Chapter 30: "Glorification" V – The Ragnarök Connection
Inside the strange dimension with eternal dusk, Lelouch sat down on some ruins of the destroyed floating palace as he was putting back his lens on his left eye to conceal his Geass. "So, since we have plenty of time now, will you answer me?" Lelouch crossed his legs, smirking while facing his father, "Who was it that killed my mother and what's your excuse for not protecting her?"
However, rather than answering his son's question, Charles ridiculed Lelouch with a smirk, "How strange. You, who has lied your way to here, is seeking the truth from others?"
"You know, Emperor Charles might have been wrong on so many things, but he was absolutely right on this: Lelouch did lie all his way, such as how he lied about fighting for the Japanese, yet revealed to us at last that he was merely using us as his chess pieces for his own ambition," Ohgi observes.
Sadly, Ohgi suffers from the fate Tamaki usually suffers: no one is paying any attention to him. The Black Knights group, after discovering what Ohgi had actually done to the Black Knights, albeit unwittingly, simply keeps their mouth shut either out of deference to the Prime Minister of their country, such as Chiba and Tohdoh; or in consideration of their long-term friendship with the tall Japanese man, such as Kallen and Tamaki.
'Kaname…' Villetta is worried about her husband, who is, perhaps luckily, oblivious to the change in attitude of his old comrades towards him as he keeps pushing them to see reason. As intelligent and capable Villetta is, she has few options other than to offer emotional support to her beloved husband while not saying things out loud that would further damage her husband's relationship with his comrades and friends.
"That's true, I've lied every step of the way," surprisingly, Lelouch outright admitted that he had lied through his way straight up. "And not just about my name and my past. I've hidden my true intentions, too. However, that's the same for you. Without our personas, neither of us can move forward any further."
"See, I was right," Ohgi immediately rides on what Lelouch had just said on the screen, "I am not framing him or putting words in his mouth. He said it himself: he lied every step of his way, and it was not just about his name and his past, but his true intention as well, which was to exploit us for his world domination campaign. We should never have trusted this man for anything he said to us from the very beginning, after all."
Tohdoh, Chiba and Tamaki are once again confused by Ohgi's insistence on how Lelouch had lied to them. While what Ohgi had just said was no doubt true, as Lelouch himself had just admitted to it on screen, each of the three members of the Black Knights have reservations on Ohgi's words: Tohdoh is thinking from an overall strategic viewpoint, seeing Ohgi as having too narrow of a mind to be competent enough to govern Japan effectively, as shown in a lot of the previous scenes that he apparently placed Villetta before the greater good and had never thought about the consequences of his perhaps well-meant, but ultimately disastrous actions, ranging from ousting Zero right in front of Schneizel to punching Diethard in the face for personal grudges; Chiba is still agitated by the fact that Ohgi had unwittingly aided Schneizel in greatly weakening the Black Knights and thus the UFN as well; while Tamaki simply is too confused by what Ohgi says and what Tamaki himself sees on screen, that Lelouch had been doing good things ever since he was ousted from the Black Knights, and the raven-haired boy did not seem to be as bad as Ohgi is trying to convince everyone in the auditorium to believe.
Just as the Black Knights Group is contemplating and evaluating the situation upon Ohgi's yet another seminar about his views on Lelouch's vice, Kallen actually finds what Lelouch had just said on screen striking a strong chord with her own experience as a Britannian-Japanese mix who had tried hard to survive in both societies back when there were sharp divisions and antagonistic sentiments between the two. 'Lelouch's right, while I am a Japanese at heart, I needed to play along with those Britannian teachers and students in Ashford Academy in order to melt into the Britannian society, and I lied on my family, on my classmates and even on my Britannian friends by wearing a different face in order to get by both the Britannian and Japanese communities. And while Kallen Kouzuki is my true face, was the creation of my Kallen Stadtfeld persona a sin? If it was not, then Lelouch's Zero persona, his Lamperouge persona, his Emperor persona…' the red-haired girl thinks inwardly as she finally understands why Lelouch had been so insistent on lying to everyone else – it was for the exact same reason as to why she had created the Kallen Stadtfeld persona, i.e. to survive in the Britannian society.
"You're wrong," Charles turned around, his back facing Lelouch as the dimension became sort of a library as bookshelves suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He pulled a book titled "Paranormal Phenomena" out of the bookshelves and turned to the page with a diagram showing "self" at the centre of a circle, and nine encircled "A" at the edge of the central circle. Just outside of the central circle, nine encircled "complex" were linked to the encircled "A". The Emperor continued, "When we realize that lies have no meaning in the endless flow of eternity, those personas will vanish. When we understand each other, conflict will disappear." He then than shot a glance at his son, to which his son avoided the gaze at first, but quickly reengaged with it.
The Emperor then turned back to his son, smirking. "That's my Ragnarök Connection. The world shall lose its mask of deceit and reveal the truth." The bookshelves then pulled themselves away and revealed a large skeleton specimen behind the Emperor.
"Paranormal Phenomena?" Nina notices the title of the book the Emperor had pulled out of the bookshelves, "was His Majesty attempting to pursue something beyond normal experience or scientific explanation?"
"Well, since the Emperor had been toying with Geass and Code for the whole time, it's only natural that he's attempting to do something beyond science with that supernatural power," Rakshata reasons, "the only thing that is still confusing to me is what exactly did he mean when he said 'the world shall lose its mask of deceit and reveal the truth'. How could that be achieved?"
"AHA! Something interesting was going to happen?" Lloyd predicts, "Something beyond the realm of science was going to happen? How exciting!"
"Calm down, Lloyd!" Cecile grunts, "This was a serious moment! Stop being goofy!"
"But aren't you excited?" Lloyd keeps being excited, "Excited that something beyond science is going happen? As a matter of fact, I'm very excited!"
"Give up, Cecile, you are not gonna get the Earl of Pudding to calm down anytime soon," Rakshata chuckles, "unless you can give him a good pudding to distract him."
"…" Cecile deadpans her face. As much as she admires the genius of Lloyd, she really doesn't like how he keeps ignoring social norms all the time.
Next to Cecile, Nina doesn't know what to do as well – all she can do is to remain silent and look at the other three scientists worriedly.
Back inside the cave, Anya was tinkering with a broken machine outside the giant rock entrance while C.C. was explaining to Suzaku about the concept of the "C's World", "In current terminology, it's the collective unconscious. A collective of people's minds with memories. The sea of transmigration. The great consciousness. Some refer to it as God."
Suzaku suddenly realizes something. "Was that what I saw when we met at Narita?"
However, before C.C. could answer, Anya interjected the conversation as she sighed and gave up on fixing the broken machine. "C.C., could you please?" the pink-haired girl asked.
"Are you really going inside?" C.C. asked.
"Well of course, Charles is waiting for us," Anya responded incredulously, as if C.C. had just asked a stupid question, "it would have been much easier had you given him your Code."
C.C. simply stared at Anya and didn't respond.
What Marianne said on screen has once again shocked Cornelia. 'Lady Marianne was not there to save Lelouch, but to meet up with father? She's collaborating with father on his scheme?'
Nunnally frowns as well. 'So mother was collaborating with father in his plan to "slay the God" all along. Was that what father wanted to tell me "when everything's completed"?'
"Oh, well," Anya sighed before smiling again as she put her left palm against the giant rock entrance while her right hand holding C.C.'s left hand, "I will go first, then."
C.C. then activated her Code, and the craved parts on the giant rock entrance started to glow in red. A smirking spiritual Marianne started to detach from Anya as the raven-haired woman was entering the giant rock entrance.
"Eww! A ghost!" Tamaki exclaims in disgust and fear, but nobody pays any attention to him as everybody is also shell-shocked to see a ghost was actually detaching itself from a living human. This is even more stunning and unbelievable than Geass!
"How… was that possible?" Nina murmurs, still can't believe what she is seeing on the screen right now, "how was that possible… there is no way to explain that in terms of science…"
"A…HA! It seems that both His Majesty and Her Highness the 5th Imperial Consort were above and beyond the realms of science!" even the eccentric scientist is shocked by the scene and cannot do his usual "AHA" fluently.
"I thought Britannia was all about science when they have the most advanced Knightmare Frames out of the three superpowers, and how the Emperor kept talking about evolution and nothing else… I stand corrected," Rakshata says as she, too, is shocked by what she has just seen on screen.
"What are you doing?" Suzaku demanded as he witnessed the strange phenomenon happening right before his eyes. However, no one responded to him; only a fainted Anya was falling back after the red light glowing on the giant rock entrance went out, and Suzaku quickly sprang forth to catch the falling young girl.
C.C. stared at the Knight of Seven. "Suzaku Kururugi, you and I are quite similar."
"Similar?" Suzaku asked as he was holding the fainted Anya.
"…that we both desire to die, but couldn't."
Outside the cave and above Kamine Island, Bismarck was manoeuvring his Galahad to eliminate the rebelling forces. Suddenly, he noticed Schneizel's airship was approaching Kamine Island alongside the Black Knights, including the Zangetsu, the Shenhu and the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements.
Inside the Guren, a frustrated Kallen was manoeuvring her Knightmare Frame to escort Schneizel's airship on its way to Kamine Island. "Stay alive, Lelouch," Kallen bellowed with an annoyed face inside the cockpit of her Guren, "I still have questions that I needed to ask you!"
"You looked totally pissed there, Kallen," Gino quips, which causes the red-haired girl to blush.
