Chapter three: Progress and Revelations

Three weeks had passed since the day Lelouch had woken up and had that conversation with his little sister, Lydia. After that day, he still had to sleep for half a week though, as his body needed time and rest to adapt to the changes being a half-demon brought with itself. Luckily, the pain had since subsided, and the demonic energy, Youki, as Kurozaku called it, that had been flowing through his system like a torrential stream had also settled.

Even though the process was painful beyond comprehension, the dark prince felt great. The asthetic changes also didn't bother him in the least, on the contrary, he actually quite liked his now long mane of hair.

His recovery had also gone nicely, after which Kurozaku had appeared in his room, explaining to him what would happen from then on. The half-demon had found out that while the possibility of returning to his world was present, he couldn't leave just now. Not that he wanted to anyway; he had left it in capable hands, and him turning up there would ultimately do more harm than good, even more so now that he was a half-demon. Then his ancestor had told him about the training he would be undergoing, much like with his surrogate sister some three years ago. It would consist of sparring, hand-to-hand combat, Kenjutsu(1), Youki control and meditation and various other excersises. What had particularly piqued his interest though, was what the demon called 'shadow manipulation'. He had explained to him that it was basically the ability to bend shadows and darkness to one's will, and that he would go more in-depth during the training.

Lelouch quickly found out that the training Kurozaku had him undergo was rather...brutal; one excersise was particularly grueling, but at the same time very simple.

Meditation.

That had been one of the prime excersises he had to focus on during his training, as Kurozaku had found out that his reserves were immense, larger than even those of Lydia, even though she had been training for three years. That, however, didn't mean that he could use all of it, as with large reserves a lot of control was needed in order to effectively use them.

That was why he had to focus on that aspect of his training. Basically, the simplest excersise was to sit still. Now, that sounded quite easy, but it was a grueling excersise, as he had to sit completely still for hours, sometimes even days on end.

The demon lord had told him that it would help calm his mind, and that in turn would improve his control over his Youki. In addition to that, his Youki, just like that of every demon, had a certain nature. His was fire, which only added to the already corosive nature of Youki. That was another aspect he had to focus on developing, as fire was a destructive element, and needed to be used carefully.

Other than that, he was also given a tour of the castle, and his ancestor had told him about its history. That was also when he had found out that the demon was more than three thousand years old, and that he had built the castle about two thousand years ago. What was also interesting, was the fact that the castle was alive; not in the sense that it was actually alive, but as Kurozaku had explained to him, it was imbued and saturated with his energy, granting it the ability to fortify itself and repel an assault should it ever come that far, and also repairing any damage it sustained.

Even the servants of the castle were actually part of it, created with his Youki and darkness. Lelouch was rather reluctant to believe that, which Kurozaku had apparantly sensed as he had called over a maid, who, with a smile, turned into a black mist, still keeping the human form, albeit vaguely, while also managing to keep on the clothing.

All in all, Lelouch truly enjoyed the short time he had spent in the castle with his surrogate sister and their ancestor.

Currently, he was training with Lydia and Kurozaku. It was an all-out style spar, with him and Lydia against their ancestor. Considering that he had awakened not a month ago, the dark prince was holding his own rather nicely against Kurozaku, as was his sister, but that was understandable, as she was leaps and bounds ahead of him. After all, she had been trained by Kurozaku for three years, and was adept at almost everything he had taught her.

The three had turned the whole arena into ruins with the many attacks that missed their intended targets, but luckily, the arena, just like the castle, had to ability to repair itself.

Lelouch narrowly avoided a punch from Kurozaku, and quickly countered with several of his own, which he greatly enhanced by channeling his Youki into them and setting them ablaze. The demon, however, also dodged them with practiced grace. Right now, he was using twenty percent of his power. Kurozaku smirked; the two weren't to be taken lightly. Lydia, while very skilled in the arts of battle, didn't have the genius-level intellect her brother did, which the half-demon put to good use as he came up with tactics that Kurozaku found rather impressive. That even more so seeing as the two had only fought together a handful of times. Usually, they would've just sparred against eachother, with Kurozaku pointing out any mistakes Lelouch made or if any of his stances were off.

