-Chapter 5-

Lelouch wanted to close his eyes and pretend that none of this was happening. He wanted to get away from this madness and go back to the days when he was just an ordinary student with grandiose dreams of destroying Britannia. But he knew that was not going to happen.

After kneeling to the ground and placing Shirley's head in his lap, Lelouch looked over at Rolo with blazing eyes, and he said with quiet intensity, "Find the shooter and bring him to me. Alive."

Rolo gave a curt nod then he ran into the school.

"Lelouch..."

Lelouch grasped the hand that Shirley was weakly holding out, and he said, "I'm here, Shirley."

"I'm happy to see you again even if the circumstances aren't quite how I would wish it," Shirley said with a lopsided smile.

"I'm sorry," Lelouch said softly.

"It's not your fault," Shirley insisted.

But it is, Lelouch thought. He looked at the puddle of blood staining the grass, and he wondered how many times she had died from gunfire. Hell certainly loved its little ironies.

"Will you still be here when I wake up?" Shirley asked.

Lelouch nodded, not trusting himself to speak at that moment.

"I knew that we'd be together again," Shirley whispered before she closed her eyes and grew still.

Even though he knew that her death would only be a temporary one, Lelouch couldn't help but wonder if he would ever talk to her again. Perhaps it was better if she never woke up again. She looked so peaceful lying there. What good would come of her waking up if all she had to look forward to was an eternity of suffering and despair?

How many times did Fate intend to have him watch her die? He couldn't bear the thought of Shirley suffering anymore because of him.

She didn't belong in Hell.

The sound of grunting caused Lelouch to look up, and he saw that Rolo was slowly dragging a large creature into the courtyard. It resembled a giant, furry bat.

Lelouch gently shifted Shirley so that her body was lying on the grass before he got to his feet and walked over to where the demon was. He grimly thought about what a sight he must be covered in Shirley's blood.

"This is the weapon," Rolo said, holding up an ordinary 9 millimeter handgun for Lelouch's inspection. Lelouch felt like his blood was going to boil with rage just at the sight of it. He turned his gaze back toward the demon.

"Unfreeze that thing," Lelouch said tersely.

Rolo nodded.

The bat-like creature blinked its eyes and screeched in confusion. It rolled over and was in the processing of standing up when its eyes met Lelouch's gaze.

"Obey me," Lelouch said as he cast his Geass.

The man-bat's body stiffened for a moment then the creature said dully in a gravelly voice, "Yes, sir. What is your command?"

Lelouch's first impulse was to command Shirley's tormentor to kill itself, but he fought it back. He needed information first.

"What is your name?"

"Gjormu," the creature replied as it full straightened up. It towered over Lelouch by two feet. He could see that while this Gjormu had a general humanoid shape, its frame was grossly distorted. It resembled one of those ancient gargoyle statutes with its demonic visage and leathery wings. But its hands were surprisingly human-like. It would have had no difficulty in grasping and operating a firearm.

"Did you shoot this girl?" Lelouch asked already knowing the answer.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Shirley Fenette is to be punished for her sins."

Lelouch's tone, which had not been warm to begin with, turned positively icy. He asked, "What sins would those be?"

"The attempted murder of Villetta Nu."

"She didn't actually kill her!"

"That is irrelevant. It was mere happenstance that the woman survived. Sin is determined by intent, not by result."

Lelouch snorted in disgust. "Really? Matthew 5:28? 'Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.'With such a strict code of moral conduct, I'm guessing that not many people make it into Heaven,"

"You are correct."

Lelouch was chilled by that reply, and he was briefly stunned into silence by the implications of that statement. Then he wondered why he felt so surprised. He had lived his entire life in a world gone mad. In his more cynical moments, he had wondered if the absurdity and insanity around him was merely a reflection of the mindset of its creator. Either God was evil or this Lucifer entity was vastly more powerful than he had imagined. He wasn't sure which possibility was more disturbing...

No, now was not the time for metaphysics. He didn't have time to ponder what the literal existence of Hell meant for the idea of a kind and merciful God. Besides, he was talking to a demon. Not exactly a species with a reputation for honesty. Maybe Gjormu couldn't lie to him, but that didn't mean that it hadn't been lied to itself.

