Chapter 15: The One The Witch Loves Most

Lelouch grimaced. He didn't mind the point of return being moved forward, there was nothing he could do about it and it would prevent the draining situation of presenting himself as a paragon of virtue to Emilia and Russell. The burned out pages from the diary worried him more. Incapable of extinguishing the flames in time, he was left with the knowledge that the witch could make his life harder still.

As many advantages as this power had, and as sure as he was about the witch not putting him into a situation where death was inevitable, it came with the uncertainty of a fuckup he might not be able to correct. Furthermore, it seemed that the spell that was described by Flügel had more limitations than he first thought.

Attempts to cast the spell on himself didn't allow Lelouch to stop the Witch access to him. Instead, it irritated her more, squeezing his heart harder for as long as the spell held. Exactly one point three seconds. She didn't let go for minutes afterward.

This either meant that whatever was ailing him wasn't the Witch of Envy's magic, or she had exceeded the power of the spell, which meant that someone like Pandora could resist it all the same. The incantation took him a while to get down, but it should be easy enough to cast if he wasn't going to be thrown around like a ragdoll.

If the spell didn't work on the Archbishop, it would be back to the burning book, and Lelouch already had enough of the smell of burning.

Weirdly enough, casting the suppression spell did not make Rem's footsteps appear near his room. Either the spell didn't let the Witch's smell spread during his magic casting, or the maid had explicit orders not to shadow him after his display at the dinner table. Lelouch put those thoughts aside and stepped out of the guest room, wiping the sweat from his brow. The humongous decorated hallway with huge windows was becoming a tiring sight. Instead, he stared out of them towards the gardens, where Emilia and Puck were speaking.

###

Lelouch barely heard his name over the rustling of leaves that echoed through the garden as a soft breeze blew through the trees. When he came closer, Puck turned to him, and the conversation that was still going on since before Lelouch made his way from his guest room to the gardens came to an end.

"Hello," Lelouch greeted. Emilia smiled at him. It was almost strange how someone so irrelevant to the proceedings of the last few days and loops, and so weirdly naive of the workings of the world, was someone that could be of relation to the witch. If Lelouch had to describe her in the terms of old Britannian plays, she would be a side-role in a play in which all the other royal candidates were the leads.

Compared to the lost princess Felt and the nobles, even compared to the young genius that apparently took over an entire trading empire, Emilia was plain, except for her looks. Lelouch knew better than to underestimate people based on their looks, however.

She had the support of a great spirit. Something that could manifest physically and that was capable of great magic. Something that made her capable of great magic. She was strong, there was no doubt about it, but she might not have the strength to rule.

"Lelouch," Emilia said, smiling. "Is everything alright?"

Lelouch smiled back, feeling the feeling of envy and happiness that came from the witch bleed into his system. It did make the role he worked on playing easier. Letting it consume him was out of the question, but he did not snuff it out like last time. Instead, he focused it, giving a small bow to the candidate.

"Of course," Lelouch said. "I was merely curious about something and thought about asking you the same question I asked Crusch Karsten."

"A question?" Emilia asked. Puck was less suspicious, if anything, due to Emilia's rather quick trust of Lelouch, he seemed to have mellowed out and instead floated towards the former emperor.

"It's not for her hand, is it?" Puck asked, grabbing Lelouch's cheeks. Lelouch's eyebrows twitched and he grabbed the spirit before pushing him away from his face.

"I'd be more worried if there were any rumors going around about me and Crusch Karsten," Lelouch said. She didn't sound like the kind of person who'd like such rumors go unchallenged when hearing them, and would try to present him as someone she had no interest in marrying.

It might actually put him in a bad spot with some of the nobles. Being desired helped.

"What is it, then?" Puck asked. Emilia pouted.

"Puck, don't tease him," Emilia chided the spirit. Puck just laughed, floating back towards her while lying on his back. "There's something you want to know, about the election perhaps?"

"Yes," Lelouch said, nodding. The silver-haired young woman nodded, her hair bobbing slightly with her head. "I already have an idea of what kind of person Priscilla Barielle is. I have met Crusch Karsten and know what kind of person she is. While I haven't met Anastasia Hoshin, I can guess what drives someone like her. But I don't know anything about you."

"About me?"

"What kind of ruler do you want to be?"

"I want to a fair one," Emilia said. Lelouch stopped for a moment. Her answer came without hesitation, without a second thought. The kind of conviction that he thought was lacking flared up in her eyes, just as it did in Crusch's when she declared that she would end the covenant with the Dragon. "I want to bring equality to Lugnica."