The two siblings were an impressive team though, able to communicate with eachother with just an exchange of looks. That was why Kurozaku was slightly worried when they quickly exchanged glances and smirked, before Lydia disappeared and Lelouch came at him again, his fighting style having refined itself somewhat during the last month.

Still, with twenty percent of his power, the demon lord quickly forced his descendant on the the defensive. Said half-demon winced as a fist of his ancestor managed to slip by his defence and send him sailing into a wall. He quickly channeled some of his Youki into his legs and flipped himself up, standing horizontally on the wall. That move came just in time as Kurozaku didn't waste a second and smashed his fist into where Lelouch's head was just a split-second ago. Feeling his grip on the wall wavering, the dark prince pushed himself off in a burst of speed, and landed in the middle of the arena.

Before he could even realize what was happening, Kurozaku was infront of him, gripping his throat and lifting him up into the air with relative ease.

With a smirk, he applied more pressure, however, much to his chagrin, a smirk appeared on his descendants face aswell. When realization dawned on him, he quickly let go of him and jumped back, as did Lelouch.

That proved to be a wise move as a huge ball of condensed Youki crashed down where they just were. Judging by the ground actually melting and turning most of the arena into a pool of lava, the young girl had overdone it, which she admitted as she landed on a piece of rock that hadn't turned into lava, "I think I overdid it, nii-chan."

The girl really seemed to be considering it, given her thoughtful pose, which caused Lelouch to sweatdrop as he landed next to her, "Don't worry about, this just makes it more interesting."

That seemed to pull her out of her thoughts as she nodded with a bright smile and shot off the piece of rock, causing it to sway dangerously.

"Hey! Be a little more careful next time!" Lelouch shouted after her, and quickly followed his younger sister.

All the while, Kurozaku observed the two siblings from another piece of rock on the far end of the arena, shaking his head. Then, he too shot off and jumped along the pieces of rock in the direction of the two teens.

The three met in the air with both Lelouch and Lydia throwing a kick at the demon from each side, which he blocked with his hands. The demon lord then proceeded to grab both limbs and hurl the two sibling at the wall.

What happened after that actually caused his eyes to widen; as the two were rocketing towards the wall, Lydia grabbed Lelouch's leg, swung him around her and used the momentum to throw him back at the demon, who had yet to recover from his momentary, surprise induced daze.

As he did, however, it was too late. Lelouch was already infront of him, fist cocked back to deliver one hell of a punch, the strength of which was greatly increased by the Youki he channeled into it and the forward momentum of his flight.

The fist connected with Kurozaku's face, and created a large ripple in the air, sending him flying into the wall with such force that it collapsed on top of him, which in turn caused the part of the ceiling above him to collapse aswell. All that resulted in him being buried under tons of concrete debris and the lava that flowed into the crater.

Lelouch dropped onto another floating piece of rock, staring blankly at the scene before him. Lydia soon dropped down next to him, staring at what was once a large part of the arena with an equally blank gaze, a finger on her chin, "Overkill?"

"Definitely."

After a few moments, the two started to get worried, fearing that they really had overdone it this time. Those feelings were dispersed however, as Kurozaku shot out from the lava right infront of them, a black katana in hand as he shot towards Lelouch. He was too fast and too close to dodge, so he just had to take the strike.

Damn it! Lelouch thought with a scowl as the blade of the katana was mere inches away from him. The dark prince closed his eyes and brought his arms up, channeling Youki into them and awaiting the pain of the katana as it cleaved through his flesh.

That pain never came however, and instead he heard a loud 'clang', signifying that metal had hit metal. Opening his eyes, he noticed the demon lord infront of him, his katana having clashed with...his?

Only now did he notice that he was holding a sword himself, not unlike Kurozaku's as far as its appearance went.

A chuckle brought his attention back to his ancestor, "One month and you're already able to manipulate darkness."

The dark prince examined his sword, and noticed that while the part of it that clashed with Kurozaku's looked like a real sword, the rest of it was just a black and red mist, indicating that his Youki was also present in the blade.

"You're not able to fully stabilize it yet, but it's impressive nonetheless. Even Lydia needed several months to achieve that."