"I… I was just confused about why Lelouch told me to live back on the Ikaruga, that's all!" Kallen retorts, though it is clear that she is embarrassed by how desperate to get the answer from Lelouch she seemed back then.
"Well, well, well… we have someone madly in love with Lelouch here, don't we," Milly nudges Kallen as she chuckles.
"…" Kallen has nothing to shoot back at Milly, now that she has admitted to Milly her love to Lelouch. The red-haired girl can only have her face as red as her hair.
On the other side of the auditorium, however, the concerning point is different. Guilford is still aghast at seeing how Marianne's ghost seemed to be coming out of Anya's body. "Your Highness, do you think Lady Alstreim was…"
"…was possessed?" Cornelia says with a heavy heart, "I don't want to admit that, I don't really want to admit that… but it seems quite clear to us already that… that Lady Marianne somehow… somehow… possessed Lady Alstreim," The purple princess then looks to the back of the auditorium, seeing how Shirley is still comforting the weeping pink-haired girl. "I don't want to admit it, I don't want to admit it so hard… but it seems that Lady Marianne might have… uhm… taken away at least a portion of Lady Alstreim's life," Cornelia stutters. The warrior princess is thoroughly shaken by the new fact that has just been revealed to her: Marianne, her idol, had robbed someone else's life, at least a portion of it, and seemingly did so without any remorse. How could that be? To Cornelia, she grew up seeing Lady Marianne as the kindest, gentlest and most respectable lady warrior in the whole Britannia, with unmatched battle skills, enviable beauty and wealth of love for her husband, her children and her nephews and nieces. How could that be the same woman who had no problem possessing and robbing someone else's life?
"Big Sister?" Nunnally is worried to see her usually stoic elder sister being so shaken by the new revelation, "are you alright?"
"…oh, uhm, I'm alright," Cornelia tries to maintain her composure in front of her younger sister, but her mask slips nonetheless. Seeing this, Nunnally reaches out and holds Cornelia's hand. "Big Sister, should we pause this screening for a moment?"
Cornelia's mind is jolted by her younger sister's suggestion, and she quickly regains her composure, "That's alright, Nunnally, let's continue. It's not just me, but you also deserve to know the truth behind all that happened among father, Lady Marianne and Lelouch."
Inside the strange dimension with eternal dusk, Lelouch was aghast at what he saw right in front of his eyes. "How… how could that be…?"
"You've grown up so much, Lelouch!" A cheerful Marianne was standing right in front of Lelouch, and she looked just as Lelouch remembered her to be. How could that be possible?
"Mother…?" Lelouch slowly walked towards Marianne, but then a bass voice boomed behind him, "So you've come, Marianne."
The Emperor's greeting infuriated Lelouch once again. He looked back and demanded, "Is this another illusion? Do you think that by doing this…"
However, before Lelouch could finish his sentence, Marianne sighed, catching Lelouch's attention once again. "Hmm… I am the real one, though," Marianne then spun a full round while raising her left leg before returning to the starting position and curtsied, "well, although I can only retain my original form inside this system."
"The real one…?" Lelouch still couldn't believe what he saw. Wasn't his mother dead 8 years ago on the staircase of Aries Villa? Why was she alive and well? What happened?
"Lelouch, I shall answer your previous questions now," Charles said calmly as he saw the confusion his son was suffering, but Lelouch was not appreciative about Charles' offer at all, simply hissing back while glaring at him. That didn't impede Charles though, as he slowly explained, "Half a century ago, me and my Big Brother were in hell. All of our relatives were rivals competing for the throne, assassination was a daily staple, and everything was filled with lies and betrayals. Everyone died off eventually."
The Emperor slowly walked towards an originally blank portrait that gradually turned into one that showed an angered V.V. and a scared young boy with the same sandy brown hair as Nunnally's, who was frantically holding V.V.'s right arm in fear. Charles then turned back and continued, looking at another portrait that showed a lady in teal dress died in a pool of blood under a collapsed carriage, "my mother was among those who were killed by the assassination plots. Me and my Big Brother were sickened and angered by the world that we lived in, and we thus made a vow: to create a world without lies," The screen then showed a young V.V. with shorter blond hair smiling happily as he placed his right palm vertically against the sandy brown-haired boy's left.
Cornelia and Nunnally both look at the screen intently, finally learning some family history they have never been told. "So V.V. was indeed father's elder brother and our uncle," Cornelia observes, "that scared child with sandy brown hair besides V.V. must be father when he was a mere child."
"And to see our grandmother died in that horrible way…" Nunnally is sadden to see how Charles' mother was killed by a carriage. She then recalls how she and Lelouch felt after Marianne was killed, "Father and Uncle V.V. must have fallen into despair upon their mother's death, just like me and Lelouch."
"In a way, father and Lelouch were similar: they both were sickened and angered by the cruelty of the world, and they set out to do something drastic to change it," Cornelia observes, but then immediately raises a question that she still doesn't know the answer, "I don't understand, though. Why was father so merciless in treating Lelouch and exiled both of you upon Lady Marianne's death? He of all people should have known the despair of a young child would suffer upon losing his mother to an assassination plot, since father's mother had also died in a similar way Lady Marianne did!"
"And to think that His Majesty Emperor Charles actually threw Her Majesty and Lelouch out of Britannia…" Gino couldn't believe it after learning the back story of Charles' mother being assassinated as the tall blond man recalls the very first scene in the first disc that has shown how brutal and merciless Charles was when he said to Lelouch that he had never lived once because everything that Lelouch had, even his life, were given to the raven-haired boy by Charles.
"Perhaps His Majesty Emperor Charles had suffered from PTSD as well?" Cecile hypothesized, "we have seen how His Majesty suffered from PTSD ever since he walked past that piece of wasteland filled with dead bodies that had largely shaped who he had become eventually. Perhaps Emperor Charles also went through that phase as he witnessed and traumatized by his mother's death."
This gets the audience into deep thought. True, what the screen has just shown indeed highlighted the similar plights Charles and Lelouch went through as children, and common sense would tell that a child losing his mother at a young age is very likely to be traumatized. And what's more, Charles and Lelouch both turned out to have similar personalities: ruthless, showed little care to most people, only paid attention to the ends and not the means, so on and so forth. However, even if that was the case, PTSD alone still couldn't explain why Charles was so merciless to Nunnally and Lelouch, his own children, who suffered the same plight as he did, and while sending Nunnally and Lelouch to Japan as hostages to assure Japan that Britannia had no military ambition against the Far East island nation seemed to make sense at first glance, it could not withstand further scrutiny: would Prime Minister Genbu Kururugi, himself a veteran politician, really had believed that Britannia would not invade Japan after Britannia had sent a prince and princess that the Emperor cared nothing about to the island nation as hostages? Things just didn't add up to explain the seemingly reasonable but actually bewildering decision Charles had made nine years ago. Something is still missing for one to get a complete picture of what actually happened back then.
Marianne picked up where Charles had left off as the screen showed her younger self and C.C. next to a lake, wearing equestrian attire, while V.V. looking at them from afar. "Both C.C. and I agreed to the vow as well," Marianne explained, "V.V, however…"
-Flash back-
-8 Years Ago-
It was dark at night, and Marianne was walking down the staircase in an unlit Aries Villa in her usual orange long dress. "What is the urgent matter that you wanted to discuss? I have cleared everyone out of here. I even had Cornelia withdrawn," she asked as she finally reached the bottom of the staircase, meeting a boy with long blond hair. It was V.V., his back facing Marianne.
"I'm sorry for having you out here without Charles," V.V. turned and faced Marianne with a smile.
"If you want to discuss matters pertaining to the Sword of Akasha…" Marianne continued, but was interjected by V.V. "No, I wanted to discuss matters regarding Charles," V.V. said.
"Huh?" Marianne was bewildered. Why discuss things about her beloved husband in the middle of the night?
V.V. continued, "Ever since he met you, Charles has changed a lot, becoming a man who enjoys learning more about one another. You realize that if this continues, the contract that me and Charles made will never be fulfilled, and I'll be left alone."
This stunned Marianne. Where is V.V. trying to get this conversation to?
"Since the beginning of time, it's always been the woman who's led the man astray," V.V. said while still smiling innocently. This, however, alerted Marianne. What was V.V. trying to say?
"Your Highness," suddenly, someone from the top of the staircase called Marianne. Marianne immediately turned back and scolded the two butlers walking down the staircase, "haven't I told you to stay out of here… ugh!"
Suddenly, out of nowhere, V.V. produced a submachine gun and started shooting at Marianne and the two butlers, killing them easily. Marianne collapsed and fell on the staircase in a pool of her own blood.
"No!" Tianzi is scared by the killing scene and immediately covered her eyes with her hands. Kaguya quickly attends to her younger friend and hugs her tightly, although she herself is also shocked by the revelation – so it transpires that Lelouch's mother was killed by V.V., Lelouch's uncle!
"Mother!" Nunnally cries out as she sees her mother being gunned down on screen. The young Empress starts to tremble in fear, sadness and anger involuntarily. So that was the truth: V.V., her uncle, killed her mother!
Cornelia quickly pulls the trembling Nunnally into her embrace. "Shhh. It's alright, I'm here," the elder Britannia sister gently whispers into her younger sister's ears. However, despite quickly fulfilling her role and duty as elder sister, Cornelia herself isn't faring much better either – she is seething and gritting her teeth as she finally knows who the culprit behind her idol's death was.
