"Well...that was unexpected..."
Lelouch found himself lying on the floor of C's world, the former beautiful and mystical orange scenery now back in its' full glory.
"Well look who decided to finally wake up," a slow and elderly voice hummed pleasantly.
Glancing up in the direction of the somewhat familiar voice, Lelouch, the dual holder of the titles of Demon Emperor of the World and the Most Hated Man in Existence, felt his jaw drop slightly at what he was seeing.
"Am I dead?" He inquired dumbly as he slowly got to his feet, "Or, is this some sort of crazed illusion I hear the condemned go through before they finally die?"
The man with the dark skin and thin, graying, hair chuckled softly as he indicated the demon emperor take a seat at the table that had not been there a minute ago.
"I feel that it would only confuse you more to tell you you're correct."
"On which note?" Lelouch demanded as he sat across from the man at the table overlooking C's world's horizon.
"Both." The man said, visibly pleased at his wit, as he chuckled deeply.
Lelouch glowered at the man before asking the question that had been assaulting him from the very beginning.
"Are you really Morgan Freeman?"
The man sobered his expression quickly and stared at Lelouch seriously.
"What do you think?" He asked.
"I-I don't know." Lelouch stammered, suddenly confused at the man's change in demeanor.
"Alright, I guess the fun is up." The man said as he reclined in his chair in a way that should have defied gravity, yet the chair held perfectly still at the impossible angle.
"In order," the man held up a single finger, "yes, you are dead."
He reclined in his chair even futher until he was very nearly horizontal. The chair wasn't even touching the ground anymore.
"Yes, you are currently being re-killed on a rather rapid basis and as such I pulled your consciousness from your body to spare you the torture...after a few times..." the man gave Lelouch a rather pointed look.
"And finally, no, I am not Morgan Freeman."
"Then who are you?" Lelouch demanded as he tried to keep his brain, if he even had one now that he was dead—dying?—somewhere on earth, from hurting too much after that speech.
"I'm called many things," the man said with a joyous cackle, "but Britannia mostly recognized me as God."
Lelouch felt his stomach—again the question of if he had one now—clench.
"Oh."
The chair that the man had been nearly floating horizontally in suddenly flew down towards the table with an unbelievable level of grace and came to a gentle stop before it. The dark-skinned man propped his elbows on the table and put his chin in his hands as he stared straight into Lelouch's Geass covered eyes.
"So, Lelouch Vi Britannia, Demon Emperor of the Entire World, do you think you should get to go to Heaven?" The Morgan Freeman look-alike asked, his tone suddenly serious.
"Lelouch...the price you're going to pay for using your Geass on them is a dear one..." C.C. said softly as she knelled before the alter on both knees.
"The only ones who should kill are those prepared to be killed..."
Even with her hands clasped together tightly in a sign of submission that she hadn't made to God in nearly two or three hundred years; even with her tears now running down her face freely; even with her presence in a now derelict building that she had avoided for almost her entire time as an immortal, C.C. couldn't help the soft smile that threatened to push past her pain.
Lelouch had told her that on more than one occasion when they had fought—and they had fought often—over why he couldn't just fake his death. He had felt that the punishment for taking a life had to be having their own life taken. It was as tightly welded to his constitution as his belief in what he was doing was just.
He would become a monster, but he would never be a monster.
"I know the time I have kept silent from you is longer than most people have walked the earth thrice over, but if there is any way, any way at all, that I can cast off my immortality to join Lelouch in death...please...please speak now..."
She fell silent as she waited for the inevitable silence. She had come to the old and forgotten ruins shortly after Lelouch had departed for the mustering field. C.C. had meant what she had said to Lelouch, she would rather spend his last hours in her most hated place than watch him die and do nothing to stop it.
"I feel the need to inform you...that if L-Leouch does die and I am not freed from my immortal form, I will continue to kill myself until either you relent or my mind breaks." C.C. said as she brought her hands down to her lap and bowed her head in a muted sign of acceptance of her fate.
Silence.
"You're choice." She muttered.
Pain. So much pain. So much pain and so much suffering. The world of agony was flooding through her chest and out her mouth as she fell face first before the alter.
