.E.I.J.A. button on his control panel. He then pushed the button.
And the F.L.E.I.J.A. was fired.
"…" Zero tightens his fists as he stares at one of the greatest mistakes he has ever made. 'Only if I were more insistent on not loading the F.L.E.I.J.A. warhead onto the Lancelot back then…' he muses with regret as he thinks back of the 25 million of people who evaporated because of the destructive missile.
'No…' Nina also stares at this scene as regret fills her mind. How she hoped that time can be reversed, and she would not have invented such a devastating weapon with such a deceiving abbreviated name…
The Guren quickly dodged the strange-looking missile, but unlike any other weapons Kallen had encountered before, the strange-looking missile didn't explode immediately, but instead starting to emit strange pinkish light as it got near to the Area 11 Government Palace.
"Huh?" Kallen was perplexed. What was that thing?
Nina, who had kept urging Suzaku to fire the F.L.E.I.J.A. until that moment, was also surprised at its launching. Schneizel was the only person who smirked, as if everything was going according to plan.
"He smirked?" Chiba barks incredulously. "He smirked because a F.L.E.I.J.A. warhead was launched? What's wrong with him?"
Gino is also surprised to see how Schneizel smirked at the launching of the most devastating weapon mankind has ever seen. Why was he happy about that?
Ohgi is, for the first time, perplexed by why Schneizel smirked. 'Why did he…' Ohgi is confused. Why did he smirk? Didn't he know how devastating the weapon was when he was at the testing grounds in the Dallas Research Institute? Then, the Prime Minister of Japan quickly finds an excuse for who he believes to be the only good man in Britannia. 'I see, he must have been too excited to know that he would finally be able to stop Lelouch from harming more people that he temporarily forgot the devastating power of the F.L.E.I.J.A. After all, he tried so hard to stop Lelouch, even sending Earl Maldini to tail Kururugi to the Kururugi Shrine. Yes, that must be it. I must not rush to an immature conclusion when I watch the footages and wronged a good man…'
Cornelia, Nunnally and Zero, the three people of the few more within the audience who know the truth of Schneizel's nature and true intention, all frown at the 2nd Prince's gentle yet utterly ruthless smile at the sight of the launching of the F.L.E.I.J.A. over the Tokyo Settlement.
Claudio Darlton, the field commander of the Britannian units, quickly noticed the F.L.E.I.J.A. right above them and swiftly ordered all friendly units to retreat as soon as possible. The Black Knights on the Ikaruga quickly noticed something was wrong as well when they saw the Britannian units suddenly pulling back at full speed, and hence also ordered all of their forces to retreat.
However, the retreating army did not include the Shinkirou, which stayed still at where it was as Lelouch was staring at the strange pinkish light source intently.
'Is that what Suzaku's mentioned…' Lelouch mused incredulously. Then, a jolt went through Lelouch's mind – that warhead must be the unit Suzaku had claimed to be able to kill over 40 million people, and it was right above the Government Palace now! "Nunnally!" Lelouch once again screamed at the top of his lungs.
However, it was too late. The pinkish light suddenly enlarged quickly and engulfed the entire Government Palace, along with all the objects and lives within its blast radius.
"Senba-san, Urabe-san, I…" Asahina, who at the time was in the process of infiltrating the Government Palace, called the names of his deceased comrades before he evaporated with his Akatsuki Command Model Zikisan Knightmare Frame into nothingness.
"Why… did they launch the F.L.E.I.J.A. here…?" were the last words of Alicia Lohmeyer, the high and mighty career civil servant, before she evaporated with the escape craft she was in into nothingness as well.
Nunnally is also seen on screen to be on the verge of being engulfed by the F.L.E.I.J.A. blast as well. The screen then cuts back to a horrified Lelouch, who was immobilized by the shock going through his mind at that moment.
"Princess, please save yourself! Princess!" a geassed Guilford screamed as he piloted his Vincent Commander Model to push the Shinkirou away from the blast radius, and half of the Vincent was seen on screen to be engulfed by the F.L.E.I.J.A. blast as his communication system was disconnected with the Shinkirou's. Guilford's scream shook Lelouch just enough to make him aware of the situation he's in, though it was apparent that he cared nothing about the man who saved his life as he focused his entire mind in the fact that Nunnally just got engulfed by the blast. At the same moment, the escaping Cornelia also looked towards the blast from the Ikaruga worriedly, as if she heard Guilford calling her name.