Just as the Britannia sisters are hugging each other upon finally learning the truth of the death of Marianne, Guilford notices that something is not quite right. 'V.V. killed Lady Marianne with a submachine gun on the staircase, but apparently Her Majesty wasn't there at the time. So how did Her Majesty get shot in her legs?'
Just as V.V. finished killing Marianne and the two butlers, he picked up a phone while still smiling, "It's done… Yes, start the cover up now, let's use Nunnally as the false witness… the culprit must be terrorists, after all."
The dying 5th Imperial Consort stared towards her left and saw a young girl with pink hair was hiding behind a column inside Aries Villa, staring at the dying woman while being utterly scared. 'Anya Alstreim… The young girl who had arrived a week earlier to be schooled in etiquette…' Marianne mused as Geass fired up on her left eye, sending a Geass Sigil flying into the young Anya's eyes. However, instead of twisting Anya's neural network, the Geass sank into it. After that, the screen showed that countless bullets were sent into Aries Villa from both sides of the mansion, and a crippled and trembling Nunnally was lying on the staircase as Marianne's dead body was covering her. Meanwhile, an utterly aghast young Lelouch was staring at everything in disbelief at the top of the staircase. The screen then switched and showed C.C. in business attire walking away with her luggage as she was crossing the border checkpoints.
-End of flash back-
"My Geass allows me to cross over into another person's mind, and this dormant power of mine activated for the first time as I was dying," Marianne continued to explain, "I hid inside Anya to save myself from being killed by V.V. I then realized that when my consciousness surfaced, I could communicate mind to mind with C.C. When she discovered the truth, C.C. left the directorship to V.V. and disappeared."
"I've also spoken to my Big Brother about this," Charles continued, "however…"
-Flash back-
V.V. and Charles were standing at the edge of a cliff, gazing at the numerous children prepared for Geass experiments standing under the cliff.
"I heard the news," V.V. said, "Tragic. Sorry to hear that, I shall miss Marianne."
Charles tightened his fists and gritted his teeth, but said nothing in response.
-End of flash back-
"…my Big Brother lied to me, even though we had vowed to create a world without lies!" the Emperor finished the story of Marianne's "death" with a hiss.
As Marianne and Charles finished telling the whole story behind the assassination plotted against Marianne by V.V., the library background faded and the original strange dimension with eternal dusk returned with the once monolithic but now destroyed floating temple. However, Lelouch's reaction after finally finding out the truth behind his mother's "death" was not that of realization or understanding, but anger. "Don't… don't joke around!" the vindictive raven-haired boy bellowed, "Are you trying to put the whole blame to the dead V.V.? It was you who sent me and Nunnally to Japan as political hostages…!"
"That was necessary," Charles said in a surprisingly fatherly tone that neither Cornelia nor Nunnally had ever heard of.
"Why would that be necessary?" Lelouch screamed in fury, "You were clearly using us as your tools for your Asian conquest…!"
Everyone in the auditorium, except Zero, is stunned by the revelation of the truth behind Marianne's death. The truth is so far away from everything the audience has known or assumed, no one knows where to start.
"Ok, first thing first, it was that V.V. who killed Lelouch's mum?" Rivalz breaks the silence.
"But I don't understand. Why did he kill Lady Marianne?" Shirley is puzzled about V.V.'s killing motive. Didn't Marianne say she and C.C. both supported the plan?
"I remember that during the scene when V.V. died, C.C. mentioned that V.V. had once loved Marianne as a woman. Perhaps it was out of jealousy?" Milly conjectures from a romantic point of view.
Kaguya listens to the discussion among the Ashford group and adds inwardly, 'that may be true, Lady Ashford. However, V.V. also mentioned that Lady Marianne had caused Emperor Charles to become more interested in understanding others, which seems to be, according to what V.V. had just said on screen, exactly what the Ragnarök Connection was trying to achieve based on the assumption that people are incapable of understanding each other that leads to conflict. The Emperor becoming interested in understanding others would make his contract with V.V. a moot point.'
A few seats next to Kaguya, Cornelia is visibly upset. Seeing with her own eyes that Marianne, her idol, also possessed the power of Geass has shaken the warrior princess' fundamental belief and respect to the 5th Imperial Consort to the 98th Emperor of Britannia. The fact is clear: Marianne, Charles and Lelouch all possessed the supernatural power of Geass that, in Suzaku's words, would "elicit the evil within people's hearts" that had ultimately caused her dearest younger sister Euphemia to die with her name, honour and dignity forever tainted. 'Why did Lady Marianne dip her hands into such evil power? Why was she so remorseless in using Lady Alstreim and robbing a good portion of her life? And why did she never inform any of us that she was still alive and had everyone on? Lelouch even raised a whole army to fight against Clovis and me, causing numerous innocent loyal subjects of the Empire to die and suffer in the process for an utterly pointless revenge! Euphy wouldn't have died had Lelouch known his mother was still alive!' The purple princess tightens her fists and grits her teeth as she slowly puts together her thoughts and realizes what Marianne's inaction had ultimately led to.
At the back of the auditorium, Kallen and Gino both notice something important from what Charles and Marianne had revealed. 'If what Lady Marianne said was true, that means C.C. knew about the whole truth all along? Then why did she keep it from Lelouch all that time? Wasn't Lelouch her accomplice?' Kallen muses in shocking realization.
Gino is concerned about a similar matter as well. "His Majesty was aware of the entire truth the entire time, and he seemed to be displeased by what V.V. did, yet he still cooperated with V.V. after Lady Marianne had been killed? I don't understand his logic."
"I am not quite sure what His Majesty was thinking as well," Guilford chimes in the discussion, "if he knew what happened to Lady Marianne, why did he conceal the truth and heartlessly exiled Lelouch and Her Majesty, yet seemingly being lenient to Lelouch's rebellion against Britannia or even his attempted regicide? Everything His Majesty did seem to be contradiction in actions. Why did he say it was necessary for him to exile Lelouch and Her Majesty to Japan?"
"She… she stole my life…" suddenly, Anya has an outburst of emotion, tears gushing down her face, "Lady Marianne had stolen my whole life!"
"Anya?" Shirley, Gino and all other Ashford group members are worried. They have never seen Anya being so expressive with her thoughts and emotion.
Nunnally feels guilty about what her mother had done to the former Knight of Six. It might be out of necessity, but the fact that Marianne did that without any remorse of robbing someone else's life is deeply unsettling to the young Empress' mind. She turns to Zero and said, "Zero, would you mind to wheel me to Lady Alstreim?"
The masked man is about to nod and do just that, but he is interjected by Cornelia. "Let me do that," Cornelia volunteers, "as a member of the Imperial Family, I think I also owe Lady Alstreim something, and I wish to have a word with her as well."
Nunnally nods and lets her elder sister wheels her to the crying pink-haired girl. "Lady Alstreim," Nunnally starts right after arriving in front of Anya, "I don't know if this would be sufficient, but as her daughter, I wish to apologize to you for what my mother had done to you in all those years."
Anya is stunned. "Your Majesty… that's… that's not your fault at all…"
"But the responsibility falls onto me to make an apology to you, since I am her daughter," Nunnally says gently.
"Lady Alstreim, I also apologize for my insensitivity in pushing for an answer from you when I first learned that Lady Marianne may still be alive," Cornelia says sincerely, "I'm sorry for the uneasy feeling caused to you."
"Your Majesty… Your Highness…" Anya tries to regain her composure in front of the members of the Imperial Family, but the stress and resentment against Marianne that have occupied her mind for so long being finally released has basically taken away her emotional plug. The pink-haired girl continues to cry as Nunnally reaches out with the help of her elder sister to pull the pink-haired girl into a gentle hug.
As Lelouch was confronting his parents in the strange dimension with eternal dusk, the K-TV crew had finally finished their breaking news report and moved to shoot some external scenes for its reporting footage. Milly endured the whole time to put up her standard anchor/reporter professional facial expression, but right after it was done, she finally showed tiredness and sadness on her otherwise flawless face as she turned away from her colleagues and looked at the crater caused by the F.L.E.I.J.A. explosion. Suddenly, she noticed that right next to several dead bodies put inside large bags, an exhausted Nina was staring at the dead bodies with determination, her back facing Milly's side as she had seemingly made a decision. The dark green-haired bespectacled girl's eyes were bagged, apparently due to a lack of sleep throughout the night.
'Nina…' Milly muses as she finally gets to see Nina's facial expression at that time. 'Your wish to avenge Princess Euphemia was exploited by Prince Schneizel into creating a weapon of mass destruction for His Highness' own goal, and since he didn't even order the use of F.L.E.I.J.A. himself, all the blood caused by that blast and the guilt that came with it was all on your hands and shoulder… and naturally, all the blame went to you, not him,' The blonde girl scowls at how underhanded Schneizel had been in causing a permanent scar on her close friend's mind.
Meanwhile, Bismarck was reporting to Schneizel about how the rebellion caused by Lelouch's geassed soldiers were gradually subdued with the help of the Black Knights. However, Bismarck gazed intently at Schneizel towards the end of his report.
"Is there anything else?" Schneizel asked curiously.
"How much do Your Highness know about?" Bismarck asked with a tint of seriousness.
"How frightening," Schneizel laughed off the question, "What do you mean by that?"