"Wow, nii-chan's really strong!" The girl chimed in, cheerful as ever.

"Well, we might aswell continue with shadow manipulation; that sword in your hand is merely one of the many abilities darkness grants you," the demon shrugged as his own sword dissolved into a black mist, and an evil grin appeared on his face that made Lelouch gulp, while Lydia was still admiring her brother's skill.

"But first..." the evil grin widened even more, "That lava bath was rather...unpleasant."

A chill ran down Lelouch's spine.

Pendragon palace, meeting room

"Empress Nunnally," Cornelia said in a serious tone and bowed down, as did the other people that had entered the room. The meeting room that would normally be filled with nobility and members of the royal family was now occupied by key members of the Black Knights and other select individuals who all had one thing in common.

A connection to Lelouch.

Sayoko, Kallen, Ohgi and Viletta, Tamaki, Rakshata, Tohdoh, Kaguya, empress Tianzi and Xingke, Cornelia and Guildford, Jeremiah, Lloyd and Cécile, Milly, Rivalz and Nina. All of them were curious about why the empress had summoned them, but figured that the explanation would soon follow.

Then there was the green-haired girl that many recognized, but didn't know much about. Zero, as the knight of the empress, was obviously also there, standing next to Nunnally.

"Please, sister, there's no need for formalities," Nunnaly replied and motioned for all of them to take a seat as she moved her wheelchair closer to the table, Zero moving silently to her side.

"Now, to why I summoned you all here..."

Flashback

"Nunnally, are you sure you want to go through with this?"

The empress and Suzaku were currently in her office. Nunnally was gently dragging wo fingers down a portrait of her brother, Lelouch, while Suzaku was nervously pacing in the room, his mask, the mask of Zero, held securely in his arm.

After a moment, the young empress replied, "Suzaku." At that, the young Japanese stopped pacing and looked up at the girl that he had sworn to protect, "It's been one month. I know what Lelouch did was to ensure peace, and I do not intend to disrespect his last wish, but the others atleast deserve to know."

Suzaku couldn't help but think about just how mature the young girl had grown after all this, and she was right after all; some deserved to know of his sacrifice, but still...

"...Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Yes, and I am going through with it."

"I understand."

Meeting room

Silence.

One could literally here a pin drop to the floor as deathly silence permeated the air in the room. All the people present had varied reactions. The few that already knew the truth about Lelouch, such as Kallen, didn't have a surprised and shocked look on their faces as they silently looked down, their faces a mask of sorrow.

Some, namely the members of the Black Knights couldn't quite wrap their head around what had just been revealed to them.

But the one feeling all of them had in common was regret; some greater than others, but they all felt it somewhere in their mind. Regret at not being able to see him once again, to tell him how they felt, to tell him what they were feeling right now.

Then, a scoff broke the silence, causing everyone to turn to the green-haired girl who was sitting on the far end of the table, a yellow plushie wrapped up in her arms. "You people claim to know Lelouch, yet you know absolutely nothing about him," she stated coldly.

Some seemed to lower their heads at how true that statement was. They never really knew much about him, now that they thought about it, and they most definitely didn't know about his extremely elaborate plan to free the world of its curse. Some wanted to protest, but C.C. shut them up with a glare, "Please, enlighten me. What would Lelouch possibly achieve or gain by becoming the emperor and imposing his will on the whole world forcibly?"

Now that it was said aloud, it did make sense. Lelouch never was one to care much about a position of power. The question was rhetorical, and the room fell into silence again.

Said silence continued for a few minutes before Nunnally broke it, "Tomorrow, I will be heading my brothers grave, those who wish to mourn with me are welcome to join me."

A tear rolled down her cheek, "For now, I just pray Lelouch is happy wherever he is."

Meanwhile...

"This is awesome!" Lelouch shouted with joy as he jumped up into the air and smacked the odd, black ball onto the other side of the field that he and Lydia had turned the arena into. He hadn't had this much fun in ages!

"Yay! Hahaha!" Lydia laughed with equal cheerfulness as she leapt just in time to throw the ball back over the equally odd, black net.