The problem he had to focus on now what he was going to do about Shirley. He was still appalled by her presence here. Shirley didn't have an evil bone in her body. She had made mistakes but not unforgivable ones. She did not deserve to suffer forever.

"Shirley was protecting my life," Lelouch said quietly.

"Yes, she protected the life of a person she knew to be a serial murderer."

Lelouch could see that further argument on this subject would be futile. He decided to change tracks. He asked, "Tell me, is there a way out of Hell?"

The demon said nothing. That meant that it didn't know.

"Do you know in what part of Hell that this Lord Lucifer resides?"

The demon did not know. A few more questions in this vein revealed that this demon did not know much about the entity for which it worked. Lelouch was not terribly surprised by this. Gjormu was clearly just a low-level flunky in the vast demonic organization. Lelouch did, however, learn some interesting tidbits about the general layout of Hell and how its bureaucracy operated.

"Can your kind be killed?"

"Yes, but not permanently."

The information that he was learning from Gjormu was certainly useful, but it wasn't anything that he probably couldn't have learned from any other demon. Lelouch realized that he was stalling. He was keeping himself from asking a certain question because he was afraid to know the answer. But it was a question that he had to ask.

"What have you done to Shirley?"

Lelouch listened with a blank expression as the demon described the various ways that Shirley had died at its hands. Because Gjormu was being thematic, all of the murders had been gun-related.

There were quick deaths and slow, lingering ones. There were deaths from single shots from revolvers and multiple shots from full automatics. There were deaths from sniping and deaths at point blank range. There were days of non-stop terror in which deaths came instantly one after another, and then there were week-long hunts through the school full of near 'misses' and narrow 'escapes.'

Lelouch clamped down on the fury boiling within him and forced himself to listen clinically to Gjormu's words. When the demon finally finished speaking, Lelouch considered his next action.

"There is one more thing I need to know," Lelouch said. He gave the bat-demon a hard stare before he asked, "Tell me how you really feel. Did you take pleasure in what you did?"

"Very much so," Gjormu replied without hesitation in the same toneless voice he had been speaking in the whole time. "The girl is stronger than she looks. She never stopped trying to resist and escape. She only sunk into insanity twice in her time here. It was gratifying to encounter a modern human who didn't give up hope at the slightest bit of pain."

"You admired her strength," Lelouch said with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

Gjormu smiled. It was not a pretty sight.

"Humans break so easily these days. Even with the regenerative effect that prevents permanent mental and physical damage, there comes a point when a human's spirit is so crushed that he will meekly accept anything I do to him. I had not yet reached that point with this girl."

Lelouch had asked the demon to be honest with him, but he had the feeling that even without the power of his Geass Gjormu would have been only too happy to tell him of his exploits. The yellowish eyes that peered back at him were not the eyes of a flunky just doing its job or a detached professional. They were the eyes of a monster.

"What were your plans to 'break' this girl's spirit?"

"I was thinking that it was about time to turn to more traditional methods of torment before you appeared. The girl is not Japanese but she did die in Japan, so I had plans to do some research on this region of the world. I thought it would be appropriate to requisition the use of a tentacle-fiend from a friend of mine to-"

Gjormu's words was cut off by the sound of gunfire obliterating its kneecap.

The bat-like creature gave a roar of pain and rage as it fell onto its remaining leg. With a cry of fury, it lunged toward Lelouch.

"Don't even think about harming me."

The demon's claws stopped inches away from Lelouch's face. It growled then turned its fury-filled eyes toward Rolo.

"In fact, don't even think about harming another human being ever again."

Lelouch stared down at the groaning demon and observed the rate of healing as bone and flesh formed and knitted together to recreate the kneecap. He waited patiently for Gjormu's pitiful cries to subside then he shot it in the head. He fired again and again until he was out of bullets and the head no longer resembled a head.

Then he dropped the useless gun and turned away. The demon would reform soon enough, but he needed the time to think.

Author's Notes:

This is the darkest chapter I have ever written. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

For those curious about how I came up with such a messed up story, I should probably mention that the Inferno/Escape from Hell books by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were an inspiration for this story.