She had never imagined it would hurt this much, even through the Geass connection's remarkable linking system. She couldn't imagine what Lelouch was feeling right now.
And then it stopped.
Closing her eyes, she waited for the severance of the Geass connection and the final confirmation that the only man to ever worm his way past her aloof defenses and into her life—and even more so, to know her true name—was now dead.
But it didn't come.
The connection stayed strong, if muted.
But it stayed.
It. Stayed.
"C-can...can it t-truly be?" C.C. sputtered in awed amazement.
Lelouch stared at God.
God stared at Lelouch.
Time passed by.
"Yes." Lelouch said pompously as he smiled at the man seated across from him.
"Final answer?" Morgan Freeman asked with a raise of an eyebrow.
"I am more of a god to those people now than you ever were, "Lelouch remarked haughtily as he clasped his hands together before him. "I should really ask if you wish to enter Heaven."
The Morgan Freeman shell laughed deep from his belly and continued to do so until he nearly fell flat out of his chair. He remained that way for some time before finally coming to a slow, chuckling, halt.
"In all the years, both past and future, realized or not, in your particular strand of time, I have never gotten to meet such a great manifestation of creation." He said with a smile. "Truly, Lelouch, you are something else. Lying even to me all the way to the very end!"
Lelouch didn't know how to respond to that statement, so he continued to hold his hands before him on the table.
"I know all about you, child. I know all about that little hand-clasp-to-hide-your-nerves trick. You can be honest with the one who runs it all up here in the clouds." The man said with a smirk.
Lelouch's eyes widened as he started to sputter in shock.
"Now then," the man began as a chess set—much like the table and chairs—appeared as if by no real effort.
"How about a game of chess?" Morgan Freeman said as he allowed a small scale to appear beside them. "You'll wager you're return to Earth..." A miniature statue of Lelouch in his uniform appeared on the scale, weighing it down.
"...and I...will wager C.C.'s immortality." A miniature statue of the C.C. appeared and the scales balanced out. "A fair trade if you ask me."
Lelouch eyed God's shell with suspicion and skepticism. "You'll forgive me if that deal doesn't really sound like a fair trade." He gestured at the scales for emphasis, "I win something and you gain nothing in either scenario."
God eyed the man at the chess table.
"I will tell you one more truth you have yet to realize on your own," the man said as he too gestured at the scales. "This game is different from every other game you have ever played in your life. It does not decide a winner or a loser, it decides what you want from here on out."
Lelouch felt his face color in embarrassment as he suddenly understood the significance at what was being wagered.
"So...I either spend eternity with C.C. in Heaven or I get to spend what's left of my life on Earth with her?"
Morgan Freeman quirked an eyebrow, "I never said you would get to go to Heaven, or her for that matter. I could just split you up between the overworld and underworld and let you ride out eternity forever within sight of each other, but also forever separated."
Lelouch, for the first time since he had arrived in C's world, felt his face go deathly pale at the implication of that statement.
"So what will it be? A possible eternity of either being with your witch or never seeing her again, or a short time with her where she will again be left alone and you will once again face the possibility of Heaven or Hell as your ultimate destination?"
Morgan Freeman reclined in his chair just ever so slightly.
Lelouch smiled.
And then he reached over and tipped the black king face forward, signaling his surrender.
"You know, white gets the first move..." Morgan Freeman said with a soft smile as he stood up and moved towards Lelouch. "Explain your reasoning and maybe I'll allow your little stunt."
Lelouch smirked cockily at the shell of God.
"I'd just do it once it's my turn," he countered.
"I'm God. I get to do whatever I want."
Lelouch frowned before replying, "I don't care about eternity. I don't care if I suffer or prosper. I brought the world the darkest era it has ever seen because I wanted Nunnally to have her dream of a gentle world." He glanced at the chess board briefly as he mentioned his sister, "which I did, by the way."
"Likewise, I want C.C. to have her dream of having someone love her for her and not because of Geass. I could grant her the loss of her immortality, but she would still have to live out her now mortal life on a world that doesn't even know she exists.
