- Should Lelouch get his memories rewritten, Villetta will use his amnesia as an opportunity to get close to him for once he eventually regains his memories.
- The Milly part seems to be Jossed, as she not only is already inducted into Harem already, but is C.C.'s newest contractor, giving her both a Geass and more than likely access to the Black Knights, leaving it unlikely she'd be hit by Charles' Geass.
- Plus, given her Aggressive Submissiveness with Milly and "Celesta" and how readily she obeys whenever Zero orders her to, it's quite possible that things with Lelouch will take a turn for the kinky faster than he can say "Q1."
Self-explanatory. As seen in Code Geass' Picture Dramas — hinted in Stage 6.75 and 8.75 of the first season, and made explicit in Stage 22.05 of R2 — Cecile's got a complicated crush on Suzaku, but she never acted on it in the main series because Princess Euphemia entered the picture too early, and after her death and the Black Rebellion, Suzaku wasn't emotionally available for anyone at all.
In this story, however, this pairing has got much better chances. Not only the interactions better Suzaku and Euphemia are entirely different from canon, but he's receiving professional help since she caught on his Death Seeker tendencies in the Battle of Narita.
Assuming that therapy will do its job and given that Suzaku is unlikely to admit he killed his father to a staff psychologist who has got to send reports to their superiors, it's very possible that he's going to seek someone else to confide in on his own, and my bet is that Cecile is going to be said confidant.
While Lelouch would be a better pick for the role on paper, given that he's likely to intellectually understand where 10-year-old Suzaku was coming from when he lost his head during the argument with his father (to say nothing Lelouch isn't exactly against parricide per se), I think Suzaku won't turn to him precisely for that reason. Suzaku isn't looking for someone to rationally explain to him how his crime was the result of his age-appropriate naivete, his act-before-thinking martial training, and fear of war and death looming over them all at the time. Suzaku wants a resolution that makes "emotional sense", so to speak, and he thinks his messed-up sense of atonement is the way to go.
But what would happen if Suzaku tells his Dark Secret to someone with a more, let's say, motherly standpoint on the matter? Someone that not only will hear his tale and focus on the scared kid that made a stupid mistake and is still torturing himself for it, rather than on the high-profile crime itself. Someone that knows from experience the pain of watching someone she cares about decide on a self-destructive path and never look back, thus making it her priority to keep Suzaku from doing the same. See where this is going?
From a Doylist point of view, Suzaku×Cecile makes for an interesting Foil to Lelouch×Sayoko. While both are pairings between a 17-year-old guy and 24-year-old woman, and one between a Britannian and a former Japanese, their interpersonal dynamics are pretty much the opposite. To put it bluntly, Sayoko is something of an enabler that helps a lot to make Lelouch's vendetta a reality, whereas Cecile is likely to do her utmost to keep Suzaku's worst tendencies in check.
Also, Kaguya may be a Honorary Britannian, but unlike Suzaku she's a very wealthy one, meaning that the 16-year-old girl should be able to enroll into the elite high school without too much fuss if she wants to, especially one as comparatively liberal as Ashford Academy.
- Get rid of the Neo Shinsengumi and deal with their backers in the Six Houses.
- Keep Cornelia from looking too bad so she won't get replaced by someone worse, like Schneizel or Luciano Bradley.
- Ensure the Ashford Knightmare Factory is a success for as long as his plans require it.
Being the kind of guy he is, Lelouch is likely to consider accomplishing all three at the same time. Namely, by getting Cornelia to stomp out the Neo Shinsengumi on her own with the help of their new Knightmare Frames built by the Ashford Group.
That way the Black Knights prove themselves to be the only ones in La Résistance who can fight Cornelia effectively without having to do a thing, the princess recovers some of her Goddess of Victory fame, and the Ashford-built KMFs get the kind of good rep that only successful trials-by-fire can give.
The only problem with this plan is that Lelouch has to let Major Kadzuki build up some street cred first, so to speak, in order for Cornelia and the Ashfords to actually look good when she takes him down.