The two were currently playing what Lelouch had lovingly dubbed, 'Extreme Shadowball.' The whole game had been brought into life after Kurozaku had left, as he had...matters to attend to, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean; not that Lelouch cared, after all it saved him the punishment for the lava bath they had given him.

The two surrogate siblings were actually supposed to train and improve upon their manipulation of shadow and darkness. While Lydia was already adept at that, Lelouch had yet to achieve anything regarding that skill.

After an hour though, he was able to make a small, black ball out of darkness, which sparked an idea in his head.

He had told Lydia to create a larger ball and a net out of shadow. The young girl had no idea what her brother was trying to do, but obliged and even helped him pulverize the arena floor to a fine sand-like dust. And after explaining to her what volleyball was, the girl was absolutely ecstatic about trying it out, and with that, the two began the game of extreme shadowball.

Lelouch noted that his sister was a quick learner, as after the first few minutes, she was already playing like a pro. Then again, considering they were half-demons, smacking a ball around was little more than child's play to them.

That was where the 'extreme' came into play. Lydia had enveloped the black ball with a layer of Youki, increasing its speed drastically while also making it harder to receive. That, in turn, prompted the two half-demons to pump Youki into their arms and legs in order to keep up with it.

Actually, one could hardly say that they were slacking off during their training. The whole game was rather good training, splitting one's attention between the fast, Youki enhanced ball and pumping their own Youki into their legs and arms, and even adding small bursts to smack the ball back.

Currently, they were at a draw, and both one point away from victory.

The smirk playing across Lydia's lips as she slammed the ball back didn't go unnoticed by Lelouch, and gave him every reason to be worried. His worries were proven correct as the ball speeded towards him much faster than before, practically burning with Youki.

The dark prince saw no other option and jumped up, charging as much of his Youki as he could into his arm, cocking it back for an energy enhanced punch that would ensure his victory.

He aimed for the ball, sent another burst of Youki into his arm and launched it forward...only for the ball to suddenly dive down and to the side.

"Damn it, Lydia!"

The girl had attached a small tendril of shadow to the ball and had changed its trajectory, causing it to crash into Lelouch's side of the field; the large amount of Youki it was enveloped in was just a distraction.

The dark prince fell forward, and as he was falling to the ground noticed that he still had large amounts of Youki in his arm. That Youki, now that it had nowhere to go, would rip his arm apart if it stayed there. So, seeing no other option, he rammed his fist into the ground as soon as he was close enough.

A veritable sandstorm followed the resulting explosion, and a large tremor rocked the arena.

As the following cloud of sand settled down, Lydia made her way to the middle of the arena, ecstatic about the fact that she had won.

"Damn," Lelouch sighed as he looked at his arm. His sleeve had been shredded and his arm was burned by the corosive nature of Youki. Still, the healing process was already underway, small slivers of steam rising from his arm as the burns slowly faded.

Then, a blue and black blur tackled him to the ground, which he quickly found out was Lydia as she hugged him and cheerfully exclaimed, "I won nii-chan! I won!"

Lelouch sighed defeatedly, but smiled nonetheless, "Yeah, though that last move was unfair." The girl paid no attention to his words and instead continued to hug him and exclaim her victory.

"Indeed, that last move was rather unfair, Lydia," Lelouch froze at that, and slowly turned to see Kurozaku standing there, observing the damage done to the arena with a satisfied smirk.

Lydia, however, seemed to be only more ecstatic at seeing her father figure, and quickly ran over to him, "Father, I won against Lelouch in extreme shadowball!"

The black-clad demon merely raised and eyebrow, "...Extreme shadowball?"

As the girl continued to explain the game to him, Lelouch just sweatdropped. She obviously had no idea that they would most likely receive a punishment for not actually training.

"As interesting as this...extreme shadowball sounds, we'll have to continue your training." Lelouch was surprised as he noticed that there wasn't any implicated threat or punishment following his sentence.

The demon lord seemed to sense that as he explained, "The reason I'm not punishing you is because there actually wasn't any way you'd be able to train shadow and darkness manipulation. I haven't given you key information for the training yet."

With that, he began to explain the intracacies of darkness.

