Chapter 277: Your Name
After admiring this artistic scene for a while, he gently covered her with the blanket.
Although Mahiro was no virtuous gentleman who could resist temptation, there was no need for him to take advantage of someone while they were unconscious.
Just as he stood up to leave and let C.C. rest properly, a sudden voice stopped him.
"Mahiro, run quickly... Leave this to me..."
Turning back, he found C.C. still unconscious, seemingly just talking in her sleep.
"Even in your dreams you're telling me to escape... Just how afraid are you of me dying..."
Mahiro smiled wryly and sat back down by the bedside, reaching out to gently stroke her cheek.
It was rather amusing, when he thought about it.
C.C. might be the first person to care so deeply about his life and safety.
It wasn't that others were indifferent—quite the opposite, they all held absolute trust in Mahiro. But someone like C.C. was truly a first.
To be honest, the feeling was rather subtle...
But at that moment, he noticed something unusual.
"Is this... glowing?"
He hesitated for a moment before carefully brushing aside the bangs covering C.C.'s forehead, discovering that the bird-like CODE mark on her forehead was emitting a red glow.
It pulsed like breathing, as if resonating with something.
"C's World?"
That seemed to be the only possibility.
Watching the increasingly rapid flashing of the bird mark, he couldn't resist reaching out to touch it.
As his fingertips drew closer, the flashing of the mark on C.C.'s forehead accelerated, as if responding to him, calling for his touch.
But when he actually made contact, he felt a chilling coldness.
This wasn't an exaggeration—it lacked the warmth a human should have, like a piece of cold jade embedded there, despite C.C.'s vital signs being completely normal.
Just then, C.C. suddenly opened her eyes. For some reason, they were filled with terror as she urgently pleaded:
"?! Stop, stop right now, that's—"
What?
Before Mahiro could react, he suddenly felt his consciousness stretching infinitely, as if being forced through a small hole and stretched into thin noodles.
Simultaneously, countless memories flooded into his mind.
He heard countless screams—the screams of humans.
Endless malice transformed into darkness that drowned the entire world, filled with hatred, resentment, and curses. At the center of countless scenes stood a girl dressed in what resembled nun's clothing, quietly praying.
"Please... stop. Don't enter my heart... Don't..."
"...JH]..."
C.C.'s voice trembled, coming in broken fragments. A single crystal tear traced down from the corner of her eye, staining the white pillowcase.
She hadn't shown such an expression even during her first experience, as if this was her most genuine self.
As the screams and wails faded away, the scenes playing in Mahiro's mind changed again.
He suddenly found himself standing on a dirt path in the countryside.
The sound of swaying wheat fields and the chorus of insects lingered in his ears, while the rich, earthy scent of autumn filled his nostrils. The sunlight, not too harsh, fell gently upon his shoulders.
A few white clouds drifted across the azure sky, and small cottages built of stone and wood stood like weeds on either side.
Suddenly, a girl in tattered clothes stumbled along the path through the fields.
Her frail frame, grimy appearance, and unsteady gait...
She was at an age when she should have been in her mother's embrace, under the care of her parents, yet her pitiful state was heartbreaking.
But Mahiro remained unusually still. He, who had always cherished children the most, now showed no reaction.
He watched as the child approached him.
He watched as her small foot, stepping on the soil, tripped over a stone on the path and fell forward.
Yet he made no move to reach out and help, his expression blank as he stared at the girl.
Because the girl had passed through his body like a phantom.
"You're not surprised at all."
At that moment, an ethereal voice sounded by his ear.
Turning his head, he saw a slender, somewhat mature girl standing in the center of the wheat field.
Her emerald-green hair swayed with the undulating waves of the wheat.
"Indeed, there's nothing to be surprised about," Mahiro replied with utter composure.
"Do you know what this place is?"
The woman asked, slightly taken aback.
"Of course."
Mahiro shifted his gaze, looking at the increasingly hazy rural scene before him and the girl lying on the ground as if unconscious, then said softly:
"If I'm not mistaken, this should be C.C.'s memories, right?"
To be precise, it was a Memory Corridor reconstructed from C.C.'s memories, not reality in the true sense.
Or rather, he was the only illusory presence here.
"It seems you know a great deal. This is indeed my memory, and you cannot interfere with what happens here."
The woman recounted all this in a calm tone.
Like the guardian of this world, she watched him with her amber eyes.
And he, too, was watching her.
"Your memory?"
Mahiro retorted, "I don't think that's the case."
Though she shared the same appearance and similar demeanor as C.C., his intuition told him that this person was not C.C.
"Who are you?"
However, the other party merely smiled faintly, and her form instantly dissipated with the wind.
The scene before him changed accordingly.
"Do you have a reason to live?"
Inside a church, a nun knelt on the ground, her face full of compassion as she looked at the girl prostrated before her.