Even if she eventually dies and ends up in Heaven—which is where she belongs—she will still be alone. Even surrounded by Shirley and Euphemia and the others who will eventually die. I am the only one that truly knows her well enough to love her for her.
We're partners, accomplices, it's as simple as that...I go where she goes and vice versa. So I will choose the outcome that brings her the most likely chance of happiness.
That means I will return to Earth and suffer through eternity there until the world finally comes to its' ultimate end."
God waited and listened.
God smiled.
Morgan Freeman smirked as he spoke, "you did catch on to that little hint about dying over and over at the beginning didn't you?"
"I figured playing dumb wouldn't be too hard before God." Lelouch smirked back.
"Well, you're correct about your guess. You have Charles' code that he took from V.V. and because of that you're reviving as of this moment in a tomb owned by the Kururugi's. It has taken quite some time and it would have been quite painful had I not pulled your consciousness when I did. The crowd that got a hold of your corpse got quite carried away. They lobbed off your head and burned your remains before draw and quartering what was left."
"I-I suppose a thank you is in order..." Lelouch stated, clearly startled at such a gruesome end for his body. In hindsight, it made sense considering the amount of hatred he had gathered towards himself.
But still.
"A thank you to Suzaku would be more appropriate. He publicly told the world in his first declaration as Zero that your body was thrown to a pack of wild dogs and then burned in the fires of Mt. Fuji. Instead, he buried you in the Kururugi mausoleum."
Lelouch took a moment to digest that.
"I still admire your decision to go back to earth and perish with C.C." The shell said with a smile now, "the world would never believe just how deep your character goes."
"So...do I go back?" Lelouch asked hesitantly.
"Of course." Morgan Freeman answered as he made a gesture, "but first your boons and your directive."
"My what and my what?"
"Lelouch Vi Britannia," the shell began, "for fulfilling three lifelong dreams of those dear to you, namely..."
He held up a single finger, "establishing a new and gentle world."
Nunnally
A second, "a world free of classification and oppression."
Euphemia
A third and final finger was raised, "and the noblest of all dreams, to find a true love."
…C.C.
"I grant you the boons of The Sight of the Eagle and The Cloak of the Chameleon," and with that the shell walked forward and put his hands over Lelouch's eyes as the mark of the Geass opened on his palms.
Lelouch vaguely remembered screaming as he suddenly realized he was on his knees now. His vision had blurred briefly, but he suddenly felt something he was used to, yet at the same time it felt alien.
It was a Geass connection.
"You are now contracted under me. This is the first time this has been done in your time-line in nearly two thousand years. The Power of the King has been caged deep within you, so that your connection with C.C. will not be destroyed; however, in its' place you now wield the Geass allowing you to see anywhere and anyone you desire at that specific second in time in your right eye; in your right, you wield the Geass that allows you to change your outward form to anything you desire, be it a circus strongman or an animal of your choosing."
Lelouch stared—quite possibly for the first time in his life—in utter dumbstruck shock.
"As for your directive—which is part of the contract I have just made with you—you are to deliver God's final wish to the world. To ensure this eternal peace is carried out until the very last moment of the very last day, upon which the sun shall cool and you and your partner shall cease to exist."
"I...I accept these Geass." Lelouch said after taking a long minute to digest all of that information.
"Good." Morgan Freeman said as he drew forth a sword of glowing white roaring with holy fire. "Now that we have taken care of you, we will take care of all those who are watching that you sent up here...or down there."
With that—and causing no small amount of deja vu for Lelouch—the dark-skinned man with the graying hair drove the blade through Lelouch's throat and withdrew it in an elegant flourish that sent dark goblets of blood onto the platform's floor.
Spurting blood, Lelouch had only the time to think that this time he was actually feeling the pain of the wound before he fell off the platform and hurtled towards the cloudy abyss below.
The shell glanced upward and smirked,
"He'll do alright..."
Lelouch Vi Britannia awoke in a dark, humid, cavern-like chamber. He felt something stir next to him and he realized he had been breathing in and out heavily as he clutched at his neck with one hand and his chest with another.
"L-Lelouch?"
"C.C.?"