- As of Chapter 33, Lelouch has indirectly helped Kirihara and Kaguya eliminate the Neo Shinsengumi's backers in the Six Houses.
- Given how this Euphemia is much more of a Badass Bureaucrat than her canon self was, along with her having been made aware during the battle of Narita of the possibility that the more extreme freedom fighters might not be willing to accept any deals which could be viewed as a deliberate attempt to set up them up in a Gilded Cage, one where they'd be extremely restricted in what they can actually do to celebrate their culture, by the supplies they'd be allowed to import by those in the surrounding areas. This, along with the fact that some of the more corrupt nobles in the area might attempt to take advantage of those who'd sign up for this idea, by overcharging them for even the most basic of necessities, it seems very likely that Euphemia would realize that even attempting to set something like the SAZ up might not be a viable way to deal with tensions in the Area; due to her having uncovered such an extreme amount of corruption in her attempts to clean up the system...
(Content Warnings: Wall of Text incoming! TL;DR section at the end)
While the above is just expanded Backstory and Worldbuilding as of Chapter 32, two recent events may change that:
- First, in Chapter 30 "two battalions of Liverpools and an oversized platoon of Yorks" were sent from the Homeland to Cornelia to replace her losses against the Black Knights, something the Lady of War and her men were less than enthusiastic about, to put it mildly. It's believed that a supply officer in the Bradford Group's payroll altered the Princess' request for more Sutherlands and Gloucesters, possibly to force her to give the Spider Tanks a(n unlikely) chance to shine in the battlefield at long last.
- Secondly, Reuben Ashford just interfered with Bradford family's ambitions once again by offering Cornelia to build and operate the first Knightmare factory in Area 11 for her if she gets Britannian government to buy the units right off the production line to resupply her troops. This business proposal not only steals their thunder in the above plan while undercutting any potential profits that the Bradfords could make in Area 11, but also puts their hated old rival back on the list of Britannia's defense contractors.
The real threat for the Bradford Group here is the possibility that the Frames produced by the Ashford Group will distinguish themselves in the conflict against La Résistance, and in turn heralding the return of the business rival that they always feared the Ashfords could have become had Marianne not died seven years ago.
If this guesswork turns out to be correct, then the Bradford family will have to do something to prevent the Ashfords from succeeding at any cost.
Bribing officers won't cut it this time because both Viceroy and Sub-Viceroy are bound to have everything double checked by their own people and the li Britannia sisters themselves are (in)famous among the Nobility because they can't be bought off.
Sabotage is also out because the Ashford Group will be looking for it after the problems they had while developing the Ganymede years ago. Furthermore, the Bradfords are likely to discover that they won't be able to subtly interfere with the nascent Knightmare factory at all given that it's actually Magnificent Bastard Lelouch who's running things behind the scenes.
At this point, the Bradfords will realize their lack of options and decide they need to send someone of their own to Area 11 to personally find a way to stop the Ashford Group from getting back on their feet in the military market. Probably by trying to outbid them somehow, but Cornelia isn't likely to play ball after they tried to screw her and her troops over through trickery by resupplying them with, in Guilford's words, "damned drones."
With Britannian aristocracy being what it is, imperial court intrigue is likely to be considered too. Perhaps by involving the Ashford family in some sort of big scandal so the government won't want to do business with them. For that the Bradfords need to find or create dirt on the Ashfords they can make public or use as leverage, but placing a spy close enough for either option will be pretty much impossible now that Reuben (and Lelouch) ramped up security after the alleged assassination attempt against Milly.
Under these circumstances, the Bradfords will have to work with what's already there to get around the above. Perhaps conspiring with Milly's mother somehow, but it's not really a secret that Reuben only trust his daughter-in-law as far as he can throw her, so they should know that he'll be on the lookout for that.
