Several preparations needed to be made. Kallen and Ana worked together to source the ingredients Lelouch needed. Running through the details of the ritual so everyone understood what would happen and what had the potential to go wrong. And most importantly...

"Is this wise, young master?" Rudolf asked.

It took effort to not give a biting response to that. From him of all people. "Rudolf, the only thing I need from you is to see to my father's wellbeing. That means right now, you need to make sure Father doesn't come to this room until we're finished."

"I see," the head of the household staff acknowledged despondently. "I... Yes. Then, if I may make one request, young master. Whatever you have planned, see to your own wellbeing also. Lord Bael could not bear to lose you as well." With a bow, the butler turned and walked away.

Pushing away the mixed feelings of dealing with that man, Lelouch returned from the hallway to inside Misla's private room. The room in which she had stayed for near half a decade. Inside, all of his and Sairaorg's peerage were either waiting or working. Ana working to mix a concoction of the ingredients she and Kallen had acquired. "I'm surprised you two managed to gather them so quickly."

"It was a joint effort," Ana admitted with a smile. "Though Kallen managed to find the most difficult ingredient."

"Got lucky, I guess," The redhead answered vaguely. "So... What's all this for? You've been cagey about it since you said you figured it out."

"There's a reason for that. Once I realised the political implications of the sleeping sickness, everything else fell into place. Not just the why, but the how. Ana, you remember what Hiroko's coven were doing?"

"Cursing their classmates for profit," the former princess answered absently, not noticing or caring as Hiroko flinched at the reminder.

"That reminds me, Hiroko," he tossed a container of viscous liquid at the witch, then dropped a book on the floor. "That symbol painted in that substance. No mistakes."

She straightened so stiffly and suddenly it was like she had been struck by lightning. "Of course, Master!" Within a span of instants she was kneeling on the floor, painstakingly imitating the symbol as exactly as she could.

"Cursing her classmates, right," Lelouch continued. "It was easy for them even though most of them had minimal talent. As a general rule, most humans don't have innate resistance to magic, thus can be cursed by the most inexperienced neophyte so long as they follow the instructions properly. And someone like Hiroko who has some talent? They had no chance. A lack of resistance versus someone talented might as well be as wide a gap as a high class devil to a god."

Neither Kallen nor Sairaorg understood the implication. But Anastasia did. "You don't mean–?"

"Hypnos is a deceptively powerful god," Lelouch confirmed.

"Lelouch, you said his name!"

"Of course I did. I want him to look this way. That's part of what this ritual is for." Gods weren't entirely omniscient of course. But saying, or invoking, their name could be a very good way to get their attention. Prayer wasn't meaningless, after all. And the doctrine of it being a sin to take a certain someone's name in vain had a good reason behind it.

"As I was saying. He's deceptively powerful. Hades is stronger. But if a creature is alive? It needs to sleep sometime. The moment their conscious mind slips away, they enter Hypnos' realm directly. Because of that, he doesn't even need to be present to reach someone. And a curse centred around his own domain... Child's play." He looked toward the sleeping form of his mother, quiet and still save for her breathing. "All mother had to do was fall asleep to also fall into his clutches, the same as every other devil to succumb to 'sleeping sickness'."

Sara's fists clenched and unclenched, frustration leaking from her as she learned the fate of her friend wasn't just poor luck, but deliberate harm done to her. "It sounds obvious. Until you remember how weird it is for a god to just decide to randomly start messing with devils. Especially Hypnos. A god of sleep. They tend to be the lazy type. Seems like this'd be too much effort." Her jaw clenched as she looked from her old King to her new King. "You say he did this. Why? What did Misla do?"

"He didn't do it on his own. Probably not even of his own volition. Hades has held a grudge for thousands of years. The Abrahamic faiths took over most of the world, devils and fallen took over most of the underworld. It's not a secret that Hades specifically hates us. And right around the 4th century BCE, in the period when the Abrahamic faiths began to really take root, as devils carved more of a place for ourselves in the underworld, a mysterious sickness began to crop up. First a few cases. Then when the Hellenic and Roman faiths saw their slow decline..."

