Chapter 4 is on. Looks like I still owe Geassfans a certain explanation, so here I'm supplying it. Read and enjoy!

Turn 4
From Where Perfection Ends

"You have been a fool to have believed that the world will finally be at peace with your death."

Maybe it was just him, but Lelouch did feel a strong jolt of pain at his chest – precisely where Suzaku had stabbed him – when he heard those words. The fact that his body was now wholly ethereal did not stop him from clutching where his old wound was, as if it was being ripped apart by the very context of the allegation. His bewildered look at the being perching before him was self-explanatory. It wasn't amusing at all, when he was at it.

"You... you must be joking!" Lelouch screamed, as if he was undergoing the terror of his lifetime. "My... my plans... they were flawless!"

The serious, convicting stare from the winged being facing Lelouch told him that he wasn't amused in all seriousness, let alone joking. Not to mention his kind – the type of celestial beings guarding the gates of Higher Heaven, armed with divine swords, wings, and coronas – had been known for aeons to be unable to lie. Or so it had been said, an angel's lie is punishable by banishment to the deepest depth of Hell.

"Essentially, what you have been hoping was to unite the world to fight one common enemy, by means of acting as that common enemy yourself, so that when you die, people will have already been united and will coexist in peace for all eternity," the angel said. "Alas, you have been far too ambitious with that plan, though I myself find it meritorious to a certain extent."

"What do you mean by far too ambitious, anyway?" Lelouch was basically shouting at the top of his voice.

"You, a mortal with nothing more than some petty magic and an intelligence far, far less than any of us to back you up, want to achieve with that meager asset something that not even the higher beings could hope to achieve," the angel said harshly. "Humanity is a race of chaos. However advanced your civilization has grown, there is always a tendency to spark conflicts, wars, struggles, and anything along those lines, like a dangerously dried stack of hay. There is no way, I repeat, no way to effectively halt that haystack of the threat from sparking up into a violent firestorm."

"There will be no one left to fight," Lelouch replied sternly, holding his ground. "I've done everything I could so that they all wanted to kill me, and just me. Now that I'm dead, too..."

"Wrong," the angel shook his head. "Do you honestly think that is enough?"

"Why is that wrong?"

"What a disappointment, Lelouch Vi Britannia," the angel said, his tone escalating into a visible degree of ridicule. "Are you trying to sound so, or are you really that stupid?"

"I..." Lelouch's words were clumped in his throat, partly because of the insult, but mostly because of the astounding shock hitting him with the full weight of a three-ton mallet.

"Okay, let me just give you an example, Lelouch Vi Britannia," the angel explained, after a gesture most reliably translated as facepalming. "Your death has left a huge power void in not just the Holy Britannian Empire, but the whole world as well. Your sister is not a born ruler, the Suzaku that has killed you and take over your position as her guardian is not trusted by a good section of the army and the people, and those remaining officials of your empire is not sufficient to even run a country a third that size. What do you think that may lead to?"

"I... I have never thought of that..." Lelouch admitted, bending his neck.

"Of course this power gap will be filled in time, but not in the way you intended. At best, your country will take in a good deal of new administrators whose loyalty is but a variable. At worst, the entire Britannian government will be wiped out, giving rise to a whole new administrative body. Regardless of the choice, Britannia will be terribly weakened by the time all the changes have taken root," the angel's speech continued. "In the meantime, I can guarantee that pretty much the same thing will happen to the rest of the world, leaving most of it without a capable, strong leader to upkeep the peace, which means widespread chaos on an unprecedented scale, and guess what," a dark, ominous smile emerged across the creature of light's visage, "if that kind of chaos doesn't allow another breed of selfish and/or corrupted politicians to get into the scene, steal absolute power, and start another world war for their own unscrupulous gains, I don't know what will."

"Are you... Are you sure about this?" Lelouch's terror was peaking rapidly as he heard the angel's verdict.

"Long story short, you failed political science forever, Lelouch Vi Britannia, and thanks to that, the world now is in even worse unrest than when you were alive," the angel sneered. "Fortunately, you are not going to suffer the consequences yourself, though your sister won't be that lucky. She wouldn't... survive that throne of hers too long in that kind of scenario, I may put. And if she dies, that wouldn't be a comfortable death, judging from just how many people coveted the crown and the throne she now claims as her own."

Lelouch felt the entirety of his ethereal form going numb at those words, his limbs weak, his head dizzy. Part of him – of an unrealizable proportion – felt like leaping up and pummel the winged guardian of Heaven's gate. But then, the lack of strength in all his muscles, together with the easily perceivable desperation of the scenario, led to an action he had never even pictured himself doing. Lelouch dropped on his knees, before the highly-perching angel, about to burst into tears at any second now.

"O great angel, is there... is there possibly any way that I can... can save my sister?" Lelouch was basically begging, an act he had despised with all due scorn for the entirety of his lifetime. "I... I can burn in Hell for all eternity, as long as... as long as I can be given another chance... Nunnally means the world to me, and... and..."