"Equality?" Lelouch asked, confused. Emilia nodded again, more forceful than before. Puck, strangely silent for once, floated above her, his face neutral.

"A place where every citizen has equal rights, no matter their race. Even today, thousands of demi-humans are treated as second-class citizens in places outside the capital. The nobles keep their eyes and ears shut in their domains. Many still hold prejudices after the demi-human war all those years ago-"

Lelouch raised his hand, stopping her before she could go on. This was… unexpected. Very much so. Felt participated because she hated the nobility and wanted to help the poor, despite her assurances that she was mostly helping herself to their wealth. Crusch wanted a strong kingdom.

"It seems I've underestimated you, Lady Emilia," Lelouch said, dropping into a formal tone. Puck's glare turned frigid, while Emilia simply stared at him, confused. "I've wondered what made each person eligible for the throne. Lady Felt, Lady Karsten, and Lady Barielle are all related to the royal family if I recall it correctly. Anastasia Hoshin is someone who seems to have a grasp on ruling, but you were… an unknown."

"You think I have what it takes to be a ruler?" Emilia asked.

"I believe your lack of the features that the other candidates have is what makes you fitting," Lelouch said. Emilia looked more confused, while the spirit above her looked insulted in her stead. Quick to stop any misunderstandings from happening, Lelouch waved his hand, speaking up quickly. "You're a normal young woman."

"You think I'm… normal?" Emilia asked him. Lelouch nodded. Besides pointy ears, what set her apart from others? A spirit? Lelouch knew that others had spirits too. Being a half-elf who looked like a witch? If looks decided who someone was, he'd probably carve his face off.

A smile appeared on Emilia's face, with a soft reddening of her cheeks.

"Yes," Lelouch said. He didn't understand why exactly she felt this happy, he understood the need to be treated as normal when everyone was claiming you were anything but. Yet her happiness seemed to stem from something else. "Someone that didn't have the experiences of being nobility, or the experiences of being poor. Someone who didn't even have the experiences of working to become the head of a company like Hoshin."

He didn't know Anastasia's circumstances, but he knew that the Hoshin company was not inherited by the owner's children. Which meant that someone like her had to work herself up to the position she was in. And here was Emilia, someone who didn't struggle like Felt or Anastasia did, someone who wasn't raised with expectations like Priscilla and Crusch.

Someone who was so plain, as far as he knew, that she would be both an ideal and horrible ruler. Someone who could be manipulated by people like Roswaal L. Mathers and lead the country into success or ruin based on that, rather than make her own decisions.

"You have to learn how to stand up for yourself," Lelouch said. "Roswaal is a kind man to sponsor someone that people don't trust, but I feel like unless you step out of his shadow, you won't have a chance in the election."

"You have a big mouth, Lelouch," Puck said. Emilia's mood took a downturn at his last sentence. Lelouch wasn't looking to encourage her. He wanted to learn about her. The things she gets stuck on, the weaknesses in her iron will to become a ruler. And once again, she surprised him.

"I will become queen," Emilia said. "And I will obtain my dream. Not just for the people of Lugnica, but for all the people that helped me here. For all the people that I've left behind."

There was no way someone like Roswaal shared the same ideology.

"You're not that different to Lady Karsten," Lelouch said before looking up, grinning at the spirit above Emilia's head. "And you seem like a good judge of character, Puck."

"Is that an offer to join Lia's conquest of the kingdom?" Puck asked, his voice thick with pride. Lelouch chuckled, shaking his head.

"I've decided to be neutral in the election due to a few circumstances in the capital," Lelouch said. "But instead of making it my goal to stay away from all the candidates, I'd prefer to know all of them. If these are the queens of the kingdom I made my home, it'd be nice to be friendly with them."

"That's surprisingly shrewd," Puck said. Emilia nodded twice. "So that's your idea of who Lia is? A plain, normal girl?"

"Someone who has a plan and the conviction to go through with it," Lelouch corrected. "For better or for worse. The fact that she's normal is perhaps the thing that makes her the candidate without much of an agenda."

Even Felt's idea of what the kingdom could be was not looking for equality. For someone who grew up an urchin, all the poor people, demi-human or human, are equal. For people who grew up in the capital, the insight of inequality doesn't exist. For a foreigner, the exact circumstances of everyone in the kingdom you could possibly inherit weren't as important as the power you were getting.

"Crusch Karsten seems to be under the impression that my voice is going to be relevant in the election, and I feel that the magic I am offering the knights might give me such a position of power," Lelouch said.