"The cases of sleeping sickness increased," Kuisha finished.

"Not by much. From a half dozen cases a century to maybe two dozen at the height of the three factions war. I doubt it's because Hypnos couldn't do more. I don't know whether it's Hypnos showing restraint on his own, or Hades showing caution of making the curse too big a problem for devils to ignore. At best, it's petty vengeance. Even if some of those targeted held importance to devil society, their removal wasn't enough to keep us from rising to prominence in the underworld."

The blonde Rook frowned, glancing at Misla again. "Or maybe that's because of how devils work. The most important are also the strongest. Misla never cared about being strong."

"That's also possible," Lelouch agreed. "The curse is subtle, and it only stays subtle if subtlety can be the focus. If the devil targeted was strong enough, Hypnos would need to use more power to put them to sleep. Maybe even constant power to keep them asleep. Gods and mortals exist on different levels so their actions can be above our notice. But the more effort they exude, the more obvious their interference is."

"So that's why I couldn't see it and neither could Anyastasia," Kuroka concluded with a thoughtful frown. "It wasn't anything affecting her life force. A curse on her mind to keep it from waking. And Anya's... Whatever it is, it's nyo more able to see divine interference than the rest of us. Everything gets weird when it comes to gods."

Kallen sighed in frustration. A lot of the metaphysical jargon taking effort to parse, let alone comprehend. But none of it answered the question she had asked. "That's all well and good. But why this, whatever it is? You know the cause. Why not tell the Satans? You still have that meeting coming up."

Her King looked away, his breathing carefully measured. "Assuming they haven't figured this out already." It was a damning conclusion, one he had little evidence for beyond them not having resolved the issue already. But given what one of the Satans was famous for... "Less than half the time the sickness takes less than a decade and the devil wakes up. Then there are the ones who take longer. But the longer it takes, the lower the survival rate drops. Not to mention the number who watch the years pass by and give up. There have been twelve cases in the past century. Four deaths. Compared to a war..." This time as his words trailed off, it wasn't as a prompt for someone to conclude the sentence. They all knew how that sentence ended.

The near silence dragged on, only filled by Hiroko's continued work. Finally broken again by the Bael heir himself. "I understand it. That doesn't mean I accept it. So one way or another, this ends today." The ritual itself was an invention of Lovecraft, surprisingly. Or maybe a reinvention of something far older. The man had written many tales of things beyond human understanding and some were more based in truth than others. In this case, a ritual, a concoction involving special lotus herbs, they would allow anyone to seek audience with the somnal god in his own domain. "I'm going to speak with Hypnos. If it goes poorly, or if he decides to do something drastic, I've made arrangements that will reveal the truth, regardless of what he or the Satans want."

Sairaorg had been silent until this point, when he finally decided this was the only thing he needed to say. "I'm coming with you."

Lelouch's answer was firm, final and entirely uncompromising. "No. You're not."

"Then I am." Only for his other Rook to join in.

"No, you're-" As his head turned to look at her, he could see the look in her eyes. More specifically, the light in her eyes. The light that wouldn't stop haunting him. "Look, I'm not going into a fight here. You think I'm going to pick a fight with the god of sleep while asleep? That would be asinine. I wouldn't suggest a devil below the Satans even attempt such a thing."

"Then why does it have to be you, huh?" Sairaorg challenged. "If all it takes is sending a message then anyone could–"

"Him going is the message," Kallen answered before Lelouch could. She looked at the young man in question who seemed surprised at her answer. "I'm right, aren't I? If you go, then that sends a different message than sending a messenger. It's putting yourself on the line to make a point. That you aren't afraid of them and will do what you have to for the sake of making this all stop."

"... Yes, that's certainly part of it."

But that explanation held no water with his younger brother. "I don't care. I'm coming."

"Sai, you of all people can't!"