"Now, darkness itself is very...corruptive, in nature. Should you not be able to fully control it, it will corrupt your mind and destroy you."

Even Lydia was listening carefully at this point, as Kurozaku didn't like being interrupted during his lessons.

"The trick is to bend it to your will, and to not let it even attempt to latch onto your mind. Once it does, it slowly corrupts you and turns you into a puppet. And as it is, not many demons possess an affinity for darkness."

That was new to Lelouch. The half-demon had thought that the ability to control darkness was rather common, seeing as even he could use it, "Why is that?"

The demon lord blinked, and explained, "Only my clan is able to manipulate darkness, and even then, it is rare for one of them to be able to use it. In the same way, other clans of demons are able to use fire or water, or even light. You two are very gifted as far as that goes. In fact, there is only one person besides us and outside of my clan who has an affinity for darkness."

"Who is that?" Lelouch inquired.

"Lady Moryo, keeper of the Realm of Shadows, and the only one whose mastery over darkness rivals my own."

Lelouch frowned in thought, "Lady Moryo?"

"Yes, she is the one person that has absolute mastery over darkness, as she is darkness itself; this whole realm belongs to her. We are on good terms though, and occasionally even spar."

"How strong is she, father?" Lydia asked, as this was also the first time she had ever heard of her.

A chuckle was her response, "Let's just say she is one of the only people to ever have witnessed me release more than eighty percent of my power."

Now that was something. Even at twenty percent, he could manage both him and Lydia with relative ease. The dark prince could only imagine how strong his lady Moryo was. Even then it was only a spar, but then again, god knew what a spar would be for those two.

"Anyway, let us continue on with the lesson. Now, as you know, you can use darkness to create solid objects, but that is not everything you can do with it. Darkness grants you the ability to create pocket dimensions here in the Realm of Shadows, as you always have a link to it. Those dimensions serve a variety of purposes, such as travelling, or even storage. Other than that, you can use it in conjunction with your Youki to create sentient beings, and even use its corruptive nature against enemies. One of the most useful techniques though, is teleportation. Lydia, would you demonstrate?"

"Sure, father!" The young girl obliged happily, and after a moment, sunk into the ground, or her shadow to be exact.

A moment later, she rose from the shadow behind Kurozaku, causing Lelouch to raise an eyebrow; he had seen them do that many times, but every time he inquired, Kurozaku simply said that he would learn it later on.

"As the name suggests, you can use it for teleportation, though it isn't exactly that. The way it works is that it transports you to a pocket dimension where time passes extremely slowly, and then ejects you at your intended destination, making it seem like you travelled a great distance almost instantaneously."

With that, the demon lord sunk into ground aswell, and instantly appeared next to a shadow a few feat away from them.

"Try it; imagine the destination that you want to get to and focus on the shadow."

Lelouch did as told, and searched for a suitable spot. In the end, he decided for Lydia's shadow, and concentrated on it. After a moment, he could feel himself sinking into his own shadow, and focused on not panicking, as the feeling was...weird, to say the least. It felt like using an elevator, but much faster. The weird thing was that it felt slow at the same time, but Lelouch just ignored it and kept his concentration. As he felt himself slowly rising back up, he opened his eyes and found himself behind his little sister, who immediately congratulated him on his success, "You did it, nii-chan! It was really easy, right?"

Surprisingly enough, it was actually pretty easy, considering the other excersises he had done.

"It was easy because of two factors. Firstly, you have a strong affinity for darkness, and secondly, you have a lot of willpower. The second is key in using darkness, as you have to impose your will upon it, and make it do your bidding, lest it corrupts you."

Lelouh made sure to keep that in mind; the last thing he wanted to be was a puppet controlled by darkness.

"For now, focus on using the shadows for teleportation, until you can do it with just a thought."

Another grin spread across his hidden features, "Now then...tell me more about this extreme shadowball."

A huge grin split Lydia's face as she joyfully explained the game to him once again, while Lelouch just shook his head with a chuckle and worked on building up a net from the shadows.

Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

(1) Umbrella term for all schools of Japanese Swordsmanship.

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated and help a lot!

Until the next chapter!