"Wasn't that your plan?" Emilia asked. "Puck seemed to think so."

Lelouch laughed it off when Puck floated in front of Emilia's face and waved his arms around in an attempt to stop her. At least one point of the earlier discussion was revealed. So perhaps the talk they had earlier wasn't nearly as dangerous to his plans as he thought.

He had something to use against her now, though.

"I'm unsure of my place here," Lelouch explained. Emilia's stare was intense. "I have no place to return to, no family left. The first place I thought about calling home was Reinhard's mansion until Crusch Karsten asked me to remain neutral. I've decided to move out then, keep away from Lady Felt."

"But that's not right!" Emilia said. "If you have no place to return to, you should find a place to call home! Nobody has the right to kick you out-"

"They didn't kick me out, I decided to leave," Lelouch said, smiling softly. He thinks he got the melancholic expression down, but he wasn't sure. Emilia took the explanation personal, something she was familiar with somehow. A glimpse of her past.

"No family and no home, and Crusch Karsten made you leave your home, that's not just a decision you made, it was made for you-"

"If I really wanted, I could've stayed," Lelouch said, cutting her off. "There are some circumstances you might not be aware of. Suspicions on the side of Lady Karsten that Russell might have told the margrave."

"It still isn't right," Emilia shouted, stomping her foot. Lelouch felt kinda bad about making someone this upset for his sake. He already said his goodbyes, to his family and friends back home, and to Reinhard and Felt when he left the mansion.

It's not like he is never going to see the latter two again anyway. He was just moving out, not moving into another world.

"While I appreciate that you feel bad for me, I assure you, it's not as bad as it sounds," Lelouch said. She was red in the face, and Puck didn't look happy that Lelouch made her angry, even if that anger wasn't actually directed at him. "I'm trying to make a home of this kingdom. It's why I try to be friendly with everyone, not just the candidates. It just so happened that I ended up living with the Sword Saint's family by chance."

"It does sound rather random, yeah," Puck said, crossing his arms. "I never know if you're genuine or just a really good liar, but I don't think you're lying when you say you have no place to return to."

The spirit was attentive and shrewd. The first meeting Lelouch had with Emilia, in which both of them were kind enough to help him, felt as if it was in a distant past. It never happened, and the good start he had with them that loop was gone.

Maybe the irreparable damage that he feared was already done, in a way. A minor detail, but the first Puck and Emilia he met were gone.

Just gone.

"How long will you be staying?" Emilia asked. Lelouch couldn't recall if he ever decided on that. It was likely he would stay until Russell left, to finish the deal in the capital.

"Until Sir Fellow decides to return to the capital." Lelouch put one fist on his hip, nodding. "I think it should be tomorrow morning."

Today night, he'd kill a cultist.

"We'll come with you," Emilia decided. "Roswaal said that the sages will soon call the candidates, it wouldn't matter if we're there earlier."

Lelouch tilted his head to the side, scrutinizing Emilia. "Why that?"

"To protect you!" Emilia decided. Lelouch blinked. "The Witch Cult is dangerous, Puck and I can take care of them, and Roswaal will come with us as well!"

Lelouch hadn't considered the possibility of an attack on the road until now. And somehow, he had the feeling that the likelihood might actually increase with Emilia there.

"I appreciate the gesture, but I wouldn't want to be a burden on you," Lelouch said. "My fights are-"

"If I'm to become ruler, the fights of my citizens will become my fights as well," Emila said, steel entering her voice again. Lelouch's smile slid off his face, and he turned a critical eye towards Puck.

"I can see why you have chosen her as your contractor," Lelouch said. Puck gave him a toothy grin.

"You know nothing," the spirit countered.

###

The sun was going down slowly. Lelouch kept an eye on Rem. If he was able to time the situation just right, he could try to disable Betelgeuse's magic in the right moment before Rem's flail crushed him into a pulp. If not, he would have to do the deed himself.

Having prepared Felt's gift leaning against the wall next to the door to the guest room, Lelouch had thought about every possible approach. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of hands Betelgeuse could create made it an effort in futility. Instead, Lelouch had to depend on the man letting his guard down by speaking with him should Rem fail.

While Lelouch was confident in it, and he had multiple tries even if he failed if Satella didn't decide to play a prank on him again, the approach of talking with the insane Archbishop meant a smaller window of time depending on how quickly the others would be alerted. Lelouch wanted to destroy the gospel so Roswaal didn't know he could do it.