"Why the hell not?!" the younger Bael demanded. "Is this that bullshit like at Camelot again?! Keeping me out of dangerous fights until you vet them?! I joined your peerage so we could stay together!"

Frustrated, Lelouch had only one answer. "Sai, you're my biggest weakness!"

The younger brother's eyes bulged as he heard words he never wanted to hear. Fury filled him. A fury filled with a burning frustration that he had worried he would never overcome. And here was Lelouch confirming that for him. "You–!" That rage became a closed fist swung at his brother's face, striking clean and launching him into the wall. The surface cratered from the impact, revealing the sturdy, dark material beneath the tasteful decor.

Lelouch dropped, feeling the pain both physical and emotional of his younger brother's rage. Slowly, he picked himself up, no one else in the room willing to intervene in a clearly personal family disagreement.

"Don't you ever say that!"

"You're my brother, Sai," Lelouch spoke, spitting out a wad of blood on the floor. "If you go in there with me, they can hold you hostage and all of this is for nothing." If that happened, there wouldn't be anything he could do. He would cave, or also possible, try something foolish he held no illusions would work on a god. One way or another it would end badly.

And although all of that remained true, it couldn't forego the reason for this conflict. "I know," Sairaorg said. "About Father. And Zekram. Why you offered me a place in your peerage."

Lelouch's eyes widened. "Sai–!"

"Father told me. Between sobbing drunken apologies and pleas for forgiveness." He shook his head, impotent anger warring inside him. "You made that choice for my sake, and I promised myself I'd never be your weakness again."

"Sai..." His call fell on deaf ears as his brother left the room.

Suddenly, Lelouch felt paralysed. He wanted to go after Sairaorg, to say... He didn't know what he could say. He didn't know if there was a way to make this better. But even if there was, there was no time. He had made the preparations. This was going to happen now, or it wasn't. It was a poor idea to tweak the nose of a god and then leave them hanging.

He turned to Kuroka as Kuisha was already leaving the room. "Please tell him I'm going ahead. He... He should be here when she wakes up."

"I will."

He watched the older nekoshou leave, shaking his head in an attempt to banish his frustrations of a problem he couldn't solve. "Ana, is it ready?"

"Yes." She handed him a small vial filled with steaming liquid.

"Check over the circle for me."

"I did it exactly as you said, Master–!" Hiroko tried to promise.

"I don't care. Ana, check it." He held the vial up to his eye as his Bishop knelt, checking the ritual circle and comparing it to the book. The liquid was something that looked entirely mundane. However, the vial was cool and soothing to the touch despite how the fluid it contained was clearly recently boiled. If it could be said to have a scent, it smelled like sleep.

"It's perfect, Lelouch, "Ana confirmed for him, drying it to the floor instantly via magic.

"Good."

He felt a touch of trepidation as he moved within the circle, lowering himself to a sitting position. "Well... I suppose the appropriate word for this would be... Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Master Lelouch," Ana bid him with a smile.

"Sweet dreams," Kallen added with an uncomfortable smirk.

He tipped the vial back, swallowed, moved to lay down...

Only for sleep to claim him before he even managed it.

-(-)-

"Oof. That's one hell of a shiner! Family drama, huh? I know how that is."

Lelouch awoke or perhaps did precisely the opposite to the sound of a high-pitched, cheery voice that held an otherworldly warble. His eyes opened as he sat up. Despite his naturally drowsy state after forcefully sending himself into sleep, he forced himself to be at full awareness as quickly as possible.

An act not helped by his environs. It was a sight he hadn't experienced in decades. A sight as incomprehensible as it was the first time only worse for the sheer malleability of it in what was undeniably a world of dreams. For all that the golden planet, the many-faced spire and all of the other strange visions he had seen in C's World were strange, they were fixed. They were real. And so as he watched these same symbols warp and swim in his sight, he knew they weren't real. Just an image his mind had called up for what he expected to see in a world of dreams.

