On October 5th, episode fourteen of Code Geass aired.
It was indeed Rolo who had killed Shirley. He not only admitted it but said, "That was a close one, Brother. Shirley's memories had come back. She was carrying a gun at the time, chasing after you."
"Is that so? So you're the one who..." Lelouch's voice was trembling as he spoke.
"Yep. It's my job to eliminate anyone who threatens you, Brother." Rolo looked slightly proud of himself.
Lelouch had already decided to kill Rolo, but he did not act on it immediately. Instead, he said, "Good work. If you hadn't been there, everyone would have found out my secret."
"Because it's not just your secret anymore, Brother."
"That's right. Well then, let's go destroy the Geass Order."
"Huh?"
Rolo was stunned. He never expected Lelouch to make a decision like that.
His instinct was to refuse, but Lelouch eventually talked him into it.
In Lelouch's eyes, the Geass Order was the root cause of Shirley's tragedy, and the organization's very existence was an obstacle to him as well.
He wanted to wipe out the Order and create a scenario where Rolo and the Order's leader V.V. would take each other out. Unfortunately...
The Order was indeed destroyed, but Rolo survived thanks to Second Princess Cornelia's sudden interference.
When this episode aired, the audience was livid.
"This Rolo is absolutely infuriating. He killed Shirley in a fit of rage and then had the nerve to make her look like the bad guy."
"I feel so bad for Lelouch. He's the one most devastated by Shirley's death, and now people suspect he did it. He even has to force himself to praise the person who actually killed her."
"Until Rolo dies, I will not calm down."
"Shido, normally we're begging you not to kill anyone off, but just this once we're giving you permission to kill Rolo. Can't you just do it already?"
"I used to hate Suzaku the most, but now I don't hate him as much. All I want is for Shido to hurry up and get rid of Rolo."
The online forums related to Code Geass were absolutely seething.
Everyone was so furious that the voices cursing Yuta actually quieted down a little.
Of course, only a little. It was impossible for the complaints to disappear entirely. Some people even argued:
"The fact that Rolo didn't die is clearly Shido's fault."
"Exactly. What do you mean he can't die? It's obviously because Shido doesn't want him to die."
"If you had the guts to kill off Shirley, then hurry up and kill Rolo to avenge her. What is this?"
"Everything is Shido's fault!"
"The day Rolo dies is the day I keep watching. Actually, forget it, I'm going to keep watching anyway. But until Rolo dies, I'm cursing out that bastard every single day."
...
At White Dove.
Sumire was reading the online reactions to Code Geass and could not help muttering, "This is so unfair. President Shido is getting such a raw deal."
"You think he's getting a raw deal?" Aoi glanced over at Sumire.
"It totally is! Code Geass is just an anime, but the characters and events all follow their own logic and cause-and-effect. It's not like President Shido just kills off whoever he feels like!" Sumire said, sounding like she was defending his honor.
Aoi: ...
She stared at Sumire for a moment, then said, "Why do I get the feeling you've become one of Shido's mindless fangirls?"
"Ma'am, is anything I said wrong? How does that make me a mindless fangirl?" Sumire felt deeply wronged.
Aoi shook her head slightly. "Tell me, what do you think is going through Shido's mind right now?"
"How would I know what President Shido is thinking?"
"Then let me tell you. Right about now, he's most likely thinking: if I just killed Rolo off that easily, sure, you viewers would feel satisfied, but where's the fun in that?"
"???"
Sumire's face went completely blank.
Aoi said nothing more and quickly clicked into an online chat group with her mouse.
It was a rather unique anime discussion group. The group had over a hundred members, all of whom were female, at least on the surface.
A few days ago, Aoi had disguised herself as a Code Geass viewer and infiltrated this group. Following the approach Yuta had described, she recommended Code Geass to the group members, and the results were actually not bad.
Of course, this kind of work did not require Aoi to do it personally. But unlike Yuta, who was busy from dawn to dusk, she had relatively more free time. And since this sort of thing was actually pretty fun, she had taken it upon herself to do the targeted marketing alongside the staff she had assigned to the task.
Unlike the anime discussion forums out in the open, not a single person in this group was bashing Rolo. Whenever Code Geass came up, the messages were all along the lines of:
"Rolo is so twisted, but I love it."
"Yeah, killing Shirley wasn't great. But you can't deny his devotion to Lelouch."
"He's really a tragic character when you think about it. All he ever thinks about is Lelouch, and Lelouch has been using him the whole time."
"Thank you, Shido-sensei, for not killing Rolo off so easily."
"I really hope that one day Rolo can truly move Lelouch's heart."
...
In truth, Aoi could not quite wrap her head around how these people thought. But precisely because she could not understand it, she found the whole thing rather fascinating.
After thinking for a moment, she typed out a message and sent it: "The people on the outside have such a deep misunderstanding of Rolo's character. The problem is that there are just too few of us true Rolo fans. I wish there were several times more people who appreciated him."
"For real. There are so few true Rolo fans that I don't even dare say anything nice about him in public."
"Same here."
"Well, Code Geass wasn't made specifically for us girls after all."
"Actually, there are probably quite a few girls watching Code Geass, but most of them prefer Lelouch."
"I like Lelouch too. With Rolo, it's more that I just feel sorry for him."
It was the middle of the day, but there were still plenty of people chatting.
Seeing the activity, Aoi sent another message: "I think we should start a Rolo True Love Fan Club. We can get people who haven't watched Code Geass yet to give it a try and then recruit them as members. Also, if anyone here knows how to make AMVs, we should put together some Rolo AMVs."
"A Rolo True Love Fan Club? I love that idea."
"That sounds great, but since Rolo did kill Shirley, he's not going to die soon, is he?"
"No way. He didn't even die in episode fourteen. He's probably not going down that easily."
"Even if he does die later, we just won't tell the people who haven't watched Code Geass yet. We'll do it like Shido-sensei and lure them in first."
"Great idea."
"I know how to make AMVs. I'll go put one together right now."
_______________________
PS PLZ
Support me at patreon.com/CulturedOne and read 50 Advanced Chapters