"Stand up, Lelouch Vi Britannia," the angel smiled tolerantly. "This is precisely the reason why I've been sent to greet you here today. The Archangel Gabriel, among others, has petitioned for your return to life to right your own mistake."

The suddenness of the proposal sounded like another hammer falling squarely on Lelouch's forehead. The shock was such that it took the downtrodden ex-emperor almost a full minute to realize the good news, at which point he sprang up, his eyes flaring up in a involuntary gleam of epic proportion.

"That... that means I can return to life?" Lelouch hastily spoke.

"Yes, though only conditionally," the angel smiled as he spoke. "Your body has been destroyed in the funeral pyre in a stroke of bad luck, which means that you must tread the living world as the ghost you are now. And also, you can only hang around the mortal plane of existence for no more than three years or until you can find a suitable method to bring temporary stabilization to the world, whichever comes first. If you are unable to find a solution after exactly one thousand and ninety-six days from today, we will still have to take you away."

...

Lelouch sprang up from his bed, sweating profusely. Had it not been for his whole body being ethereal and gaseous-like, that amount of sweat could have literally soaked his mattress five times over. A spirit's nightmare, however improbable, was a reality to Lelouch, and when it happened, it wasn't too pleasant.

Not to mention the context of the dream, which was as good as an alarm to Lelouch. It was all too well the fifth time in that week that he had relived that dreadful conversation again – a playback reminiscence of his meeting with the angel just outside the gates of Heaven, a playback he would rather not hear, but one whose important was such that forgetting it would spell the doom to all of his efforts. Even now Lelouch could feel his immaterial heart thumping at top speed as he remembered the angel's last words.

"Three years," Lelouch thought, as he wiped his forehead. "It's already one year, two months and twenty-five days since that day... and this is what meager achievement I've got. I have to speed up – time is running out..."

******

The impact of the dream was rather drastic on Lelouch's behalf. The result was the rather irregular pace at which he sped along the corridor of his secret base compound, as he raced towards a certain, limted-access section of his domains.

The Knightmare-hangar-like secret chamber's appearance had gotten some substantial changes that day. The half-complete Mammoth Mk-III was still staying where it should, and so was the long line of equipment and tools along each of the north-south walls. But the table where Dr. Ignatio Mobius sat had been moved to another corner, giving way to what appeared to be a stasis, life-supporting chamber, whose kind Lelouch had seen to the point of boredom in science fiction films. It was, however, quite empty, its occupant having been vacated for quite some time now, leaving just the green-blue somatic liquid enclosed within the glass husk of the device.

A second look revealed that the room was more crowded then than it used to be – a team of half a dozen female, blouse-clad lab assistants were hanging around the place, notebook, pens and sticky-note in hand, surrounding the white-haired Ignatio Mobius at his newly-moved table. The head scientist wasn't so leisurely after all, eyes glued to the computer screen, luikely finalizing the result of some complex scientific experiments. Whatever the GDI-resident scientist and his female aides were doing, it must have been closely tied in with the stasis chamber, and whoever it had contained.

"Dr. Mobius," Lelouch said hastily as he approached the head scientist. "I hope you have finalized whatever test we were carrying on Renesmee Cullen, have you?"

The instance of Lelouch's voice was highly attention-drawing. The crowd of female scientists dispersed instantaneously as Lelouch closed on the table, having realized that their sponsor wasn't in a particularly good mood. As charismatic Lelouch was, when he ran out of patience or was having a bad day, his tendency to go all-out ballistic would exponentially increase, or so they heard.

"I have, my lord," Dr. Mobius immediately stepped out from his seat.

"I believe we have good news, Dr. Mobius," Lelouch nodded.

"We have carried out extensive tests on the dhampir throughout the night," Dr. Mobius answered. "And I can say I am quite confident on the accurateness of what result we have here."

The doctor then returned to his table, adjusting the tiny projector in a particular niche on the surface, and pulled out a certain control unit from the drawer. A few more clicks resulted in a full-scale projector screen dropping down from the chamber's ceiling, catching the beam of critical information-bearing light from the projector with all due precision. The result of those professional-styled actions was an overhead slide screen materializing for everyone's convenience.

"Lord Lamperouge, this is what we've got," the doctor said, pointing to the overhead screen, bearing an what seemed to be an overall computerized model of Renesmee Cullen's physical body, with all needed connotations attached and duly noted. "The result is astonishing in a very good way – the girl's physical prowess measures up to 335.34% of Lieutenant Albert Higgins, 312.87% of Lieutenant Snievel Conrad, and perhaps 123.85% of Suzaku Kururugi's test statistics, based on the official data we have got. Alpha-bullet-time test results also dictates that she can effectively dodge a GD-15 pistol shot at a distance of 123 meters or more. To top it all with, the standard Rivel-Statd test showed us that her hand-eye coordination skills are as closed to 100% as the computer can get. "

"That is physically speaking," Lelouch nodded in approval. "Not surprising though – she is supposed to be a vampire and all that. But what about her intellectual statistics?"