'Just how much did he know?' Cornelia muses as she is still helping Nunnally to soothe Anya's emotional fluctuations, 'the first disc has shown that Schneizel knew about Code-R at a very early stage, but then he did nothing about Kamine Island, a place now revealed to us to be a key location for father's plan to work. Perhaps he only knew about Geass but not father's plan? He didn't seem to know about that underground Geass facility in the Chinese Federation either. It seems that he only knew what was in Clovis' research and nothing more. So that means he bluffed Sir Bismarck? But what good would it bring to him to attract the suspicion from the Knight of One, the most senior and powerful knight of the Empire that rivalled even the Prime Minister himself?'
Back at the giant rock entrance, C.C. was having a conversation with Suzaku. "I exploited Lelouch," the lime-haired girl confessed, "I knew everything from the start, yet I prioritized his survival just to get the prize that I always wanted – my own death."
"Any regrets?" Suzaku asked as he knelt down to lay the fainted Anya on the ground, with her head pillowed by C.C.'s plush doll.
"None whatsoever," C.C. replied with a tint of sarcasm in her tone, "after all, I'm a witch with eternal life. I've long discarded my humanity already."
"You and I are not similar at all," Suzaku stood up, causing C.C. to gaze at him with narrowed eyes. "C.C., send me to that side of the world. I'm going to succeed the wishes of those who could not realize them," the brown-haired boy demanded with determination in his tone.
"C.C. you bitch!" Kallen bellows as the footage finally confirms her doubt that C.C. knew the whole truth all along, and that the lime-haired girl shamelessly admitted that she had been using Lelouch from start, "How dare you used Lelouch like that?"
Cornelia also scowls as she wheels Nunnally back to her original position in the auditorium after the Britannia sisters have calmed Anya down. 'She concealed the truth from Lelouch, causing him to commit so many heinous acts… Euphy and Darlton, they both died because of her concealment of the truth!' she hisses inwardly.
Inside the strange dimension with eternal dusk, Charles continued to answer Lelouch's question patiently. "Yes, but I sent you two to Japan to help you two escaping from my Big Brother's sight. I've also arranged Marianne's body to be secretly taken away from her coffin."
"As long as my body still exists, there could be a way for me to return to it," Marianne added.
"To protect everything, I was forced to rewrite Anya and Nunnally's memories, who were witnesses of the incident," Charles continued.
"Nunnally?" Lelouch was shocked by this revelation, "You mean her blindness wasn't psychosomatic after all? But…"
"That was to ensure Nunnally's safety," Marianne interjected, before Charles continued to explain in his fatherly tone, "It was done because there was a need to lead Big Brother to think that Nunnally did not know the truth."
Everyone in the audience is shocked once again by the revelation. "I… was geassed to blindness?" Nunnally couldn't believe it. What even confuses her more is that her parents claimed that doing so was in the interest of her survival. She doesn't know whether to be angered that her pitiful years as a blind girl was deliberately caused by her parents, or to be grateful to her parents who made her blind to protect her.
Cornelia is also stunned by the revelation. 'Father… actually cared about the survival of Lelouch and Nunnally? But why…' then realization dawns onto her. 'I see, father knew about Lady Marianne's survival from the very beginning, that's why he didn't seem to care about her "death" at all back then. Also, the scene earlier showed that father was actually aware of V.V. lying to him about Lady Marianne's death, which means he probably cared about Lady Marianne's survival after all. Well, that was in line with the fact that Lady Marianne had always been father's favourite one among his many wives, and that's probably why he cared for Lelouch and Nunnally's safety. But… what about Euphy and Clovis? Or me?' Cornelia thinks back the scene when her father was standing atop of that floating temple in the strange dimension with eternal dusk, laughing hysterically upon seeing Lelouch geassing Euphemia into killing all the Japanese and seemingly praised his son for his horrific mistake. 'Father… only cared for Lelouch and not Euphy…?' she tightens her fists and frowns with sadness filling her beautiful face. While Cornelia may be magnanimous to her siblings, there is still a limit on how far such magnanimity can stretch, and learning the fact that her father possibly only cared about Lelouch but not Euphy has inevitably incited sibling rivalry in her mind that she quickly realizes and squashes almost immediately. 'No! I mustn't think like that!' Cornelia scolds herself inwardly as she wheels Nunnally back to the first row of the auditorium after having calmed Anya down.
Lelouch was utterly shocked and visibly shaken, but Marianne continued nonetheless, "In our original plan, one immortal Code would be enough. However, as research progress, we discovered that we needed another one, which means that there is no 100% guarantee that the plan would succeed if we go without C.C.'s Code."
"Before Marianne could have persuaded C.C. to join us once again, we were left with no other options but to use you," the Emperor concluded.
"Then… why am I doing all this…" Lelouch could only feel a sense of powerlessness filling his body. If what his parents told him were true, then what was the point for him to risk everything and killed numerous innocent people to avenge someone who was not exactly dead and who was behind everything from the very start, as well as to seek vengeance from someone who actually endeavoured to protect him and Nunnally from harm?
"Once we've got the Ragnarök Connection going, no more tragedies of this sort shall happen ever again," Charles went on with a serene facial expression.
"Masks shall vanish, and everyone can be just themselves," Marianne added in a cheerful tone.
"I see… even the battles between Britannia and the Black Knights were all just for the sole purpose of persuading C.C. to participate in your plan. That means from the very beginning, I was merely a nuisance, a ruckus to the world…" Lelouch, a smart boy as he was, quickly deduced the true nature behind all his struggles against the Holy Britannian Empire – it was nothing but a childish tantrum to his parents, a nugatory crusade right from the start. Despite how the raven-haired boy thought he was the grand chess master who manipulated everyone to be his pawns in his fight against Britannia, Lelouch, the mastermind of the largest resistance group rising up against Britannia, had actually been nothing more than being his parents' biggest pawn on their chessboard the entire time.
Lelouch's realization has forced the auditorium into silence. There is a mixture of emotion among the audience as they finally learn that Lelouch, despite how smart, manipulative, calculative, callous and merciless he was, had been nothing more than a pawn of his parents to achieve their own goals.
"Well, that was such a get back to that unscrupulous demon," Chiba ridicules, "The grand chess master was actually a pawn to his biggest enemy the whole time."
"Despite our differences, it seems that from the very beginning, and unbeknownst to all of us, we've actually all been colleagues serving His Majesty Emperor Charles' needs and wants," Rakshata comments sarcastically, though a tint of frustration can be detected in her tone if you look at her twitching eyebrows close enough.
"I can't believe it…" Kallen exclaims incredulously, "You mean that everything's set up by the Britannian Emperor and his wife, while C.C. was in it as well? If what we were doing was exactly what the Emperor of Britannia wanted us to do, then what's the point for us to risk everything we had, rose up against Britannia and fought so hard? What's the point… what's the point of the death of onii-chan?"
Kaguya, Tohdoh, Ohgi, Chiba and Tamaki are all infuriated as well. "What was the point for all of our struggles? The sufferings of our fellow countrymen?" Tohdoh exclaims, "Major General Katase, Senba, Urabe, Asahina… their death were all in vain and meant nothing!"
"Damnit! I thought Lelouch was sly enough already, but his dad was even worse! And his mum!" Tamaki yells in frustration. To the former and current members of the Black Knights, they feel cheated and insulted as they realize that everything they have fought so hard for during the 8 years of Britannian occupation actually meant nothing at all.
"His Majesty better had a good explanation about what his plan was for," Guilford seethes as well, realizing that the deaths of Princess Euphemia, General Darlton, four of the five Glaston Knights and numerous capable soldiers who had served Cornelia with nothing but dedication and loyalty were all for nothing but a plan secretly devised by the 98th Emperor of Britannia and his 5th Imperial Consort that didn't seem to make any sense at all. While the bespectacled knight's chief loyalty is to Cornelia, he still feels his secondary loyalty to Britannia cheated and taken advantage of nonetheless.
"Prez…" back at the Ashford Group, Rivalz is aghast at the revelation. He doesn't understand everything the Emperor had said on screen as they sounded complicated, but the gist he has got from it is that Lelouch's entire struggle was meaningless from the start because it was well within the Emperor's plan?
"Well… that's some breaking news, isn't it…" Milly is simply shell-shocked at the truth that has just been revealed by the Emperor on screen. In front of her, Shirley is also aghast at Lelouch's deduction. 'So everything Lulu did… it was for nothing? That's horrible!' the orange-haired girl tightens her fists and muses with a tint of anger. How could Lelouch's parents do that to their son?
Gino is also upset by the revelation, but not as much as the others as he had sworn his personal loyalty to Charles as one of his Knights of the Round, and it was his job to achieve whatever his liege's wishes were. "I guess it now boils down to what His Majesty's plan was trying to achieve, after sacrificing so many innocent lives and purposefully letting the Black Knights to attack Britannia."
As Lelouch finally realized what he had been doing was futile and meaningless from the very beginning, he laughed hollowly, turned back to a cloud of fog and asked curiously, "What do you think?" Emerging from the fog were Suzaku, the Knight of Seven, and C.C., the eternally young lime-haired witch.
"So you've realized that I would be here?" C.C. handily used Lelouch's best trick up his sleeve: to answer Lelouch's question with a question.
"And the fact that you've regained your memories," Lelouch said, "that's necessary for this plan to succeed, isn't it?"
"That's correct," Charles answered for C.C. before he turned to Suzaku, "therefore it was meaningless for you to come all the way here, Kururugi."
"It seems so, as I have learned that you've attained immortality," Suzaku responded, before asking the Emperor with a serious tone, "That's why I'm here to confirm. What are you trying to create with all this?"