Lelouch didn't know where the man's loyalties lie, but the margrave was surely not working towards the best interests of his kingdom. Unless the manipulative jester was somehow manipulated himself by the naive half-elf, there was no way Lelouch could trust him.

Nor could he risk any information of this leaking to Crusch Karsten. The candidate was already suspicious enough, and creating a situation in which Reinhard's idea of her trying to get closer after Lelouch declined when she tried to buy him would turn into reality.

Eventually, walking from door to door, Lelouch came upon Rem, who was not nearly as aggressive as before in her glare towards him. At least his theory of Rem not stalking him to find any signs of wrongdoing was right. Which also meant that he had to provoke her to follow him.

"Ah," Lelouch said. "Excuse me, I was exploring and got a bit lost. Could you point me towards the guest rooms?"

Rem didn't look convinced. She never did. But that was alright with Lelouch. Sighing, the girl jumped took the lead as she stepped out of the room, helping him find his room. He followed diligently.

When they came closer, Lelouch began muttering. Rather than turn to him, she was growing tense as they closed in on the guest room. Betelgeuse was inside, and the stench of the witch emanated through the hallway. Before Lelouch could blink, Rem was armed, pulling the flail from wherever she kept it.

"Zimerian, Balamuuth, Thearis, Vasilia, Alahum, Yaumiddi, Aiyaka," Lelouch turned his hand towards the door. Rem smashed it in. "Ihidinn, Mustekiin, Ya'min."

The witch squeezed his heart, even as he aimed the spell at the Archbishop that was revealed. The arms appeared, flickered, vanished. The flail hit him in the arm, taking it off, but not taking his life.

A second later, three hands smashed Rem into the windows, the sound of breaking bones accompanying the sound of breaking glass echoed. Another three hands almost grabbed Lelouch, who instead ducked under them, grabbing the sword as the Archbishop slowly realized what happened.

"Y-you… what a beautiful love, ohh," Betelgeuse was moaning. The witch kept holding Lelouch's heart, and the jittering Archbishop had problems keeping his unseen hands straight, ripping through the walls left and right.

"It is an honor," Lelouch rasped out, the sword in hand, hiding behind his leg. "To meet you, Archbishop Betelgeuse."

Luckily the Archbishop seemed distracted by the sheer amount of 'love' that Satella was displaying inside Lelouch right now and hasn't noticed the spell circle on Lelouch's arm lighting up again.

"Lelouch Lamperouge!" Betelgeuse shouted. "Ahhh! The Pontiff told me, she told me you rejected her! But I can see it now, the Pontiff was wrong! Wrong wrong wrong wrong!"

Betelgeuse brought his fingernails towards his eyes, scratching the lower lids and drawing blood.

"There is nobody as loved as you are!" Betelgeuse shouted to the high heavens. "Yet you stand here, using this!"

One arm appeared, grabbing Lelouch's arm and crushing it. Lelouch, who was about to speak the incantation a second time, grunted in pain.

"Disgusting!" Betelgeuse shouted, dragging Lelouch towards him. Ripping off the sleeve of the shirt Lelouch was wearing, Betelgeuse sniffed the still activating magic circle. "Absolutely disgusting, disgusting, disgusting! What kind of degenerate magic is this!? Gahhh it's so-"

Lelouch grit his teeth when Betelgeuse bit down on the circle, chewing on his arm as he kept screaming.

"Disgusting," Betelgeuse said through the skin and flesh that was currently around his teeth. Lelouch raised the sword to strike him down, but another arm just grabbed it, raising it above the circles. "I'll take the arm, so you can experience her love, ahhhhh…"

The light from his arm exploded. The magic Lelouch kept feeding into it blew off part of his skin in a shower of red pieces and right into Betelgeuse's mouth. The accident was welcome, however, as Lelouch removed himself from the madman and grabbed the sword again, swinging it towards the Archbishop's neck.

The Archbishop created hands to block it. The hands were cut through. The magic weaker. The pieces of the circle were inside his throat. Lelouch narrowed his eyes. "Zimerian!"

One of the arms flickered out of existence, Lelouch was blocked by another. "Balamuuth!"

The black hand that came up to strike him down vanished slowly. The witch squeezed his heart tighter. Lelouch felt the warm blood run down the arm that Betelgeuse had bitten. "Thearis, Vasilia.."

Every word made the grin on Lelouch's face spread further. Raising the sword again, swinging it towards the left side where Betelgeuse had no arm anymore, he continued. "Alahum!"