It was the same girl who had collapsed on the road earlier, broken chains still around her ankles. From the looks of it, she had been saved by the nun.
But when asked about her reason to live, the girl struggled to lift her head.
"I... I don't know... but I don't want to die."
Her eyes were filled with a desperate longing for life.
"Then, let us form a contract. I shall grant you the power to survive. In exchange, will you fulfill one of my wishes someday?"
The nun spoke these words.
On her forehead, she bore the same red bird-shaped mark as C.C.
That was the CODE.
Yet the young girl naturally had no understanding of what it truly was. Faced with the desperate yearning to live, the girl agreed without hesitation.
She had made a contract with a demon and became a Witch.
Because she longed to be loved, she obtained the Geass named [Being Loved]. When activated, everyone around her would unknowingly and inexplicably fall in love with her.
As the girl grew, the nun continued to guide her. However, the adoration she received—like stars clustering around the moon—made the girl grow complacent.
It wasn't until the nun revealed her true nature and bestowed upon her the curse of immortality that the girl fell into confusion.
Time flew by in her memories, and the girl began her journey of wandering for hundreds, even thousands of years.
At first, she did not consider eternal youth and immortality to be a bad thing. But as time passed, witnessing all things gradually fade away around her, watching former oceans turn into mulberry fields—
She fell into despair.
She longed for death.
Yet, having accepted the curse of the CODE, how could she die?
She recalled the nun who had taken her in.
And so, she too began to imitate the nun, forming contracts with others, hoping that one day she could transfer the curse of immortality to the next person.
It was from this moment that she abandoned her original name and adopted the name C.C.
Over the past millennium, C.C. had formed contracts with countless individuals.
Among them were many 'kings,' yet every single contractor was eventually consumed by their Geass. In their madness, they seized the Witch and subjected her to unimaginable cruelty.
She had been captured by the church, condemned as a Witch, and bound to the stake, engulfed in flames.
Memories.
She had also been grievously wounded in the midst of war.
From initially placing her hopes in kings, to pitying them, to utterly despising them, to deeply hating them, to mocking them from the depths of her heart...
Until finally, it no longer mattered.
It didn't matter with whom she formed a contract, as long as it could bring about her death and free her from this curse.
This was the essence of the Witch's existence.
And within these long memories, he witnessed the rise and fall of countless heroes and legends, culminating in the rise of the Britannian Empire and the recollections of the time spent in the Aries Imperial Villa.
It was as if he had accompanied C.C. through this thousand-year journey, sharing in her experiences.
Yet in reality, these memories had flashed by in an instant.
Merely a few minutes.
C.C. had now fully awakened.
Her small hands clutched the blanket covering her, her delicate frame shrinking back. The usual facade of strength she maintained was gone; now, she appeared like a vulnerable young girl.
"You... what did you see?"
"Everything. All of you."
Mahiro responded earnestly, without holding anything back.
"The original you, the you who made a contract with the nun, the you cursed by the CODE, the you who abandoned your name to become C.C., and... the you known as Chris."
Hearing the word he suddenly uttered, C.C.'s pupils contracted, her delicate body trembling as if confronting the reality she least wanted to face.
Though it was merely an abbreviation, that word was undoubtedly the name she once possessed.
The name she held when she was human.
Yet soon, her body relaxed once more.
"It's quite a pleasant name, isn't it? Why did you abandon it?"
"Hmph, what a despicable man. Have you sunk so low as to pry into others' secrets now?"
C.C. tightened the blanket around herself, attempting to reclaim her usual composure, but the sorrow on her face remained completely unrestrained.
"I'm sorry."
"...?!"
C.C. looked up in surprise, her cherry lips trembling as she gazed at the man before her. "...What did you say?"
"I said I'm sorry."
She was astonished.
She doubted her own hearing—could this arrogant, unyielding man actually be apologizing to her?
"You heard correctly. I truly am sorry. Though unintentional, I did indeed glimpse into your memories and steal fragments of your life. Your joys and sorrows, your anger, your grief—I genuinely felt everything about you."
Perhaps influenced by the memories he'd witnessed, when he spoke these words, his gaze toward C.C. couldn't help but reveal pity.
A thousand years of wandering alone through time.
And being vilified by the world as a calamity-bringing Witch.
Had it been him, he'd likely have long succumbed to the urge to destroy everything. Yet C.C. never did so, merely licking her wounds in solitude.
Though her body bore no physical scars, the healing of emotional wounds was a prolonged process.
So prolonged that she had become completely numb.
And from his eyes, C.C. read many unspoken things. Tears unconsciously traced paths down her cheeks as she clutched the only source of warmth available—the blanket—weeping silently.