"That's simple, it was what Euphy and Nunnally both desired: a gentle world," Charles answered in an uncharacteristically calm and sincere tone. Lelouch turned back and looked at his father with a realizing gaze.
"A gentle world?" Chiba hisses incredulously, "the Britannian Emperor, of all people, wanted a gentle world? This could not be more oxymoronic considering what he had done to us Japanese!"
"I don't understand anything anymore!" Tamaki yells, but he is understandably ignored by others again.
"This is ridiculous," Tohdoh says with anger filling his tone, "how could the Emperor claim that he was desiring a gentle world when all he did was sending his troops to mess with other countries left, right and centre? And what he did to Japan… despicable, no less hypocritical."
'No wonder Prince Schneizel scowled at his father back then,' Ohgi muses as he, too, feels angry towards what the Emperor had just said on screen, 'I was right, Prince Schneizel was indeed the only good man in Britannia. If only he could have taken over Britannia, perhaps the world would have had become a better place. In this regard, Kururugi was not wrong in wanting to install him as the next Emperor of Britannia. Just why did he not follow through that plan and took a wrong turn?'
In the front row, though, Kaguya is having different thoughts than what the Black Knight Group is thinking. 'As merciless as Emperor Charles might have been all along, I don't think he was lying there and then. I don't know how he would create a "gentle world" that he desired, but… hmm,' Kaguya muses. She does not know exactly why, but her political instinct is telling her that contrary to what common sense would tell her, Emperor Charles was not lying that he did desire a gentle world, despite his bellicose actions against the UFN and the Black Knights.
"C.C., now that all of us have assembled here, the plan can commence. I shall grant your wish after everything has been completed," the Emperor said as he raised his right hand and pointed the Geass Sigil on his right palm towards C.C.'s Geass Sigil on her forehead, both glowing in red.
Suddenly, the scene started to show various supernatural happenings: a bulge of ghosts filling up a white background, numerous turning gears flashing in various colours, the sky above Kamine Island was shone by strange light while starting to shake as if there was an earthquake. Outside the giant rock entrance, the fainted Anya woke up due to the shaking of the ground. "Huh? What's happening?" the pink-haired girl asked incredulously, "Where am I?"
As all the surreal things were happening, the screen suddenly flashed a hand-written line in red against a black background that reads "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate".
"What's happening?" Tianzi is scared by what was happening on the screen. It seems like the world was going to end!
'I see, so that's the reason of the strange phenomena we saw that night,' Kaguya muses as she holds Tianzi in her embrace to comfort the scared Chinese girl.
"Hey, what the hell is that line?" Tamaki exclaims, "Besides, that's crappy handwriting! I can write better than that!"
"Oh shut up, Tamaki, who cares if you can write better than that or not!" Kallen hisses, although she is also curious to know what that phrase meant.
"Is that Latin again?" Chiba snorts, "Why did C.C. keep putting Latin into the footage?"
"No, that's Italian," Cornelia says, "I think that's a line from an Italian poem, and the line means 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter'."
"Ha! I knew it was something like that!" Tamaki yells immediately, although no one pays any attention to him.
'Abandon all hope… I guess that's a subtle hint that C.C. has put into the footage to tell us how she felt at that very moment,' Zero muses as he recalls his brief conversation with the lime-haired girl inside the cave on Kamine Island before entering the strange dimension with eternal dusk. He then realizes something else, '…and possibly her current feeling as well, now that she's lost Lelouch forever…'
Back inside the strange dimension in eternal dusk, the sky suddenly started to crack and smashed into numerous pieces as they fell down, revealing a greyish background underneath. "Yes! It's begun! The Sword of Akasha is going to slay the God!" Marianne was exhilarated to see what was happening: her eyes mesmerized, her smile more genuine than ever.
The red light glowed from both Geass Sigils subsided. "Now, after our marks are merged, a new world shall spring forth!" Charles announced as he started to slowly walk towards C.C.
"So that's the paranormal phenomena the Emperor was after?" Rakshata observes, "How interesting."
"AHA! Everything he did was for that moment. His Majesty could have been a perfect scientist had he poured such passion into science!" Lloyd comments.
Cecile and Nina simply look at the surreal images in shock. They both knew the tip of the iceberg regarding Geass thanks to their involvement in the Zero Requiem, but to witness the true power of Geass is still some surreal experience to the two female scientists.
In the front row of the auditorium, Cornelia is disgusted by Marianne's exhilarated smile. 'That's… Lady Marianne's true smile. I can tell that she's smiling and feeling joy from the bottom of her heart. This makes all the smile she had ever shown to me seemed fake in comparison. I see… this was her true nature, and everything that I'd seen before about her was mere acting, just as how she easily fooled Lord Waldstein earlier. She's…'
"What a crazy bitch!" Tamaki suddenly yells.
"Mr Tamaki, I urge you to… Huh?" Guilford is displeased that Tamaki once again insults a member of the Imperial Family and wants to stop him, but Cornelia quickly holds his hand and shakes her head before getting close to Guilford's right ear.
"He's right," Cornelia whispers to her knight, "I won't say that word, but that man there is right about Lady Marianne."
"Your Highness…" Guilford is worried to see how Cornelia is losing her respect to her one and only idol who practically defined Cornelia's career and character. It must be a huge blow to the warrior princess that her idol was nothing like a model knight of Britannia that she has always believed in and worshipped, but a deranged woman who cared for nothing but the plan she had with her husband.
"Lelouch, what was your motivation for wanting to control the world?" Suzaku suddenly asked while standing behind Lelouch and next to C.C.
"Don't ask such pointless question. I do it for Nunnally…" Lelouch shot back while kept staring at his parents without looking back at Suzaku, but he was interjected by Suzaku. "Are you trying to use Nunnally as your excuse?" Suzaku demanded.
Lelouch frowned, but after a brief moment, he gazed back at Suzaku with a smirk, "Hmm, I guess you are right. I do it to protect everything I wanted to protect."
"To achieve one's end, one must also forgo something," Suzaku continued.
"And that also includes to reject something as well," Lelouch said.
"If that's the case…" Suzaku muttered.
"That's right," Lelouch replied as he turned back to his father and stood right between him and C.C., stopping his father from reaching C.C., "I reject both you and your thinking!" he declared to his father, causing the Emperor to frown and narrowing his eyes.
"Why do people lie? That's not just for them to fight over for something, but also to pursue something!" Lelouch exclaimed as C.C. turned and looked at him from behind with a confused gaze, "there will be no change in a world that is stagnant, and you can't call someone in that kind of a world living. That's the equivalent of being sealed in memory, a complete and close world. I would not want that."
"Lelouch, are you saying you are rejecting me as well?" Marianne asked in her usual cheerful voice, but with a tint of disappointment in her tone.
"Mother, is your wish the same as the Emperor's?" Lelouch asked in a lowered voice, hinting a hope that his mother would think differently from his estranged father.
However, that proved to be a doomed wish of the raven-haired boy. "It's a good thing to rejoin all the minds that have been separated, isn't it?" Marianne extended her support to her beloved husband with a lovely smile, "we can even be together with the dead again, including Euphemia." However, that only earned an angry hiss from Suzaku, to which Marianne's smile did not falter even for one bit.
"Bringing the dead to live again? What the hell were they talking about?" Tamaki yells in utter frustration. How could that happen?
"So the Emperor and his wife had finally gone crazy," Chiba hisses, "they were hopeless."
Next to Chiba, Tohdoh frowns. 'Bringing the dead back to life? How's that possible…? Wait, but if the Emperor's plan succeeded, then that means Major General Katase, Senba, Urabe, Asahina and our other fallen JLF comrades could be brought back to life again?' the eminent Japanese General muses.
In the front row of the auditorium, Cornelia is torn by Marianne's suggestion. On the one hand, her emotional side wants to see Euphemia, Darlton, the fallen Glaston Knights and all her deceased siblings to rejoin her, just as Marianne had suggested; on the other hand, her rational side simply can't accept how lightly Marianne had taken the death of the purple princess' closed ones, treating them as nothing more than avatars of a video game that can be resurrected at the press of a button. Merciless as Cornelia may be to her enemies on the battlefield, she does not think of wars as some sort of games, but solemn struggles between pride and life – that everyone involved in it is to be tested on their skills, strengths, wit and determination to prevail from a duel that puts the lives of the participants on the line. In fact, not even Schneizel, who had no problem taking out one or two billion lives with aplomb for his plan of achieving permanent peace; nor Lelouch, who, at the end of everything, had no problem executing even Nunnally in order to cement his control over the entire world unscrupulously, had ever treated the death caused during the process with such presumptuous attitude that Marianne was displaying on screen at this very moment. 'You're wrong, Lady Marianne. The meaning and sanctity of life are not something to be taken that lightly!' the purple princess screams in exasperation inwardly as she sees how Marianne treated life even worse than how Luciano Bradley, the Knight of Ten and the "Vampire of Britannia" who epitomized the use of violence for self-satisfaction, had treated his opponents on the battlefield, shredding the last bit of her near-fanatic piety to "the Flash" of the Empire at last.
Nunnally is also displeased at her mother's reasoning. 'For some reason, I feel that mother seemed to be the more heartless one among the two. Father at least took the time to talk to me while we were at that strange dimension with eternal dusk, promising to tell me everything after "everything's completed", whereas mother didn't even care to appear before me once even though she had ample opportunity to do so.'