Blood flowed from the lack of Betelgeuse's arm now that the dark hand that had blocked the blood flow vanished. "Yaumiddi."

"Stop it!" Betelgeuse screeched. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!!! Why won't you just stoooop iiiit!"

Every arm that appeared vanished as quickly. Lelouch forced himself to grip the sword with both hands despite the pain running through his arm and raised it towards Betelgeuse's chest, where he knew the gospel would be. "Aiyaka. Ihdinn."

Stepping forward, Lelouch watched the Archbishop fall down, crawling backwards. "No! I can't die here! I won't die! I'll come back, and I'll kill you! Kill you! Kill you kill you kill you!"

"Mustekiin. Ya'miin. Kill me," Lelouch challenged. "I will be waiting for you. Again and again. And I'll kill you again and again, no matter how long it takes."

Lelouch stabbed him. The gospel made a squelching sound, and then the blade entered into the Archbishop's body. The man's remaining arm came up, trying to stop the blade somehow, but instead cut his fingers on the blade.

"I won't, I can't!"

Betelgeuse's last words were accompanied by spitting blood. The man's bloodstained eyes were rolling up, and the disgusting sight of the pale man in front of him turned even more disgusting. Lelouch sighed in relief. He needed to get his arm healed quickly, but first…

Lelouch threw up.

His head felt as if it would split apart. His heart felt ready to burst. The hands kept moving around him and suddenly, Lelouch stood in the middle of darkness.

###

Lelouch blinked. For once, every feeling of pain and worry was gone.

Betelgeuse stood in front of him, two black hands holding him by the throat, squeezing to the point that his eyeballs popped out of his head. Someone was standing there, under him, raising Betelgeuse towards the blackness above.

It was a woman. She was nude, her silver hair flowing down to her knees revealing only patches of her skin where black hands moved out of her back. It was her. She was holding Betelgeuse. A soft breeze sent shivers down his spine. Where was the wind coming from?

"Lelouch," he heard someone whisper. He turned around. In contrast to the darkness, there was a field of white behind him. When the silver haired being turned around, Lelouch found Emilia's face stare back at him.

Then the dark hands shot towards him. Hundreds. Thousands of them. Lelouch took a step back, and the darkness couldn't penetrate the light. When Lelouch spun around, trying to run, someone grabbed him by the collar and dragged him further into the light.

Blinking repeatedly, Lelouch cleared the blindness that overcame him and found himself sitting at a table, a chessboard in front of him, with two cups of tea next to the board. Shaking his head, Lelouch cleared the confusion and found himself face to face with someone.

A man in white robes, wearing a way too large white hat. No, not a man. A boy? A young man? An old man? It was hard to tell the age, a soft haze keeping him from seeing everything. Lelouch swallowed a lump in his throat and moved a shaking hand to the cup of tea.

There was no pain in his arm. No wound.

The man in front of him smiled, before indicating towards the chess board. Lelouch moved one of the pawns forward, without saying a word. He couldn't find his voice.

"Lelouch vi Britannia," the man said. No, boy. The voice was young. Almost like Puck's, in a way, yet mature. His opponent moved his own pawn forward, mirroring Lelouch's action. "Do you know who I am?"

"Flügel," Lelouch said. There was no doubt in his mind. This person was the Sage. The fact that his arms were full of magical circles that were similar to the diary's circles just made it clearer. "The Sage they called Flügel."

"The Flügel they eventually called Sage," Flügel corrected. "But that is so old fashioned, I've trascended my old being and became the Great Yang Spirit F!"

Lelouch stared, not sure what exactly was going on. Flügel's shoulders slumped.

"No? I thought it'd sounds good," Flügel muttered. "You've made your theories about me already, correct?"

"Genes and spirits," Lelouch said. "You survived by splitting those off from yourself before you died, waiting for them to be inherited. Crusch Karsten thinks I inherited them."

"She's not entirely wrong," Flügel said. "You're certainly the most compatible one to inherit my genes. But the reason I dragged you here wasn't just because of that."

"I'm you?" Lelouch asked. He scoffed at the idea. Reincarnation seemed rather far-fetched, even in a world in which he seemed unable to die.

"No, not me, you're hmm…" Flügel thought after Lelouch's next move, moving a rook forward. "You're what Reinhard is to Reid. You don't actually hold my genes, instead, that's the reason I brought you here."

The game seemed to continue at a strange pace. Lelouch couldn't tell how long they were talking, his hands moving on his own.