"Gotta tell ya, your dreams are weirder than most!" the cheerful voice continued, dragging Lelouch's attention to the source. The reason he was here. Garbed in red and gold, with a red, furred cloak, he looked almost but not quite human. The expression on the blue-grey skin of his face was full of a lackadaisical merriment. Like everything was going fine for him and he didn't need to expend the slightest effort for any reason. Peaceful, almost. And glad to be that way.

"Lord Hypnos."

"Ooh, 'Lord'!" the god of sleep cooed at the title. "Don't get called that often anymore! Even weirder 'cos, you know... You're probably pret-ty ticked off at me right now, huh?"

Lelouch rose from the... Nothing he had been resting on to stand opposite the god. The Bael heir idly noted that he was taller, not that it meant anything whatsoever. Greater height was meaningless when Hypnos was innately of greater stature. "That is a question, isn't it?" he asked, making it sound like it was an idle wondering when it was anything but. "When harm is done to someone you love, should you blame the implement of that harm or the one who wielded it? After all, we both know that in this you're just a tool of Hades."

"Ahahaha," the laughter could be described as nervous. "Well, hurtful or not, that's sure an enlightened perspective you're advocating!" The smile dropped just a little, almost becoming a wince. "Even if you don't really feel it."

Lelouch hummed. "We are in my subconscious, I suppose." The imitation C's World said as much. "It stands to reason you'd be able to read me all the better in here."

"Kinda! I'm the god of sleep, but where we are right now? I share this place with my boy Morpheus nowadays but the realm of sleepers is still my domain."

It was. Therein lay the danger. Not just for himself, but for the many secrets he held. He had to stay focused. Thankfully he had experience in this area thanks to Mao.

"Ooh, who's that?" Hypnos suddenly asked, drawing the devil's attention to a certain headphone-wearing apparition that appeared behind him.

Right. Focus. His mother. That was why he was here. "You know why I'm here. Why I went so far to get an audience directly. If you can more or less read my feelings, then I suggest we be honest with each other."

"Aces!" the god of sleep agreed quickly, pulling out a roll of parchment to begin reading from it. Or perhaps paraphrasing it. "So Lord Hades is a magnanimous god, so he has some terms for the little bat– Err, that is, for the young and oh so reasonable heir to the Bael to let bygones be bygones! First, he'll let you have your dear mama back. And in turn, we just let this whole thing slide! No muss, no fuss, no big war that would wipe out the entirety of your species!" He looked up from the parchment, rolling it up like he was drawing blinds. "Pretty good deal, right?"

No. It wasn't. "Hades is that enamoured with this petty grudge he'd risk open war? Let's draw some lines in the sand here." Appropriately enough, suddenly C's World was situated on a beach, allowing the Bael to quite literally draw a line in the sand. "So we know where everyone would stand. The other gods of the underworld, they might stand with Hades. Maybe." Alongside the symbol of Hades and the Greek chthonic gods appeared symbols for others. The Shinto, Norse, Egyptian.

"Heheh, so, you call me Lord but not Hade– Lord Hades! Heheh! Heh..." A bead of nervous sweat rolled down the god's forehead.

Lelouch inclined his head. It was a reasonable point. Maybe he felt that bit about appropriately assigned blame more than he let on. "The Olympians wouldn't stand with him. They'd probably stay off to the side to see what happens, maybe make life harder for Hades if they think it'd get him to back down." Another symbol, Zeus', just for shorthand, off to the side of the conflict. Visually sitting on the fence. "Then on this side... Every devil alive." The other, previously empty side of the line filled with the emblem of every single surviving pillar house, every extra house, even those for the Old Satans and a pair of bat wings to represent the common devils. "Every single one. New Satan, Great King, Old Satan." He stared into the sleepy eyes of Hypnos, making sure he understood. "Two and a half thousand years of lost loved ones at the highest levels of devil society and all of that ill will suddenly gets direct not just at 'Lord' Hades, but at you, Lord Hypnos. You said it yourself. Directing the fury at the wielder before the weapon is wiser, but devils can be far from wise sometimes."

