"Better safe than sorry. Especially now that the Geass Order has come knocking. Naturally, I have to be careful."
After a brief daze, Ask sneered and said:
"As long as my awareness and memories contain neither 'I possess Geass' nor 'I know how to kill a code bearer,' nothing the enemy tries will work, not even a Geass that listens to people's thoughts."
Then he walked up to the three ringleaders, looked down at them, and commanded:
"You are my most loyal dogs. My orders take precedence over your lives."
The sigils appeared in his eyes, then vanished. As though some new rule had been implanted in them, the three immediately ignored their injuries and dropped to one knee before Ask. Their attitude changed completely, respect and reverence replacing their fear and panic.
"As you command."
"Then answer me. Do you remember who you met before the rebellion?"
"Our deepest apologies, master. We cannot remember anything."
The three lowered their heads even further.
They prostrated themselves on the ground, almost like actual dogs.
"I see. It looks like you weren't lying."
Ask murmured to himself.
Apples fell from trees to the ground, water flowed downhill, and all things were subject to gravity.
These were laws, as well as part of a person's "understanding."
But when that understanding changed, everything others regarded as common sense would seem to violate truth and science to that person.
For example, water flowed uphill, apples spun three hundred and sixty degrees in midair before blasting through the Earth at the speed of light, and people could fly freely through the sky...
No matter how absurd it was, even if everyone around them believed otherwise, they would still consider their own understanding correct.
This was the power of Ask's Geass-Cognitive Modification.
Perhaps "settings" would be a