The blast finally reached its maximum radius and quickly retracted, thereby creating a vacuum space that resulted in strong currents that drew all surrounding units towards the blast centre, true to its full name "Field Limitary Effective Implosion Armament".
At the "death" of Nunnally, Lelouch had finally had a taste of the result of the actions he had taken since his resurgence as Zero a year after the failure of the Black Rebellion.
The auditorium falls into death silence as they see once again the devastating power of the first F.L.E.I.J.A. ever used on the battlefield. It has been almost a year since the last F.L.E.I.J.A. was launched from the Damocles as Lelouch was making his proclamation of unifying the world under his rule, and everyone is reminded of how vulnerable lives are, as well as how invaluable the peace they are enjoying right now truly is.
As Cornelia sees how Guilford sacrificed himself to save "her" and had half of his Vincent engulfed by the F.L.E.I.J.A. blast on screen, her mind is suddenly flooded with a strong urge to show how much she cares about her loyal knight and how appreciative she is to his unwavering loyalty.
"Guilford," the purple princess suddenly calls her loyal knight's name.
"Pri… ummm!" before Guilford can respond to it, however, he finds that his lips are swiftly sealed by a pair of soft lips in a rather passionate way.
Guilford is utterly surprised. Cornelia is kissing him in public! Guilford blushes hard and tries to remind the Princess that they are still in public eye, but Cornelia's hug is simply too strong and tight for Guilford to escape, and after some meaningless resistance, Guilford finally decides to give in – or perhaps deep down in his heart, he wants to do the same to Cornelia too.
Contrary to Guilford's initial worry, no one is surprised at Cornelia and Guilford kissing. In fact, the wives within the audience start to do the same thing at Cornelia's lead: Villetta grabs Ohgi's afro head and kisses him while hugging him, which takes Ohgi by surprise, but he eventually responds to Villetta's emotion lovingly as well; Chiba also hugs Tohdoh tight and kisses him, which causes the stoic general to blush hard, but even he decides to be in the moment and kisses back his wife, albeit still feeling embarrassed to do so in public.
"Nunnally!" Kaguya and Tianzi rush to Nunnally and hugs her tight. "I'm so glad you didn't actually get dragged into that bomb!" Tianzi exclaims as Kaguya hugs both of them tight, tears starting to form in the Chinese and Japanese girls' eyes. Tears also start to swell in Nunnally's eyes before she replies happily, "yes, I survived from that blast!"
"Prez…" in the back rows of the auditorium, Rivalz wants to hug Milly as well, but Milly makes her move first; she gathers the entire Ashford group and makes it a big group hug. "I'm so glad we're all fine!" Milly exclaims with joy.
"Yes, Madam President!" "Yes we survive, Prez!" "You're right, Milly!" "Yep, we all survived!" "Yes," The Ashford group is filled with the joy of staying alive after the devastating blast.
The scientist group looks at the hugging and kissing in the auditorium, and Lloyd is perplexed. "Uhm… is it obligatory to hug now?" he asks.
"If you ask that question, that means you don't have the urge to hug someone," Rakshata ridicules, although she also shows no sign of wanting to hug someone else.
"Nina, why don't you go and join your Ashford friends?" Cecile suggests the just-recovered dark green-haired bespectacled girl to join her friends for the hug.
"I… I can't. I am responsible for that disaster and I don't have the right to… to…" Nina cringes at the image of the first-ever battlefield F.L.E.I.J.A. blast on the screen. "I… huh?"
Cecile pulls Nina into a hug. "Here, I'll give you a hug."
"Ms Croomy…" Nina is touched by Cecile's kindness to someone as undeserving of a hug as her, or at least how she sees herself as she has just revisited one of the biggest atrocities ever committed to mankind by her invention.
"The path of science could be lonely, but you should know that you always have us with you," Cecile says as Nina sobs in her embrace.
Zero looks around at all the kisses and hugs happening in the auditorium. He feels relieved and joy to see the happiness flooding the auditorium after watching some of the most brutal footages that have been shown on screen yet, but more than that, a sense of duty quickly fills up his mind. 'That's right. Zero's the avatar of justice, and I have no right to seek love and companionship, for I must remain aloof and judicial to all affairs,' Zero muses before his eyes narrowed and his mind determined, 'I shall protect the smiles and happiness of all, starting from those in this auditorium right her and right now.'