The dopey smile on the god's face grew just a fraction tighter. More forced. "You like to drive a hard bargain!"

"Let me be perfectly clear, Lord Hypnos. This so-called sickness ends today, in its entirety, or your patron goes to war with the entirety of devil society. I've made preparations. If this goes poorly, everyone will soon know the truth, and the Satans won't be able to stop their people baying for your blood." More beads of sweat began to trickle down Hypnos' face. "If I wasn't willing to carry out that promise, we both know I wouldn't be here. So the question becomes, just how much does Lord Hades value his vendetta over his faction's very existence?"

Brinkmanship. Pure and simple. But the key to brinkmanship was the fundamental willingness, or the appearance of willingness, to follow through. It was essentially a word for a game of chicken that had stakes of at minimum thousands of people. To succeed, one side had to either have the utmost faith that the other side would blink, or be willing to accept the consequences even if they didn't. That was the only way to guarantee victory.

And in this... Lelouch was all in on the latter, and at least confident in the former. The reason Hades was furious at devils, at the three factions in general, was for how inconsequential it made him. As far as he was concerned, the underworld was his and devils were just infesting it. He knew it wasn't the truth, but the truth was even worse. The truth was unacceptable. Being irrelevant was unacceptable. And so, even if Hades won in a conflict with devils and that was a big 'if', he would only become less relevant. He would only diminish his faction. He would only diminish his own importance.

The only way Hades would better his position would be if he could achieve an undeniable victory. And if he could do that, he wouldn't have engaged in petty bullshit for twenty-four hundred years.

"Hmmmm?" A questioning hum. "Hmmmmm." A thoughtful hum. "Yeak, okay!" With a sudden flicking movement, a silver key was sent spinning from his hand in his petitioner's direction. And as the key sailed through the air, so too did Lelouch and Hypnos sail through the ethereal space, away from the image from Lelouch's memories, to... A bed. "Go get her, champ! I'll just go rouse the others!"

That was... Suspiciously easy. Lelouch was certain this was the ideal course for both parties, but with Hades existing on pure spite these days... "You know I've taken precautions. If you go back on your word–" Lelouch warned.

"I know! Be seeing you!" With a cheerful wave and a smile, the stone-pallored god blurred into non-existence, leaving the young devil alone, holding a key, standing beside a very familiar bed. Enormous. Fit for several people to sleep side by side. It was the bed the Lord and Lady Bael had slept in together for as far back as the heir's memory went. Until by necessity Misla Bael slept on her own, her needs attended to by her peerage.

Walking toward it, Lelouch rested his hand on the surface of the bedding, pressed down into the mattress. And like it was held perfectly precariously until that one bit of disturbance, the entire thing seemed to collapse in on itself. Not just the bedding, but the frame contracting inward. Until the bed was no longer a bed, but a casket. The inside a yawning pit.

He had come this far. It was a trick or it wasn't. And the young devil had full faith that trickery would be unnecessary. Hands on the edge, he swung his legs over to drop into the pit, ready to extend his wings if necessary.

It wasn't. As he fell, down into the darkness, the pitch black was invaded by a dull light. A dim hue that served to illuminate his surroundings just enough. The space was not an empty, yawning chasm. It was a chute formed out of bedding. Comforting sheets, blankets and pillows. The walls became a gentle curve that let Lelouch experience their soft embrace. A gentle pull insisting that it was better here. It was safer here. Why would he want to be anywhere else when he could rest in comfort? The feeling was enough that he wanted to atomise it all out of spite.

The incline slowly evened out until he could stand. Could walk under his own power. He extricated himself from the comforting embrace, dragging his feet forward one step at a time. Down there at the bottom, it was nothing but soothing. The dim light, the soft scent of clean fabrics and the smooth softness of silk and finely spun cotton. It begged him to stop. To rest. He had done enough.