"She has got a whopping 167 points in IQ, sir," Dr. Mobius answered with a certain degree of interest, as he sipped to a slide showing a graph with a ridiculously large slope. "and still counting, as so it seems from this kind of learning curve she has got. At this rate, hers can easily top 180 in another twenty years."

Lelouch smiled contentedly – after all, he had gotten a chance to meet someone whose IQ was that close to the legendary 178 of his before passing to the other plane of existence.

"But there is a snag, sir, which I count as bad news myself," Dr. Mobius continued, his deep interest turning immediately into concern, tone-wise. "The girl's secondary set of Omega-Sigma Acquired Experience is almost non-existent. This is tantamount to saying that she has the wisdom of a five-year-old girl to spite that prodigal intelligence of hers."

"The wisdom... of a five-year-old?" Lelouch sounded as if he had received another dose of massive-hammer-dropping. "Oh, wait... I could have seen it coming from the meaningless babbling abut true love she muttered the last time."

"I blame whatever education she might have received for that... blasphemous waste of intelligence," Dr. Mobius remarked. "Someone of an intelligence her caliber should have had the knowledge and maturity to come up with a high-school-level thesis with relative ease by now. And yet... tertiary tests reveals that her Life Consciousness Quotient is vastly under-average, at around 40, meaning that she wouldn't be able to tell a truck from a Mammoth Tank function-wise."

"Bleh," Lelouch facepalmed. "I should have known what to expect from that... slightly disturbing family of hers. Marriage at seven year of age apparently doesn't help, as well."

The gasps and mutters from the rest of the female researcher crew was rather disturbing at the sound of those words, or so Lelouch perceived. His fiery, disciplinary glance at the crowd dispersed the noises, though the crowd's stealthy glances back at the ex-emperor as he turned away still qualified for some nasty bits of shocks they wouldn't give up for some time now.

"But you shouldn't worry too much, sir," Dr. Mobius reassured. "With the intelligence she has, as well as the near-vertical learning curve she holds, all what we need to do is to expose her to the harsh reality of war, and her acquired wisdom will soar. For your information, it was apparent that her LCQ had skyrocketed by around ten points or so, just after she witnessed her parents' brutal murder."

"I see. Let's hope for the best then," Lelouch said.

"And... there is something else worth looking into, Lord Lamperouge," Dr. Mobius went on, the concerning subtext of his voice coming once more into existence. "We've recovered this... video footage from the Shinkirou that contains some critical information. You might want to view it, sir."

"A footage?" Lelouch asked back. "Could you please view it, please?"

******

"Renesmee... Bi Britannia?" Lelouch coun't help but rack his brain to the point where it hurt as he made his way to Renesmee's chamber. "How... how did she know about it? And... wasn't it the Geass sigil that I've seen?"

The footage had given Lelouch a good deal of disturbing brain-racking. Not only did Renesmee's reaction to her family being slaughtered nastily astonished the Volturi, it was also quite the mystery to Lelouch. Not only did she, somehow, maybe just subconsciously, address herself as Renesmee Bi Britannia, she also apparently had under her possession a frighteningly powerful Geass, if Lelouch was to trust C.C.'s words a long time ago.

"Geass powers can evolve. All too often, the evolution of civilization itself, among other reasons, will give rise to a whole breed of new codes, some of which straying so far from the basic – yours and mine and Mao's – that you can barely recognize their substance at all. Just so that you take note in case something goes badly wrong."

The innocence with which C.C. said these words, along with the plushy Cheese-kun she was toying with as she spoke was simply innocent enough to ignore. As far as Lelouch's perception was concerned, Renesmee's Geass seemed to be something along the lines of Absolute Domination over machines. There was no other way he could possibly explain how Edward's white Volvo could crush and blow up a full-fledged vampire while no one was at the wheel at all. And there was Shinkirou, that had apparently saved Renesmee's life by holding out against the Volturi for long enough for Lelouch to arrive, which would have made perfect sense, if only it had been fixed with an auto-pilot function, which it wasn't.

But, if anything, it didn't explain the Renesmee Bi Britannia part. Of course he was planning to adopt her that name sooner or later, claiming her to be a member of the Britannian Imperial Family to win her a stake in the throne. Of course he would like to take her in as an adoptive sister for the sake of the grand Post-Zero Requiem he was planning. Of course it would work well... had she not known about it firsthand.

"Did I make a fatal mistake by telling that Edward that I intended to name his daughter Renesmee Bi Britannia?" Lelouch thought hard. "No... it couldn't have been! When I met her in the dream... she was referring to herself as Renesmee Cullen... or Black, not Bi Britannia, that I can remember quite well. And being the overt simpleton she is now... she doesn't seem to be able to lie. She couldn't have probably have known about it , but then... it makes no sense at all!"

There was but one way to find out – in the form of a short audience...

*****