My guess is that they'll play the New Transfer Student card to target Milly with. After all, Ashford Academy remains a school and getting one of their young enrolled in short notice should be feasible for the Bradford family. The real problem would be then how to place said person within the social circle of the Student Council President before the business between the Ashford Group and Britannian military comes through, but that question was answered all the way back in Chapter 21 when certain character's maiden name was revealed to be Bradford before marrying an Earl and moving in to Area 11.
Who you ask? Agatha Stadtfeld-neé-Bradford, better known as Kallen's Wicked Stepmother.
This works out nicely for the Bradfords in three ways. First, easy logistics — staying over at a relative's place is a great cover story and Agatha must be already acquainted with most of the upper crust in the Settlement and the surrounding gossip. Two, the Stadtfelds already have a kid in Ashford Academy, which will go a long way to help and get their teenager agent into an elite school like that.
Last but not least, Kallen is already a member of the Student Council. And giving her position as the heiress of the Stadtfeld family, she won't have much of a choice but introducing her relative (likely a cousin) to Milly and the others.
As for how to entrap the Ashfords after all the above… I've got no clue. It will depend on how these hypothetical characters will actually be like, if they ever appear. All there's to go on are Bradfords' capacity to hold onto an unreasonable grudge against the Ashfords, their stubbornness to cling onto a failing idea such as their unmanned Spider Tanks and force others to see things their way rather than adapt and improve, and what little we know about Kallen's stepmother — namely, she's racist, sleeps around a lot, and is willing to sink criminally low to belittle and abuse her husband's former lover despite the fact her marriage never was more than a sham.
That doesn't really paint an image of consistent competence, so their chosen course of action could be more underhanded than actually clever. Like sending a male Honey Trap after Millynote to put her in a compromising situation, get everything on tape, and then blackmail Reuben to pull the plug on the Knightmare factory project in order to protect his granddaughter's reputation. That way the Bradfords' honeypot doesn't have to actually succeed at seducing Milly, just fabricate a big enough scandal somehow.
While the above is unlikely to work, the real threat for our heroes is that everyone in the Student Council (other than Rivalz) is sitting on pretty damn big secrets on their own that the Bradfords could stumble upon, especially "Lelouch Lamperouge" who's likely to catch their attention due to how much Milly obviously cares about him. That and Kallen having more eyes on her at Stadtfeld Estate, thus making it harder for her to live her double life.
- The Bradford family is likely to get actively in the way of the Ashfords in their apparent attempt to become a defense contractor again, due to their unreasonable grudge against them and plain old greed.
It's possible that they will play the New Transfer Student card through Agatha Stadtfeld-neé-Bradford, and use her stepdaughter Kallen's place in Ashford Academy's Student Council to introduce said person into Milly's social circle. The idea is to find or fabricate the leverage they need to force Reuben to give up on the Knightmare factory project and get petty satisfaction while doing so.
- Throughout the story Asahina has been particular distrustful and even hostile to working with/under Zero. At least part of this fueled by Urabe continued support of Zero and Todoh bending the knee to the masked man as well. With the reveal that of Chapter 49 Senba has put aside his own issues with Zero to work sincerely under the Black Knights and the knowledge that for all her antagonism Chiba will ultimately follow Todoh's example Asahina could be pushed increasingly over the edge. Which wouldn't be helped by Todoh's own actions such as telling them to respect Zero's authority, yet seemingly coming off as challenging Zero himself in subtle but powerful ways when testing Lelouch.
- Lelouch had already revealed to his inner circle that if Todoh fails to reign Asahina in then the he will pull a Reassigned to Antarctica on Asahina. This demotion would certainly push the holy sword over the edge and he would take advantage of Todoh's tests to gather like minded men together and strike against the masked man he resents so much.
- With the public death of Roderick and Melisande by apparent enemies of the Commoner Empress (really servants under Lelouch's Geass) public attention will brought to V.V.'s vendetta. Thus seeking to prevent his existent from being discovered, V.V. will make the Bradford family his scapegoat due to their animosity towards the Ashford family being well known and by getting their subpar equipment sent to Cornelia they threatened Britannia control of the Thought Elevator on Kamine Island.