He hadn't. It was so close. She was so close. Those wasted years for Zekram, the research, the hardship, he had fought so hard for this. He couldn't stop now, not so close to the end. She was so close! "Mother?" He called out, but received no response. He searched for her, wading through comfort, dreading the possibility it had been a trick all along. The thought hadn't occurred to him. But what if the trick wasn't out of necessity but cruelty? Just so Hades might watch the one who dared challenge him grope blindly in the dark for something that would forever be held out of reach.

He almost began to believe it, until he saw an odd shape swaddled in blankets. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to call out again. He walked slowly toward the shape, peeled away the blanket.

Skin.

"Mother!" In her sleepwear. Something he would have been embarrassed by were it not for the circumstances. There lay Misla Bael. Asleep even here. "Mother, can you hear me?"

"Mmh," she grunted in her sleep, her smile shifting to a reproachful frown. "Who–?" Slowly, something Lelouch had been begging for for half a decade happened. Misla Bael opened her eyes. Once again he saw his same amethyst eyes reflected in hers. "Oh," she uttered in sleepy surprise as she smiled. "I must be dreaming again. Little Lelouch all grown up. Hope he won't look like this, though. No meat on those bones!"

"Ha," it was a weak, choked laugh as tears ran down Lelouch's face. "I suppose not, but I like how I look."

"No, no, My boys need to be hunks!" she denied again with a laugh.

"Then maybe you'll like Sairaorg better."

His mother looked around, as if expecting a shadow of her younger son to appear at the mention of his name. But nothing of the sort happened. "What? I don't...?"

Lelouch produced the key he had been gripping tightly in his fist, carefully inserting it into the padlock fastening a collar around her neck. With a click, the lock opened, the padlock and collar both disappearing into ethereal nothing. "Mother."

"L-Lelouch, I... I don't understand."

He forcefully pulled her into a hug, making no further efforts to hold back his tears. "You've been asleep for a long time, Mother," he sobbed. "It's time to wake up."

Misla Bael's eyes opened to a room that was unfamiliar. A room full of mostly unfamiliar faces that somehow all seemed happy to see her. "Um–"

"Mother!" One of those unfamiliar faces called out as he pulled her up into a sitting position, wrapping her in a hug. Holding her tight to his muscular form. "It worked!"

"Mother?" A half-remembered memory from a barely ended dream spoke to her. Told her what she in her heart already knew. Already feared. "Sairaorg?"

"It's me, Mother!" he declared, choking back tears. "You've been asleep for so long!"

That was enough to confirm it for her. Just as much as her other son rising from… Laying on the floor to join them on the bed. The sleeping sickness. She… She missed it all. She missed watching her boys grow up! And with that realisation she began crying too. All the harder when her elder son simply said, "Good morning, Mother." He looked to one of the others in the room. "Tell Rudolf. Get Father."

"H-How long…?" she dared to ask as the red haired girl left the room.

"Four years," Lelouch answered.

She didn't know whether to be relieved by that or not. "Four years. That's… Less than it could have been." It was cold comfort. "So you're eighteen now, Lelouch and you're–"

"Sixteen," Sairaorg answered. "I'm, I'm sixteen now."

"You've both grown up so big and strong! Except you, Lelouch! You need some meat on those bones!"

He smiled. "So I've heard."

The door flew open, a staggering, stumbling Herodotus Bael passing through it. His perfectly manicured appearance had seemingly fallen to the wayside in the intervening years. He stared at her like she were a ghost as he stumbled toward her, finally falling to his knees beside her bed. "Misla…" His breath stank of booze but she didn't care. She pulled him into a hug regardless. "I… I'm so sorry I worked late that night."

That was the first thing he said to her? But then, she realised, he had probably wanted to say that for a long, long time. "That's alright, dear. We'll have other nights."

"Khh, yes!" he confirmed, trying desperately to keep his feelings in check and failing miserably. "A million nights and more."

No matter what it had taken to make it happen, it was worth it. That single moment of unrestrained, tear-filled joy between the four of them declared it loudly and clearly to anyone who cared to listen. The house of Bael had been reunited.

-(-)-

A/N: This chapter seen early by my supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! Fear the P! Love the P!