"Lelouch?"
C.C. stared at her accomplice, seated on his throne with a faint, knowing smile. Something about him felt... off.
She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was a strange new presence radiating from him. Something that hadn't been there before.
"Lelouch."
Suzaku walked in from the far corridor, still puzzled over why he'd been summoned back so abruptly.
"I see. So Nunnally is still alive."
"Schneizel was holding onto quite the trump card."
"Seems he planned to use her at the critical moment. Shake my resolve at the worst possible time."
The words rolled out of him casually, without the slightest attempt to conceal their meaning. C.C. tilted her head in confusion. Suzaku went rigid.
"Nunnally is alive?"
Suzaku's eyes widened. He had no idea how Lelouch could have reached that conclusion.
"Well, it doesn't matter what Schneizel has up his sleeve. This war lost its purpose the moment I came back."
Rising from the throne, speaking words that nobody else in the room could make sense of, Lelouch let a cold smirk cross his face.
"What are you talking about, Lelouch?!"
He was still the same person. Same voice, same face. But there was something deeply unsettling about the sheer indifference in his tone.
Even C.C. couldn't figure out what had changed.
"Sorry. I was just a bit surprised by my own situation. Got lost in thought for a moment."
His gaze shifted to Suzaku, and his tone turned serious.
"By the way, we're heading to Japan next. Ashford Academy."
A hint of a smile played at his lips, as though he'd just remembered something pleasant.
"Oh, and Suzaku? You can stop the plan."
"What?!"
Suzaku's expression shattered.
The Zero Requiem.
Abandon it?
Now? After everything?
"What the hell are you saying?!"
Unable to hold back, Suzaku charged forward, hands reaching for Lelouch's collar. His superhuman reflexes and physical strength gave him an overwhelming advantage in any close-quarters confrontation.
"!?"
"?"
His hands closed on empty air.
Lelouch had simply vanished from in front of him.
C.C., however, had seen the whole thing. One instant, Lelouch was standing in front of Suzaku. The next, he was behind him. Like teleportation.
"Relax. When I say 'stop,' I don't mean 'give up.'"
"I just found a better way."
Cold sweat beaded on Suzaku's forehead. He whipped his head around, searching wildly, but Lelouch was nowhere in sight.
"For the person I am right now, changing this world is almost too easy."
The voice came from a completely different direction. Suzaku turned and found Lelouch standing over C.C., looking down at her.
"Like this."
Snap!
The sound of a finger snap echoed through the room. C.C. froze.
The Code sigil on her forehead flickered once, and then... it was gone.
"!"
She shot to her feet and spun around, staring at Lelouch with open disbelief.
"Lelouch, what did you just..."
Even C.C., the woman they called a Witch, couldn't keep her composure. Not now.
"Relax. I just removed the power of the Code. No need to make a fuss."
He said it like he was describing something trivial. Like he'd just opened a window to let in some air.
C.C. should have been overjoyed. Freedom from the curse of immortality was all she had ever wanted.
But right now, joy was the last thing on her mind.
She was far more concerned about what had happened to the man standing in front of her.
"..."
"..."
Neither Suzaku nor C.C. spoke. The silence in the throne room was deafening.
"Look. This planet."
The next second, the world around them changed. When the two of them came back to their senses, they were somewhere else entirely.
"!"
"?"
The blue Earth hung below them, vast and luminous. They were floating in the void of space like astronauts.
Breathing?
Gravity?
Vacuum?
None of them seemed to affect Suzaku or C.C. in the slightest.
"This is where everyone lives."
"But right now, it's drowning in hatred and rage."
"So I'm going to change it."
A single wave of his hand, and the world snapped back to normal. The three of them were standing in the palace once more.
"With something better than the Zero Requiem."
The confidence in his voice was absolute. Suzaku and C.C. found themselves unable to say a word.
"But first, let's stick to the original schedule and have some fun with Schneizel."
"As a human."
"We are currently awaiting the arrival of His Majesty, the 99th Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire."
"However, according to the scheduled time... the Emperor's aircraft has yet to appear."
A massive crowd of civilians and reporters had gathered around Ashford Academy.
Lelouch had publicly announced that the Britannian Empire would join the United Federation of Nations, and the meeting had been arranged at the very school he once attended.
"..."
Kallen stood at the foot of the staircase, silent. The memories of her time with Zero kept surfacing no matter how hard she tried to push them down.
"You haven't changed a bit, have you."
A familiar voice. Close. Too close. Cold sweat erupted across Kallen's skin before she even turned.
She spun around and found Lelouch standing right there, dressed in white imperial robes, calm as ever.
"You...!"
She hadn't sensed him at all. Not a footstep, not a shadow.
No. The real question was: why was he here? Shouldn't he have arrived on the imperial aircraft and entered through the front?
"Startled, but still on guard. That's the Kallen I know."
"Don't worry. This is just a formality. I won't do anything reckless."
"Although, at this point, no one could stop me even if I tried."
He smiled at her stunned expression, and there wasn't a trace of doubt in it.
The wish Shenron had granted was working exactly as intended. Not the smallest deviation.
It came with limitations, sure. But compared to the Lelouch who could only wield Geass, the difference in power was beyond comparison.
The power to change the world.
Shenron had given him exactly that.
If there was a single word to describe what Lelouch had become, it would be this:
God.
A god who ruled the Earth and walked among mortals.
Everything in the world was his to reshape as he pleased.
Life and death. Ecosystems and environments. Human thoughts, perceptions, appearances.
As long as it existed on this planet, it was under his control.
Even C.C.'s Code could be erased with a thought.
The only limitation?
It stopped at the borders of this world.
The power to change the world only granted him authority over his own world. Anything beyond that was out of reach.
And that was precisely why Lelouch was so relaxed.
When every living thing on the planet bends to your will, what difficulty could possibly remain?
Zero Requiem?
No need for anything that complicated.
If he wanted, he could make every person on Earth believe their grievances had been settled, and they would all go on living their lives, content and willing.
But that would be far too direct. Far too boring.
So Lelouch decided to take the scenic route.
Play with Schneizel and Nunnally for a while. Then, when the time was right, implement the real change.
The deaths of Euphemia and Shirley.
The curse and Geass fragments that haunted C.C.
Nunnally's sealed eyes and crippled legs.
With this authority over all things in the world, Lelouch would undo every last one of them.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]
[TN: The author clarifies that Lelouch has essentially been given "admin access" to his planet, like enabling cheats in a survival game. He can do whatever he wants within his own world. In a sense, he's become a planetary god or the embodiment of the planet's will. However, this power is strictly limited to his own world, since his wish wasn't "the power to change all worlds," just "the power to change the world."]