Hey everyone, I wanted to start Treachery off as a new chapter so this one only contains the last two Malebolges of Fraud. No special enemies in this one, sadly.
Chapter 16: Breaking the Mask
"Get up, Lelouch." Diethard commanded. He knew Lelouch was depressed at how his own mother told him to die, but he can't let him stop or Lucifer will achieve his goals, whatever they are and Lelouch will completely lose C.C. "Remember your objective Lelouch. Since when did a family member stop you from your goals?"
"Never." Lelouch said and with that one word, he got up, steeling is soul again for his eventual confrontation against his mother.
"That's what I thought." Diethard said with a smile. "Now, to the explanation. This here is the ninth circle, the Sowers of Discord. The souls here promote fighting, schisms, discord, and scandals. There punishment is receiving gashes and cuts from a giant, sword swinging, demon. The severity of the gashes mirrors the chaos the soul caused in life. Some have small gashes, maybe a few cut fingers and toes while others are decapitated, cut in half, this is usually reserved for the causers of schisms, or completely disemboweled. Regardless of injury, all most walk the circumference of the pocket. Bertran de Born suffers here, holding his head like a lantern."
"Wonder how much I would get cut up, given I caused so much chaos?" Lelouch jokingly asked.
"Hmm…" Diethard pretended to think it over, getting it's a joke. "I'm guessing to the point that other souls will have to carry you."
Lelouch snickered. "Carried around like royalty, huh? Fitting given I caused the most chaos during my rein as emperor."
"Yes, I was quite shocked at how you went about your form of 'democracy.'" Diethard said, remembering how the United Federation of Nations wouldn't accept Britannia into being a part of them unless Lelouch gave up roughly a third of Britannia. In response, Lelouch took them all hostage. If that won't cause uproar, than Diethard doesn't know what will.
"Ok, enough reminiscing." Diethard said before opening the doors, letting Lelouch to walk through.
Lelouch walked through the doors and came to the center of the arena. Strangely, Lelouch didn't hear his mother's comments like he usually does when he steps to the center of the arena. Some amount of time had passed, Lelouch became worried and slightly annoyed. "Mother?" Lelouch asked in a worried tone.
"Huh?" Lelouch heard his mother's voice and could somehow tell that she had been crying. "Oh, sorry." Marianne then coughed and began to speak in a more serious tone. "Welcome to the Malebolge of the Sowers of Discord, another place that wonderfully matches you given your actions." After that, five Damned Crusaders and one Throne Demon appeared.
"I take it you decided to give up on the theme based enemies then?" Lelouch asked, feeling that it'll be best if he'll press the reason for his mother's crying during their sure-to-happen confrontation.
"Kind of, but everyone here can still chop you into tiny bits." Marianne said with a teasing tone before the Damned Crusaders leapt at Lelouch.
Lelouch pulled out his scythe and swatted them away, knocking one off the edge. Lelouch looked at the Throne Demon but, without even looking, sliced to his left, knocking a Crusader back, breaking the shield in the process. Lelouch then turned and ran towards two of the Crusaders that were standing next to each other and blasted them both with a cross attack, slightly cracking their shields. Lelouch proceed to hit them mercilessly, causing the inevitable destruction of their shields. Lelouch then zoomed in, catching the two, shieldless Crusaders off guard before he grabbed one and threw it behind him…and into the blast of a ranged attack of the Throne Demon. The sacrificed Crusader fell to ashes as Lelouch then sliced the other Crusader in half.
The Throne Demon, angry over how Lelouch made it attack an ally, charged him, only for Lelouch to turn around and hit the demon with a cross attack he was charging since he through the Crusader into the blast. The Throne Demon staggered back, its rushing attack stopped, but was overall unharmed. However, Lelouch planned to change that. Lelouch proceeded to bombard the demon with attacks, but his scythe was mostly blocked by the Throne Demon's shield, but Lelouch also threw in some cross attacks, all of them hitting. Eventually, the Throne Demon lowered its guard for a second and in that second, Lelouch made a pivot motion and stabbed his scythe into the demon at the same time, pulling the demon with him in his turn. Lelouch threw the latched demon at the last Crusader who was preparing to attack Lelouch from behind. They crashed into each other and came awfully close to the ledge. Lelouch sighed, thinking that he hoped that they'd fall from the throwing of the Throne Demon, fired a cross attack at them, causing them to move even closer to the ledge. Lelouch kept on hitting them with cross bolts, but somewhat slowly, letting them know that their demise was coming, until both of them fell off the edge, making Lelouch smirk at where they once were.
Lelouch looked to his left and saw the drawbridge come down. 'One more pocket and I'll have to face mother.' Lelouch thought as he pulled the lever, causing something to snap and the elevator go plummeting down. Lelouch, unfazed because of his anticipation of such an act, jumped onto the next floor perfectly as the elevator crashed down. "Can't fool me twice mother." Lelouch sighed as he walked to Diethard who was standing next to the final door, that had the Roman X above.
