This choice: Nina comes up with an ingenious way to mimic his voice • Go Back...Chapter #20Nina knows what she wants by: Kirafair   Monday morning. Lelouch once again reluctantly dressed in the female version of the Ashford Academy uniform. How he loathed that he didn’t look terrible in it. He certainly would not be relying on his brawn to bring about the downfall of the Britannian Empire. But of late his mental faculties had not been helping him much. Lelouch was still kicking himself for getting them both ensnared in their current predicament.
He might have been able to finally look forward to the end of this embarrassment if not for his fingerprints and facial features being registered in the Imperial database under Nina's name. Though the clothes swap experiment was nearing its conclusion, his time in the role of Nina Einstein was not.
He noted Nina seemed somewhat distracted during classes, but Milly Ashford was there to annoy him. Not surprisingly, her sole contribution to the paper the three of them were working on for Psych class was to delegate his and Nina's tasks. Milly of course decided she would act as editor after the assignment was done. In reality, Nina and he would be doing all the hard work. Yet, Lelouch didn’t mind terribly. Milly took great pleasure in teasing him about how nice his legs looked or making pointed suggestions on how to sit in a more feminine manner. The less she was around the better.
After classes had ended, Lelouch made his way to the Chemistry lab to meet Nina. He did feel indebted to her for a couple reasons. First, for keeping secret his encounter with the Tokyo Police and acting as an escort back to Ashford. If Milly or the rest of the class learned of that night, he would never hear the end of it.
She had also volunteered to cover for him while he worked on addressing the problem of the security records. But he sincerely doubted she would be up to the task. It was far easier for him to act like a timid schoolgirl than for her to fill his role of the confident alpha male in class. It was true she was more self-assured of late but this was asking too much of her.
Nina was so engrossed in her work she only belatedly noticed his presence. Lelouch peered over her shoulder to observe the computer screen filled with odd symbols, lines and squiggles. He had a vague sense the diagram was an electrical circuitry schematic.
“Hey, I didn't see you come in,” she apologized.
‘She must be really distracted if she didn’t refer to me as Nina’ he thought. His spirits slightly buoyed, he cracked a joke
“What are you working on? A bomb which we can use to destroy the Imperial central archives?”
“What? No!” she scoffed “Why on earth would I do that?” she glared at him
He held his palms up in protest “Relax. I was just making a joke”
Nina appeared mollified “Oh I see. A humorous comment intended in this case as an opening for dialog with another person. I’ll have to remember that” she said tapping her chin thoughtfully
Hoping to change the subject, he asked gently “What are you working on there?”
“I’m not ready to talk about it just yet. Not until I know for sure it will work to help resolve our security records problem” she said evasively
Lelouch’s gut churned uneasily every time he thought about his face being associated with the biographical info for one Nina Einstein. Occasionally he wondered what her feelings were regarding this matter.
Nina pulling a chair up next to hers snapped him back to reality “I do have something to show you though. Let me pull up the file” she said with a newfound excitement
She launched an animation program
“I put a lot of work this weekend into studying the problem. Hypothesis: can the two of us swap places at school with a high probability of success? Let me show you my preliminary analysis”
Lelouch couldn’t help but be impressed. She had created a lifelike 3-D model of each of them based on their physical characteristics. He was transfixed watching the animation as his simulated body morphed into Nina's and vice versa
“Obviously there are individual differences between our physical characteristics. You are slightly taller and weigh a few kilos more. But our clothing, with a little help, will largely hide those variances. But for this swap to succeed, our classmates and teachers need to see what they expect to see”
Lelouch frowned “I’m not sure I understand”
She continued patiently “I think you will agree some of my defining characteristics are the color of my hair, how it’s styled, and my eyeglasses”. With a couple taps on the keyboard, the animated image of his face changed to look very much like Nina’s. The only thing out of place was the shape of their eyes.
“Once I reverse the process for me, any minor differences in the shape of our faces will be dismissed by our friends as the result of the lighting in the room” she said confidently
Lelouch had assumed that a hair color change was in the offing. He also conceded the point about clothing masking their body differences. She may even be right about their classmates. Other than perhaps Nina herself, he didn’t consider any of them to be mental giants. But this still left the problem of their voices.
“This is great work. But I really doubt you will be able to convince anyone that you are me the moment you utter one word. Also, everyone will be suspicious when you refuse to talk to them and what about Nunnally? My voice to be her anchor to the world” he explained
Nina steepled her fingers under her chin “I agree, that is a significant issue. I’m curious though. Did you come up with a solution to this problem?”
Lelouch had come up with a possible course of action, but he was well aware it wasn’t ideal. He had briefly considered using his Geass on Nina before abandoning it. While it possibly could force her to act precisely like him, he had no assurance he could turn it off. He shuddered at the thought of Nina stark raving mad screaming she was the real Lelouch.
“I’m counting on the fact that nobody at the conference will know you well. The Tokyo police believed I was female so I should be able to fly under the radar as it were. You on the other hand will have to feign an illness that has left your throat inflamed. All you have to do is spend a week in my bed. Think of it as a vacation”
*****
Nina listened attentively. His plan had merit. It might even succeed. But Nina had no interest in spending a week cooped up in his bedroom. She wanted to be accepted as the real Lelouch Lamperouge and she was planning for much much longer than a few days. She stifled any objections for the moment. There might be an opportunity to have some fun at his expense
“So I take it you plan on interacting with the attendees at the conference?” she asked innocently
He nodded “I have to find someone who has high enough security access to the database”
Nina had a suspicion of where he was going with this. This should prove most entertaining. “How about a demonstration then?”
Lelouch’s eyes grew wide in surprise. At this moment, he resembled her more closely. At some point, she would need to get him to look like this all the time. But that could wait.
“Now?” he sputtered
She removed her glasses and handed them to him “Go on, pretend I’m the high-ranking noble whose login password you hope to pilfer””
Nina suppressed a grin watching him nervously adjust her glasses upon his face. He noisily cleared his throat before changing the pitch of his voice to a soft soprano. He appeared less timid than usual for her. Was he bracing his shoulders to present as more confident or was it a vain effort to make his meager bust seem more prominent?
“Greetings milord. My name is Nina Einstein and I’m a student at the Ashford Academy. I was fascinated by your presentation and have a few questions. Could we go somewhere private to discuss this further?”
How she would savor this memory for a long time.
“Not bad. Your voice cracked a few times though. It came off as forced and will hardly put your target at ease. That is your plan right? To get friendly with someone and gain their confidence”
“Too many variables to predict the best course of action at this time. I will have to adapt to the situation as it unfolds. Getting a noble drunk is one option. There are, other ways….” he said gulping nervously
Since Nina was completely unaware of the supernatural abilities the Geass granted him, she considered the odds of him succeeding to be a longshot.
Which suited her just fine.
“How about this“ she suggested mustering all her charisma ”Give me a few days to finish up my little project here. If all goes well, I’m certain you will agree my plan is more likely to succeed but if not, we have your plan as a backup”
She was enormously pleased when he accepted. The feeling of being a leader was simply glorius.
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