Suzaku returns to school. Two other Knights of the Round, Gino and Anya also arrive, with their custom Knightmares.
When Villetta was amnesiac, she stayed with Ohgi, the second-in-command of the Black Knights. Lelouch learns this and blackmails her into working with him.
Rolo's geass buys him a few seconds to explain before he has to pretend not to know her.
Zero has the Knights attack to capture her as she approaches. But when he confronts her, she says she's not a pawn, but a volunteer. She wants to follow in Euphemia's footsteps.
Lelouch has a crisis of confidence: with Nunnaly doing the SAZ, his campaign directly opposes her. But she's the reason he became Zero in the first place!
Strong words from Kallen and Rolo help him reorient.
He bails out the Knights, then orders them to cooperate with the SAZ.
Xing Ke has captured Kallen and has Zero trapped. Unfortunately for him, the Eunuchs use their international relations to call in a favor from the Knights of the Round: destroy both the rebels and the Japanese!
Xing Ke is drawn into a hopeless position when the empress gets out.
Zero has broadcast his communication with the high eunuchs around the Chinese federation, and their disdain has thrown the people into open revolt. The Britannians withdraw; an alliance with the eunuchs is worthless now.
But Kallen was turned over to Suzaku. She's his prisoner.
The Knights break out of the trap and the Xing Ke dispatches the eunuchs.
Lelouch and C.C. have effectively conquered China for a reason: to track down the secret order that gives people geass. They move when the leader changes. C.C. was the leader before, and V.V. is now.
Lelouch returns to school to keep up his cover. He discovers that his body double has been managing things for him in his absence in an unexpected manner.
He's become a bit of a playboy.
How, the _actual_ kissing Lelouch count is: C.C. 2, everyone else 0.
Oh god, now I have to backfill about Jeremiah, who I've been ignoring.
Jeremiah was a Knightmare pilot. He was disgraced when Zero freed Suzaku. He and Villetta compared notes about lost time and that's what helped Villetta realize Lelouch was involved.
Jeremiah corners Lelouch, but he has a device that will disrupt Jeremiah's cybernetics.
Jeremiah asks why Lelouch became Zero. It turns out that Jeremiah was in Lady Marianne (Lelouch's mother)'s honor guard. His first loyalty is to her, not V.V.
This is no mere vision. Lelouch is physically in the Thought Elevator/Sword of Akasha confronting Charles. He uses his geass and Charles shoots himself through the heart.
But it isn't that easy.
The final stage of geass is to absorb the progenitor's immortality.
Schneizel decides to stage a coup. And absentee emperor is no good. He sends Suzaku to assassinate Charles. Unfortunately, he is guarded by the top knight.
Charles synchronizes all the relics and reopens the gate to the Sword.
Here in this alternative world is the Collective Unconscious or God. Charles' plan is to remake the world so that individuals no longer exist. We are all just facets of the collective unconscious anyway.
Marianne, C.C., and V.V. were his allies in achieving this.
Now there are lots of anime that are war stories with mecha. And there are lots that are romance story set in high school revolving around the student council.
But only Code Geass has the vision to be both at once.
I wasn't sure about the soft reset at the start of season two at first, but it was really interesting to contrast Lelouch's approach when his identity was secret from when it was known to his enemies and his every move had to be cloaked.
My summaries had to cut hard, and even then were more posts per episode than some shows.
I cut out discussion of some of the secondary characters, like Nina and Milly, and they deserve better than that. The C and D teams and C and D plots were still great.
I don't want to be mean to a show I really enjoyed, but you can see the seams at the start of season two where they changed their mind about what they were doing.
Or maybe they had the broad strokes, but hadn't worked out the details?
All Lelouch has to do to win is throw away the last thing that ever caused him to pause, use his geass on Nunnaly, and take the Damocles Key.
But will he cross the Rubicon?
Yes.
Lelouch becomes emperor of the world.