"Are you ready Lelouch?" Diethard asked, receiving a nod in response. "This is the tenth and final Malebolge, the Falsifiers. Those who tried to alter things with lies, alchemy, or tried to pass fake things off as real things reside here. This pocket possesses four subdivisions, one for alchemists, one for liars, one for counterfeiters, and one for imposters."
"I'd probably be an imposter, pretending to be a Lamperouge, pretending to be Cornelia using my geass when I was using Guilford, and perhaps Zero."
"Guess it's all in how you view it. Anyway, the punishment for each of them is the same, but varies in severity. All suffer from a horrible, consumptive, disease; Ranging from rashes, to dropsy, to consumption."
"Consumption is a disease?"
"Ah, no. Consumption is just an old term used in medieval Europe meaning tuberculosis in the lungs."
"Makes sense." Lelouch said before looking at the doors and took a deep breath and opened the doors. Lelouch waited a bit to see if his mother was about to say anything, but nothing was heard from his mother as three Arch-Demons surrounded Lelouch.
"Not in the mood." Lelouch said as the three Arch-Demons closed in on him. Lelouch pulled out a Suicide Fruit and slammed it on the ground, making the Arch-Demons tear off their wings and jump off the ledge.
Lelouch saw the drawbridge come down and, instead of an elevator platform, saw a path leading to an open view, most likely a view of the ninth circle. Lelouch started to walk forward when he saw a familiar figure in an orange dress wearing her serious mask. "Mother." Lelouch said calmly, trying not to show any emotion, as he walked forward.
"So, you finally made it here, to the final Malebolge. What were you trying so hard for? To see me? To kill or absolve me? To-" Marianne tried to rant on, but Lelouch interrupted.
"I came to save C.C." Lelouch stated bluntly.
"Of course, it's always about C.C., isn't it? You stopped Charles' first attempt at completing our master plan just because you wanted C.C. to die smiling. You stopped the second attempt because you wanted to see the future. Though it sounded like you wanted it for Nunnaly, but C.C. was probably a reason too. You banished your own parents just for some girl! Do you know how I felt from that?! We wanted what was best for you!"
"Did you ever consider how I would feel?!" Lelouch snapped. "You wanted what was best, but you never even acted like a true mother! All you did was simply smile at us and give us a bit of morale support. It was always Clovis, Cornelia, or Euphemia that was taking care of me and Nunnaly. I wanted keep seeing you as a caring mother, though, but all you cared about was your stupid plan to kill God!"
"We did it all for you!" Marianne protested.
"I never asked for it! Despite all its ups and downs, I was quite pleased with it. I never asked you to slay God and I won't ever! So stop your selfish thinking!"
Marianne looked like she got punched in the stomach and verbally, she did. The mask on her face fell off, showing burn marks and scratches, completely disfiguring her face, as she dropped to her knees. "Did you truly desire the future so much that you're willing to live through all the evil it has to throw at you?"
"Yes, and I achieved my goal. I destroyed the world, and created it anew." Lelouch said proudly.
"Gees…" Marianne said as she got up. "…guess my little Lelouch has grown up and I was too fixed on the past to see it."
"Glad you understand, Mom." Lelouch said as he shined his cross on her, causing her face to be restored and all the masks to fall of her and shatter.
"Go, go and save C.C. I still have issues over how much older she is, but she's probably the only person that can kick you into shape."
"If you haven't noticed, I'm almost as strong as demons." Lelouch smirked.
"True, but I still expect grandkids and I know you died a virgin."
"Gees, you don't have to act so motherly now."
Marianne chuckled. "Just catching up on the years I haven't." Marianne said as she vanished into light.
Lelouch sighed and looked around, he saw snow, ice, and…towers? Lelouch looked to his left and saw a path leading down to the frozen circle with Diethard at the start of the path.
"This the final circle?" Lelouch asked.
"Indeed, your journey is coming to an end. Here is the ninth circle of Hell. The lowest, blackest, and farthest from Heaven. The circle that contains Lucifer, the circle of traitors: Treachery.
And with that, we begin the final stretch! I'll try my best to make Treachery two chapters, but I'm quite excited for the final confrontation against Lucifer. Also, after this story is done, I plan to be doing a different story while preparing myself for Lelouch's journey through Purgatory. It will be a Persona 3 x Bleach crossover. I intended to do a Code Geass x Bleach one, but draconichero21 beat me to the punch by writing Soul Chess. Strangely, I also thought of calling mine Soul Chess. Regardless, his story is really good and I recommend it 100%. Stay tuned for my new story and the protagonist will be Minato Arisato (that's the name the author of the Persona 3 manga gives to the MC because you get to choose the MC's name). Also, Minato will get a zanpacto that isn't but is a persona. Figure out the meaning on your own cause that's all I'm saying on the matter till I get to it in the story.