"This is your soul, the moves you make could be made without looking at the board," Flügel said, as if reading his mind. Lelouch was losing. Five more turns, and he'd be in checkmate. Looking up from the board, he raised the empty tea cup, the sensation of time returning to him slightly.

"What do you want from me?"

"An offer," Flügel explained. "A simple one."

"I don't do well with offers I don't know the terms of," Lelouch said dryly. "So please get to the point."

"You're not very fun, huh?" Flügel asked, putting his arms behind the back of his head. "You found my diary. I wanted you to get it, and Pandora helped out with that. I wanted you to find the emblem, that's on the genes. See, when I died, I created two possibilities to continue from. One would be the genes."

Flügel raised a hand and created a glowing model of DNA strands.

"The other would be my spirit," Flügel continued. The other hand was raised, and a small version of the man appeared. "There are some… dangerous side effects involved when both happen to be split apart, you see. And I want you to choose which one to keep."

Lelouch grimaced. "What do you mean? You explained nothing."

"You can take my genes," Flügel said, waving Lelouch off. "They'll give you my memories, it would turn you into the heir to the Sage. The equal to the Sword Saint and the Dragon. You would live with political power only paralleled by those two entities, capable of deciding the fate of the candidates. Your name would be the first in the line of your own noble house in Lugnica. All my magic would be yours, provided you spend the same fifty or so odd years to master it all."

"That doesn't sound like a bad offer," Lelouch admitted, though the amount of time involved in mastering the magic was rather unattractive. "What's the catch?"

"There might be a few marriage contracts lying around, a dangerous artifact or two you're liable for, sudden cravings for banana pie and the occasional- don't look at me like that," Flügel cut himself off when he noticed Lelouch's stare. "It might mess with your memories. Your personality. If you're not compatible, you would go mad, just like Satella. But you are compatible, I know you are, so the risks of that are so minimal, you'd have to physically work on fucking it up."

Lelouch didn't expect the bit of profanity that slipped into Flügel's sentence, but he found it strangely appropriate. "And the other possibility?"

"Contract me," Flügel said. "I've become a Great Yang Spirit, it would make you a spirit-user and capable of using magic with the mana of the atmosphere. I can give you advice, but you'd still have to read the diary to learn the magic."

"Why won't you tell me that as a spirit, then?" Lelouch asked. "All the magic is still in your head, right?"

"My genes have been slumbering," Flügel explained, sounding resigned. "In stasis. If you took them, they'd be as fresh as four-hundred years ago. But I lived long as a spirit. Four-hundred years I've waited. I forgot things, and learned new ones."

"So what is this offer? The one between political power and magical one?" Lelouch asked. Though the political power would eventually pay off, Lelouch wasn't so sure about the side-effects.

"That's about it," Flügel said. "Simple, isn't it? But also comes with a catch. You see, when you want to form a contract with a spirit, you want to offer something in return. A condition that you have to fulfill or the contract breaks."

"So you want something in return," Lelouch deducted, shrugging. "What is it?"

"A favor."

Lelouch thought back to C.C.

He thought back to the day he received his Geass and the insanity that followed in the next years.

"What kind of favor?" Lelouch asked. The chess pieces in front of him were vibrating. He wanted to do his move. How could he win? How could he get into a situation in which he might lose?

"I can't tell you right now, it involves a few elements you have to learn of your own," Flügel answered him simply. Lelouch breathed out through his nose, closing his eyes. Flügel was still holding his palms out.

Political power would send him to places quickly.. If this was to be his home, he could start off with the second highest position possible, right next to the Sword Saint, Reinhard.

But Lelouch had grown tired of political intrigue, court shenanigans and the nobility standing over everyone, putting their own interests above those of their subjects. If Lelouch wanted to amass political power, he could do that on his own. Earn favors, money, fame. He could become friends with the queen, as he was trying to do with the candidates.

"I've learned something," Lelouch said. Flügel was without a doubt aware of his past. "From my mistakes. From my past. The decisions I've made. There was one thing that I never did wrong, one thing I've never faltered from."

"And that would be?"

Lelouch grabbed his king from the board and moved him forward, almost in the path of Flügel's queen.

"If the king does not lead," Lelouch said, grabbing Flügel's hand with the manifestation of the Sage's spirit. "How does he expect his subordinates to follow?"

Flügel blinked, before grinning. "Even though you present yourself like this, you're actually someone who's very kind, aren't you, Lelouch?"

"There's nothing kind about my decisions," Lelouch disagreed.

"There's kindness in selflessness."