"Why... why are you looking at me like that... Don't... I don't need such cheap pity... Anyway, for me... for me... I've already forgotten everything... completely... completely forgotten... Everything from then until now, even my current name—all forgotten."
Her trembling hand gently touched the scar over her heart, the greatest sorrow of her life and the origin of everything.
"I'm just... a Witch who's forgotten everything... a snowflake that's lost its past, that's all."
Glistening teardrops like broken pearls slid from C.C.'s pale cheeks onto the bedsheet, gradually spreading in damp patches. She leaned her head back against the headboard, completely abandoning all pretense, unable to suppress her sobs.
Curling into herself, she seemed to be hiding in a corner where no one could find her.
"Is that really true?"
"That's how it is..."
"In that case, do you remember what I said at the summit of Mount Narita?"
C.C. blinked, her eyelashes still glistening with crystalline tears.
"I said, 'Even if the snow forgets its color and returns to pure white, I will inevitably stain it with my own hues.' That wasn't a joke—I meant it seriously. And... there's something else I want to say to you—
Thank you.
Though it's almost endearingly clumsy, I still want to thank you for standing before me and blocking Lancelot's attack."
Sitting by the bedside, Mahiro's every word made C.C.'s tears flow uncontrollably.
She sobbed, whimpered, and trembled, as if unwilling to let Mahiro see her in such a vulnerable state. With slender fingers, she wiped the corners of her eyes, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hold back the pearl-like tears.
"This is... unfair... This is the first time... I've ever been thanked..."
Even as she cried, she smiled—like an innocent child who knew nothing, as if she had found happiness and was ascending to heaven.
In the past, she had endured countless hardships because of the CODE and Geass.
Those who hated and despised her captured and tortured her cruelly, as if doing so could alleviate their own suffering.
Those who were infatuated and obsessed with her imprisoned her and stripped away her freedom, as if facing her—unaffected by Geass—could make them forget their own madness.
But words of gratitude... she had never heard them before.
Not even from the nun who raised her and transferred the curse of immortality to her.
In her final moments, what she saw was a completely deranged nun, her face twisted into a horrifying mask filled with mockery and relief.
So, for her, even such a trivial word of thanks was enough to warm her cold, shattered heart.
"Then... can you give me a gift in return?"
The girl, crying and smiling in happiness, asked softly.
She tilted her head, her amber eyes reflecting an unprecedented tenderness.
"What do you want? If it's too outrageous, I can't do it—like killing you right here and now, for instance."
Mahiro said half-jokingly.
But C.C. shook her head and replied:
"Something like that... can wait. If possible, could you... say that name again... just like before... just once is enough.
Sincerely, gently, with care, and with heartfelt emotion... even if it's just the nickname."
"You're quite demanding, aren't you?"
Mahiro sighed helplessly, scratching his head as if troubled.
After a moment, he lifted his head and met her gaze, uttering the name with all the tenderness and sincerity he could muster.
"Chris."
He didn't know the origin of this name, and even in C.C.'s memories, it was vague. The only thing she knew was that the nun had called her by that name.
A name imbued with the meaning of "Mass."
"No good... it's completely no good. Not sincere or considerate enough, and the pronunciation is strange."
"Tch, and now you're nitpicking? You're not cute at all—just full of willfulness."
"Hehe, willfulness is only natural... because this is C.C., after all..."
The girl chuckled softly.
"But I felt it... that gentleness, I truly felt it... So, as my response..."
As she spoke, C.C. suddenly released the blanket she had been clutching tightly and rose from the bed.
Seizing the moment when he was distracted, she brought her exquisite face close without hesitation, resolutely pressing her lips against his.
She didn't care at all that the blanket had completely slipped off her body, leaving her snow-white, smooth skin exposed to the air.
Her slender arms wrapped tightly around his neck as if trying to merge her body with his.
She wholeheartedly savored this hard-won warmth.
In this moment, C.C. felt as though she had finally found what had been missing in her life until now...
The great battle at Mount Narita had concluded.
At the cost of half the Britannian forces being decimated and the complete collapse of the Japan Liberation Front, the Black Knights and Shadow Garden had established their formidable reputation.
Both organizations had truly made their names known worldwide.
After the Japan Liberation Front's defeat, some of the fleeing members chose to join the Black Knights, while others were either captured or still on the run.
However, in the following days, both the Black Knights and Britannia chose to recuperate and rebuild their strength.
Although the Black Knights had emerged victorious from this desperate battle, the cost had been significant—most of the former Red Moon Resistance members had been lost, and many new recruits had perished.
Even though Lelouch didn't particularly care about these losses, he still chose to lay low to reassure his followers.
As for the Britannian side, they were busy compiling the list of casualties.
Despite the early evacuation efforts during the mountain collapse, aside from the soldiers who fought bravely, many innocent civilians had been caught in the disaster...