"It's easy to talk big when you're several miles away!" Mao yelled. Ohoho! "You can hear me, can't you? You can! You definitely can! That makes this so much easier, hahaha! Because Lelouch, do you know what the truth really is? That you hate your father. You hate, hate, hate him even more than you hate me, but do you know what's funny?

"You are just like him! Hahaha! That's right, I could see it in Cornelia's mind how he behaves, and he's just the same as you. How does it feel, Lelouch? In spite of your hatred you are just the same kind of person as the man you despise more than anyone else on Earth!"

Mao watched him and his smug face on the screen, waiting for the moment for it to become a twisted snarl of denial, then pain, then guts ripped out all over the floor. Except… Nothing. He was laughing. Quietly at first, but then a little louder and louder. Mocking him. Making fun of him.

"This isn't live!" Mao realised. "Cheater, cheater, cheater! You're recording this, aren't you?"

"Did you really think I'd let you onto a live camera feed being broadcast all over the Area?" Lelouch asked in his typical grandiose manner. Oh look, the gratuitous arm sweep, how impressive… And irritating! "No. We're censoring it! I have another person watching and listening on a separate feed to what the public are seeing. They're telling me the gist of what you're saying, so I can respond to it quickly, while censoring anything dangerous you might say."

"And you think that, since I don't know who it is, I can't cut them," Mao chuckled. "Oh, Lelouch! That was a miscalculation! I don't need to cut them, when I can cut the ties between you instead. You killed Clovis. You turned Shirley Fenette into a weapon by abusing her love for you, and then you repaid that love by killing her father and making her a killer too!" Not really any point in keeping this to himself anymore. Not when his enemy was Lelouch. "What's more, you killed General Katase of the JLF, but blamed his death on Britannia. In the end you're nothing more than a selfish monster who would destroy the world if it suited his goals."

There! That should turn just about anyone against him. The Black Knights, his friends at the academy, even if it was a member of the military… It doesn't matter. Nobody could hear that and still want to follow him. At least, that's what he thought. Lelouch was still smiling triumphantly!

"You're too used to using your mind reading powers," Lelouch admonished. "You've never had to rely on wit or guile before. That attempt at manipulation was too heavy handed, since you couldn't read their mind you could not find the best convincing words. That is why you do such childish things like unleashing dangerous Stands. That is why you approached Kusakabe and unlocked his. That is why you selected a student and unsealed a power they could not control so that it killed them. That is why you unleashed a rampaging werewolf, and why you have taken up a sword of pure evil to pursue your own goals! You have the power, but one who abuses that power for purely selfish ends is worse than useless in the end!

"So is it any wonder at all that C.C. left you by yourself?"

-Lulu's Bizarre Rebellion Chapter 39