"…" behind Nunnally, Zero simply tightens his fists as he revisits this particular scene. He has no regrets about rejecting Marianne and Charles' plan to bring back Euphemia back to the living, but somewhere deep in his heart, he still feels a tiny bit of guilt of denying his one true love the chance to come back to live, despite knowing full well that even Euphemia herself would not have agreed to her father's plan.
"I see, so that was it," Lelouch closed his eyes with a tint of pain that his mother was actually on his father's side. The raven-haired boy then raised his head a bit before continuing, "You may think that is a good thing. However, that good intention is forced upon everyone else. It is no different from an evil act!"
"When the time comes, everyone will understand," Charles spoke slowly, hoping to hammer reason into his son's head.
"That time will never come!" Lelouch quickly rejected his father's idea, his eyes twitching in fury. "There is only one thing that's crystal clear: what you did to Nunnally and me may have been done out of good intention, but the hard fact remains: you abandoned us!"
"But that's to protect you two!" Marianne quickly retorted, starting to lose patience in her thankless son. How can her son keep blaming her and Charles when they had already told him that what they did to them was to protect them from the vicious V.V.?
"Then why didn't you stop the war between Japan and Britannia?" Lelouch demanded, stunning Marianne. She realized immediately that she had no good answer to that and fell silent. C.C. turned her gaze from Lelouch's back to Marianne, seemingly realizing something.
"Since you've prioritized your plan, whether we were alive or dead didn't matter to you anymore. That's why you abandoned us while leaving such a self-satisfying excuse for that!" Lelouch answered his own question as he was staring at his towering father.
"That's not true!" Marianne shouted back in denial, but Lelouch quickly refuted her with fury, "You've just said it, didn't you? That you can be together with the dead again. You're not looking towards the future!"
"The future is right after the completion of the Ragnarök Connection," Charles intervened, still in his fatherly tone, "the gentle world that Nunnally had spoken of is right there."
"That's wrong!" Lelouch refuted his father vehemently, "the world you're speaking of is only gentle to yourselves!" Tears then started to appear in his violet eyes as he continued, "the world that Nunnally had hoped for is a world that is gentle to others!"
Nunnally simply feels sad to witness this scene of her family arguing over what her "gentle world" really was. 'Father, mother, Big Brother… I should have been there to say what I really think, so that they could stop arguing about what I wanted…'
Next to the young Empress, Cornelia finally understands why her father seemed so distant and uncaring to all his sons and daughters. 'That's why father didn't seem to be saddened one bit when Clovis and Euphy were killed, because his plan would have brought both of them back to rejoin the living again.' Being more mature than Lelouch and not related to Marianne by blood have allowed Cornelia to look at the matter more objectively: if, according to Lelouch's logic, Charles truly didn't care whether Lelouch and Nunnally were alive or dead, then there would be no need for Charles to exile Lelouch and Nunnally to Japan or to geass Nunnally into blindness to mislead V.V. in the first place, since even if Lelouch and Nunnally were killed by V.V., they would have rejoined the living once this Ragnarök Connection had been established. While there was insufficient evidence to show whether Marianne had truly cared for her children or not, it is clear to Cornelia that Charles did care about Lelouch and Nunnally's survival in his own way, however twisted it was in other people's eyes.
Marianne had had enough with her insolent son and was staring at him disappointedly. Charles didn't seem as disappointed as Marianne, but he too was not convinced by Lelouch's argument. "Let's say that's true, so what now? The Ragnarök Connection has already commenced," the towering Emperor said slowly.
"I'm not so sure about that," Lelouch retorted as he removed the contact lens from his left eye and smirked, "I'm Zero, the man who brings about miracles!"
"Geass does not work on me, and neither does it work on anybody else here," Charles was amused by his son's insistence to stop his plan.
"No, you're wrong. There are a lot of them here, won't you say?" Lelouch retorted once again, which confused Charles for a brief moment. But soon enough and as expected from someone sagacious enough to handle two of his devilishly clever sons all at once with apparent ease, Charles quickly realized what Lelouch was referring to.
"That's right, C's World is the will of the people, and humans are not created equal! Both are words you have spoken before, and you should know very well the unmatched power that I possess!" Lelouch exclaimed.
"You're a fool, Lelouch!" Charles's voice boomed, "The power of a king cannot defeat God!"
"This isn't about winning or losing, but merely a wish! That's right, I've finally understood myself at this instant," Lelouch exclaimed as he fixed his stare at the image of Jupiter that floated on top of the strange dimension, "God! The collective subconscious! Don't stop the march of time!"
Marianne gasped as she looked back at the collective subconscious, and then she realized something would go very wrong if she kept letting her son's foolishness to continue to run rampage. "Lelouch, you insolent child…! Huh?" she bellowed at her son with not even a trace of love for him in her voice, only an infuriated wife and knight to her emperor husband seeing a fool trying to stop what she and her husband had been working on so hard and for so long. She dashed towards Lelouch and tried to stop him, only to be stopped by Suzaku's raised sword.
"No one, not even Euphy, desire any of this!" Suzaku scowled.
Nunnally is aghast to see her mother's cold and merciless facial expression and hears her detached tone. It was so different from how she remembered her: gentle, elegant, cheerful, always with a beautiful smile. 'Mother, you truly only cared about your plan with father and not about us, weren't you?' she muses with a mixture of shock, sadness and anger.
"That's impossible…to God or to humanity itself!" contrary to Marianne, Charles still spoke with his fatherly tone, trying to persuade his son that what he was doing had no meaning at all.
"Even so, I still desire tomorrow!" Lelouch exclaimed. Suddenly, his right eye turned black, and a second Geass Sigil appeared, stunning Charles. A giant Geass Sigil appeared on the floating image of Jupiter at the top of the strange dimension, and the Sword of Akasha started to disintegrate from the top.
The Black Knights Group is aghast at what they have just seen. While Tohdoh, Chiba, Villetta and Tamaki have somewhat got to know that their previous perceptions of Lelouch was misguided, they are nevertheless shocked to hear Lelouch's words that is so resonating.
"He desired tomorrow?" Tamaki asks incredulously, "so… he was actually doing good things for the world after all?"
"…" Tohdoh has nothing to offer. Everything that is happening on screen now is too much for him to think of anything meaningful to say.
The Ashford Group is aghast at what Lelouch had just said on screen as well. "Dude… he was dead serious," Rivalz says, "that's the most serious tone I have ever heard from him."
"This is… insane," Milly exclaims, "Lelouch was actually casting his Geass on 'God'…"
In the front row, Cornelia is also shocked at what is showing on the screen, but she quickly realizes something, 'I see… so that's when Lelouch had obtained the Geass Sigil on his right eye. My memory didn't fail me, he did possess two Geass Sigils like father after all. This also matches with how Geass functioned back in the second disc when he had lost control of his Geass and caused that havoc at the SAZ of Japan…'
"No!" Marianne screamed as she looked back at the disintegrating Sword of Akasha, aghast. How could this be happening after years of hard work of hers and Charles'?
"The Thought Elevator…!" Charles also stared at the collapsing Sword of Akasha in disbelief. "The dream that I, Marianne and Big Brother all shared… is collapsing…!"
"Charles, let's stop this," C.C. pleaded as she sat down on the floor while hugging her knees, "This is too preposterous!"
"C.C.!" Charles turned back to the lime-haired witch as he showed the Geass Sigil on his right palm once more, "as long as we both have our marks… hmph?" Something then went seriously wrong for Charles: his feet started to disintegrate!
"This is not a lie, but an answer stemmed from reality!" Lelouch announced.
"Darling…! Huh?" Quite understandably, Marianne didn't care about what her insolent child had to say and instead rushed to her one and only true love. However, Marianne, too, found that her feet had started to disintegrate.
Nunnally is saddened by her mother's choice as she finally finds the answer to the question that came to her right after the scene in the first disc when Charles gave his eulogy at Clovis' funeral. 'I see. Mother, so you did love father from the bottom of your heart, more so then you have ever loved Big Brother… and me.'
"It can't be!" Charles shouted as he was staring at his disintegrating feet in disbelief, "I'm supposed to be immortal, yet I'm being devoured by the C's World?"
"But what about C.C.?" Marianne immediately turned back and stared at the lime-haired girl, who seemed unaffected by Lelouch's Geass order cast on the collective subconscious, "Why isn't C.C. also disintegrating? She did agree to this plan, didn't she?"
"I'm sorry, but I've finally realized," C.C. apologized to Charles and Marianne in a soft but regretful tone, "all that you love are yourselves only."
"So C.C. finally realized the true nature of the plan and jumped ship at the last moment," Villetta observes. As a mother, Villetta can't believe how heartless Marianne was to her children, abandoning them in an enemy nation and never showed up to help them despite having the ability to do so. Never in a million years would Villetta abandon Naoto in an unattended room, let alone an enemy nation!
"I think C.C. probably also realized that Marianne and Charles had deceived her," Rakshata observes, "if this Ragnarök Connection could indeed bring back the dead to rejoin the living, then it would be in direct contradiction to C.C.'s ultimate goal of dying in peace because the wall that lies between the living and the dead would be no more."
"Tsch! I don't really understand what was happening, but good to see that witch was on our side instead of the Emperor's!" Tamaki snorts.
"That's not true! We also love Lelouch and Nunnally…!" Marianne immediately denied C.C.'s accusation.
"Do you understand the meaning behind Nunnally's smile?" Lelouch demanded.
However, both Marianne and Charles seemed puzzled by Lelouch's question. "Smile?" Marianne asked.
"Why can't you understand?" Lelouch exclaimed with a saddened and angered tone, "Nunnally was blind and crippled. Therefore, she understood that there were things she couldn't do on her own!" Tears swelled on Lelouch's violet eyes as he continued, "Nunnally, Nunnally's smile is the only way to show her gratitude!"
"It is exactly such kind of delusion that masked…" Charles bellowed, still trying to convince his son that he was wrong to stop his plan.
"I won't allow you to say that was a lie!" Lelouch immediately cut off his father as tears falling down his cheek, Suzaku staring at the disintegrating Emperor and the Emperor's favourite Imperial Consort with disdain, and C.C. looked at them with sadness in her eyes. "As if I will allow you to say that! You, who have never once looked at the reality, but only observed us from far and above…" Lelouch continued with a trembling yet unmistakably furious voice, "Stop joking around! There is only one truth here: you, my parents, have abandoned me and Nunnally!"
"Dude…" Rivalz is aghast, "I've never seen Lelouch crying that much ever, not even after he was captured by Suzaku at the end of the Black Rebellion."
"He's obviously disappointed at his parents, especially at his mother," Milly sighs, "after all, as we have found out in this screening event, one of the reasons why Lelouch started a rebellion against Britannia was to avenge his mother, and in the process he'd killed numerous people, including two of his siblings. To find out that his mother was actually pulling the strings from behind since the very beginning was undoubtedly a big blow to him."
"It must have left a very bad taste in his mouth," Kallen pities. As someone from a broken family, Kallen can relate to Lelouch's feelings towards uncaring parents, though Lelouch harboured much greater grudge against his father than Kallen has ever harboured against hers.
Marianne gasped in frustration, while Charles had finally had enough of his son's insolence as he rushed to him amidst his corporeal disintegration, grabbing the raven hair boy's neck with his right palm. "You clever little fool!" the Emperor roared. Suzaku was about to intervene, but Lelouch stopped him. This was a family matter for Lelouch and his parents.
"If you reject me, then what is coming would be his world, Schneizel's world!" Charles warned as he made his last attempt to hammer reason into his son's thick head, "Good and evil intentions are just the two sides of the same card, and yet you still…!"
Tohdoh is bewildered. "What did the Emperor mean when he said 'Schneizel's world'?"
"A peaceful world I suppose," Ohgi guesses, "I mean, the Emperor was so set to conquer the whole world, he didn't want to see peace to come to all of us."
Kaguya frowns as she is not convinced by Ohgi's guess. 'We now know that Emperor Charles intended to create a gentle world, however twisted his method was. If he felt the need to warn Lelouch about it, then I'm afraid that the 'Schneizel's world' might not be as good as you may have imagined, Ohgi.'
Cornelia frowns as well. 'I see, so father had long realized what Schneizel's trying to achieve, yet he didn't stop Schneizel because he was confident that he would have achieved what he wanted first before Schneizel could. It would have been true had Lelouch not intervened, but he had obviously underestimated Lelouch's determination in stopping him, as well as his desire for "tomorrow", whatever that meant to him,' the purple princess thinks inwardly.
Contrary to the agitated Charles, Lelouch seemed calm and collected. "Even so, I shall reject you and your world," then, Lelouch's face was once again filled with hatred and anger as he shouted, "Be gone!"
"Ugh…!" "Agh…!" at Lelouch's shout, the 98th Emperor of Britannia and his 5th Imperial Consort finally disintegrated fully into the C's World, and the strange dimension, now walled by grey instead of an eternal dusk, fell silent.
"I see, so that's why His Majesty never returned from that strange dimension," Gino sighs as he finally gets to know the answer, "His Majesty was defeated and eliminated by Lelouch."
Shirley and Kallen both feel complicated as they watch how Marianne disintegrated in that strange dimension. They now know that Marianne had been Charles' staunchest ally all along, and she was just as guilty as the Emperor in abandoning Nunnally and Lelouch to their own despite doing it out of the good intention of protecting them from V.V. at the beginning. Nevertheless, unlike the aged Emperor, Marianne's youth, elegance and beauty still nevertheless captured both maidens' heart, making somewhere in their mind feeling sad for the demise of the mother of the 99th Emperor of Britannia and, in the best of scenarios to Shirley and Kallen, their would-be mother-in-law.
In the science corner, the scientists are still trying to recover from the surprise and shock the scene has just brought to them. "Well, this is… such a plot twist," Lloyd says hesitantly, not knowing what else to say.
"This is just sad," Cecile sighs, "now that His Majesty had killed his parents, no matter how justified it was, it had undoubtedly left yet another deep scar in his mind and worsen his PTSD."
"But admirably, he did recollect himself rather quickly and went on to conquer the world," Rakshata comments, "his mentality was actually quite strong, to be honest."
'So that's why Lelouch chose to…' Nina muses quietly as she starts to make her own conjecture on what really went through Lelouch's mind back then.
In the front row, the Britannia sisters also feel complicated in several ways. Both of them are utterly saddened by the fact that Marianne had been on their father's side all along, and had deceived them in different ways that led to a series of unfortunate happenings in the years ensuing Marianne's "death", resulting in the death of Clovis and Euphemia. In addition to that, Cornelia just feels the irony of learning that despite being one of his two major objectives of starting a rebellion against Britannia, Lelouch was actually the one who killed his mother.
'This is just pure irony. Lelouch set out to avenge his mother, but he ended up being the one who finished off his mother by eliminating her in that strange dimension,' Cornelia muses with sadness in her tone as she tightens up her fists, 'and if I can realize that, I'm pretty sure Lelouch must have realized that as well. It must have blown his mind so hard the moment he realized it… and that everything was Lady Marianne's fault.'
"Huh…!" Back on Schneizel's airship, Bismarck sensed something went wrong with his liege. "It can't be…!"
"I see, the man who dreams for emptiness is no more," Schneizel said in his usual calm voice, without even a trace of sadness that his father was dead.
"Why was he so goddamn calm?" Chiba questions, irritated, "despite how shitty the Emperor was, he's still his dad!"
"Well… I mean, the Emperor was such a horrible man who treated his sons and daughter badly, so naturally a good man such as Prince Schneizel couldn't feel too bad about his death, right?" Ohgi comments.
In the front row, Kaguya can only shake her head inwardly at Ohgi's naivety in politics.
After a moment of silence upon the disintegration of Marianne and Charles into the strange dimension, Lelouch decided to speak again. "C.C., are you going as well?" he asked with a flat tone.
"'At least die with a happy face', right?" C.C. retorted, though in a sad tone that was probably due to seeing off two of her relatively long time acquaintances at once. Lelouch narrowed his eyes as he gazed back at the lime-haired witch.
"What are you two going to do now?" C.C. switched the topic, catching the attention of both Lelouch and Suzaku. "You both rejected Charles' plan and have chosen reality, to continue the march of time. However…"
"Before that, there is something I must verify with the false monarch," Suzaku narrowed his eyes as he raised his sword and stared at Lelouch intently.
"And I need to ascertain several things with the Knight of Betrayal!" Lelouch shot back at Suzaku.
"So that's when the two started to cook up their world domination plans," Gino observes, "well, it's sad to say, but even though neither of them lived long enough, they both saw themselves becoming the greatest villains of mankind history."
"Ha! So although they did one great thing for the world by defeating the Emperor and his evil wife, they still did some bad things to the world eventually!" Tamaki quickly exclaims.
"Your Highness, do you think…" Guilford whispers to Cornelia in the front row of the auditorium.
"It seems so," Cornelia nods to her knight, "whatever Lelouch and Kururugi discussed there after Lelouch had killed father and Lady Marianne could be the reason why Kururugi decided to defect to Lelouch's side despite his original plan to install Schneizel as the next ruler of Britannia. The question is: what was the plan? And why did Lelouch pursue the path of world domination, despite what he said to father and Lady Marianne about the real gentle world that Nunnally has always wanted? It's sad to say, but there wasn't a trace of the gentleness that Nunnally was hoping for in Lelouch's world."
The scene then switched to a rainy day at Ashford Academy. The new Student Council led by Rivalz was finishing up the preparatory work for the upcoming School Festival with Shirley and a few new Ashford Student Council members. As Rivalz and the other members were heading out the room and left Shirley alone inside, someone called Shirley's phone.
"Yes, Shirley Fenette's speaking," the orange-haired girl answered in her signature lively and positive tone as she was reviewing some paperwork. However, no one responded. "Hello? Can you hear me?" Shirley said as she was trying to reach a book on the other side of the desk.
Suddenly, Shirley froze. She then stood up and walked away from the desk and towards the glass window. "Lulu? What's up? Why couldn't you come to school all of a sudden?"
There was no response from the other side, but Shirley kept talking, "I can imagine much has happened on your side, but… do you know Mr Gottwald? He's worried about Nunna and you…"
The scene didn't show what Lelouch told Shirley on the phone, but Shirley continued, "You know, I… I… like you no matter what happened! I'm on your side! Are you… planning to do something? Let me help you as well! I'm also your…"
However, before Shirley could finish her sentence, the call was terminated by Lelouch.
Tears fell down Shirley's eyes as she gazed at the outside through the window.
"Lelouch really had a bad habit of cutting the phone call whenever he wanted," Gino shakes his head in disappointment, "he clearly lacked the understanding of the etiquette of holding a phone conversation."
"So you confessed to Lulu!" Milly is quick to point to the one key detail in the scene.
"Ehh… I…" Shirley is embarrassed, though she also suffers from a tint of sadness as she re-watches the scene from a third-person perspective.
"See, you can do it if you want to, and you've done it," Milly surprisingly doesn't tease Shirley this time, but pats her back and commends her courage. "You're a brave girl, Shirley." 'Much braver than I am…' the blonde girl muses in her mind with a tint of sadness.
"Madam President, what are you…?" Shirley doesn't know what to say.
"What did Lelouch talk to you about?" Kallen is curious as to what Lelouch had told Shirley, "And what was it about Jeremiah?"
"Huh? Uhm, well, I mean, I was going to tell Lulu that Jeremiah was worried about Nunna and him, because Jeremiah…"
"Yes?" Suddenly, a magnetic, baritone voice interjects Kallen and Shirley's conversation. A tall, teal-haired man with an orange framed artificial left eye appears in the auditorium.
"Jeremiah!"
"Orange!"
"Lord Gottwald!"
"Jerry…"
"Jeremiah Gottwald, hereby announces his presence at this auditorium!" the proud man proclaims as he comes before Nunnally and Cornelia, kneeling down, "Your Majesty, Your Highness, I apologize for my tardiness in attending this event that Your Majesty have so graciously invited me to join."
"That's quite alright, I've heard from Lady Alstreim that you have been running errands the whole morning," Nunnally smiles as she gestures Jeremiah to rise, at which the loyal servant of the Britannian Imperial Family obliges obediently.
"Gottwald, I heard from Lady Alstreim that you were delivering boxes of oranges picked from your farm this whole morning?" Cornelia asks.
"Yes, Your Highness," Jeremiah replies respectfully, "although I have had some local people who joined me after Anya had had some friendly interactions with them when we first arrived there, my Justice Gentlemen Orange Farm is still a small business, so I don't have much manpower to help with delivering all the orders made by my clients and I have to do some of it myself, hence my tardiness to this event. Have I missed anything significant?"
"Let me bring you up to speed," Zero steps in immediately and briefly explains to Jeremiah what this screening event is about, how Kallen obtained the three discs from C.C., how much the audience knows about the secrets of Lelouch up till this moment and the plight of that blue-haired girl who still suffers from Lelouch's Geass command to mark the wall in Ashford Academy at a specific time every day despite the fact that she now lives in the Brtannian Homeland. Nevertheless, Zero deliberately leaves out the parts related to Marianne's reemergence after the Second Assault on Tokyo Settlement, as well as her elimination in that strange dimension with eternal dusk: Zero knows that if Jeremiah's unwavering loyalty to Marianne, which has been clearly shown in the second disc when the teal-haired man himself proudly asserted to V.V. when being asked by the short, blond immortal boy during the battle in that underground Geass facility why he allied with Lelouch despite Lelouch being the one who dealt a fatal blow to his career and had him almost killed, was strong enough to wipe away his hatred against Lelouch and propelled him to fully devote himself to Lelouch's cause with no questions asked, such loyalty would no doubt be equally strong enough to propel Jeremiah to discard everything Lelouch had done for the fruition of the Zero Requiem and instead devotes himself into achieving what Marianne truly wanted – a world without lies. It is clear to Zero that Jeremiah values loyalty to Marianne over everything else, and it would be a grave problem to the current peaceful world if Jeremiah learns that Lelouch, the person whom Jeremiah had transferred his loyalty to due to the "death" of Marianne, had actually defied the teal-haired man's true liege's wish and eliminated her in C's World. With his strong cyborg physique and his Knightmare Frame ace pilot ability, the consequence of letting Jeremiah to know the truth related to Marianne is simply too hideous to contemplate, and Zero is simply relieved that his plan to delay Jeremiah's arrival at the auditorium by placing extra orders to his business worked perfectly well.
"I see…" Jeremiah takes in what Zero has just told him quickly, "I will deal with that girl who is still under His Majesty's Geass command once His Highness has located her," Jeremiah says to Zero before turning to the audience, "and I assume that everyone here expects me to use my Geass Canceller on them?" to which everyone in the auditorium nods.
Jeremiah thinks for a moment. 'If it was Lady C.C. who gave Lady Kouzuki the discs, then I suppose Lady C.C. must have deemed it alright for this group of people to learn about the truth and have the Geass cast on them removed. However…' the teal-haired man takes a quick glance at Zero before looking back to the audience.
"I understand the situation now and I am more than happy to remove any Geass that might have been cast on you," Jeremiah announces, "In addition, as an apology to my tardiness to today's event, I have brought with me some oranges picked from my farm for everyone to enjoy."
"Really?" Gino is excited. He has always wanted to try some fresh oranges picked from the Justice Gentlemen Orange Farm, recently gaining fame as a top quality orange cultivator in the market.
"Great! Hey, Orange, we should make a deal after this! Together, we shall beat everyone in the orange juice market!" Tamaki yells in excitement.
"Certainly, Mr Tamaki, I'm sure we will," Jeremiah smiles at Tamaki before turning to Zero, "I have taken the liberty to peel the oranges and made them into bite size in the kitchen. Zero, if you would be so kind to bring them here for everyone to enjoy?"
"Certainly," Zero understands what Jeremiah's real intention is, and the masked hero duly obliges as he walks out of the auditorium to get the peeled and sliced up oranges.
After Zero has exited and left the auditorium to get the oranges from the kitchen, Jeremiah turns towards the audience and activates his Geass Canceller, resulting in a blue sphere that gradually covers everyone in the auditorium. Some people among the audience immediately feel the effect as their eyes are encircled by red rings.
"I remember now… Lelouch geassed and interrogated me about the assassination plot against Lady Marianne before I fainted in the rooftop garden of the Area 11 Government Palace…"
"So after Uncle V.V. killed mother, he had his henchmen to transport me to that staircase and shot me at my legs. Father did come to visit me in the ICU the following morning and cast his Geass on me while saying that it was all for my own good… And right after Big Brother geassed me into giving him the Damocles Key, he knelt down before me…"
"So what was shown in the footage was true… I did meet Lelouch at the empty warehouse at the Atami Bayside, and he ordered me to perceive him as Princess Cornelia whenever he put his hand on his collar…"
"Darn, I was lured out of my Sutherland just because he claimed himself to be the son of a duke, and then he geassed me into giving him my Knightmare Frame. I was too into vain aristocratic titles back then…"
"I see… Lelouch, you did geass me into answering your questions about the things had happened in Shinjuku, and you were shocked by the fact that I was a Britannian-Japanese mix…"
"I remember now… Lelouch and I already knew each other when we were kids back in Pendragon, and our family lost our nobility titles not because we failed to produce a new generation of Knightmare Frames as requested by the Emperor, but because we were close allies to Lady Marianne; with her death, we've lost our support inside Pendragon, and we're forced to withdraw from court politics. Also…"
"I remember now! Nunnally is Lelouch's younger sister, and she's been with us the whole time until after the Black Rebellion!" Rivalz exclaims, finally getting back his true memory, "Most of the staff members and students were evacuated from Area 11 after the Black Rebellion, while those of us who remained were taken to Pendragon, and His Majesty cast his Geass on us to rewrite our memories, saying that we shall replace everything in our memory related to Nunnally with Rolo as Lelouch's younger brother…!"
"I see... I was brought before His Majesty… and had my memories about Nunnally replaced by Rolo as well…" Nina murmurs in fear as she realizes that even though she has never returned to Ashford Academy since the Black Rebellion until this screening event, the Emperor still sent one of his Geass assassins to "escort" her to the Emperor and had her memories altered.
Meanwhile, besides the already de-geassed Shirley, Kaguya, Tianzi, Ohgi, Tohdoh, Chiba, Gino, Tamaki, Lloyd, Rakshata and Cecile feel nothing as they are engulfed by the blue sphere.
"Hey, I don't feel anything!" Tamaki shouts.
"If you don't feel anything despite the effects of my Geass Canceller, that means you are not cast with any Geass," Jeremiah explains.
"I see, so Schneizel bluffed us when he said we might be under the influence of Lelouch's Geass!" Tamaki exclaims, to which Tohdoh and Chiba nod in agreement as they scowl at the culprit who pushed the best strategist among their ranks away from the Black Knights.
"Hold on, I mean, Prince Schneizel didn't say we were definitely cast with Geass by Lelouch, right?" Ohgi, the culprit who pushed the Black Knights' best strategist away, immediately gets defensive of himself and Schneizel as Tohdoh and Chiba stare at him, "I concede that Lelouch had done the world some good by defeating Emperor Charles. However, we must not forget that we were only able to learn about the existence of Geass thanks to His Highness' generosity, and that Lelouch tried to execute us nine months ago. Let's not jump to conclusion now."
Ohgi's hasty defence piques Cornelia's interest. 'I wonder what would Prime Minister Ohgi's reaction be when he finally learns what Schneizel's real plan was,' she muses.
"Right, that's it for cancelling Geass," Jeremiah announces as those who were affected by Geass have finally regained their respective memories. A brief moment later, Zero opens the door and pushes a cart filled with plates of delicious slices of oranges into the auditorium.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you oranges freshly picked from my Justice Gentlemen Orange Farm, the finest oranges you can find on the citrus market," Jeremiah proudly announces, "please enjoy them to your heart's content."
"Yay!" Tianzi cheers at the sight of some delicious fruit.
As everyone is taking their share of oranges happily from the cart, Zero looks at them and muses, 'Well, now that the secrets behind Lady Marianne's death has been unveiled, all that's left is my true identity. When that is revealed eventually, what should I do…?'
