Code Geass: Opus of the Trinity

Prologue

Lelouch was dead. He knew this all too well. He had just been fully impaled by a blade that was nearly a meter and a half long. Knowing this, he wondered how he wound up in his current situation.

Lelouch had awoken to a world of black and red. The ground was a black, flat, and featureless expanse, while the sky was nothing but a blood red dome, both seeming to go on forever. The late Emperor was still in his blood-soaked robes, and while his wound remained, it neither caused him pain nor did it bleed. In fact, there was probly no blood left to come out.

His heart was no longer beating, and yet, he was not in C's world.

The Demon Emperor heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to see two familiar looking figures. The reason for the familiarity was unmistakable. They looked almost exactly like Zero.

These shadows were different however. They were more like silhouettes than people. However, There were other differences aside from their two dimensional appearance. The one on his left had three prongs on its mask instead of five, and three glowing red markings where the circle would be, the center of which being slightly higher than the others and shaped like a sideways eye. The figure on his right had a four pronged mask with four markings placed as if they were two sets of eyes, one placed on top of the other.

"This is getting old. It's time you accept your fate." a man's voice spoke irritated tone.

Lelouch didn't know how, but he seemed to know that the voice belonged to the figure on his right, despite the fact that the words somehow felt as if they had come from inside his head. The shadow's voice had other strange qualities as well. While the tone was harsh, he found the voice itself rather pleasant. The strangest part however, was that the voice was familiar.

"Who are you?! Where am I?!" Lelouch demanded, still pondering the meaning of the strange entity's own words.

The enigmatic being seemed to become more impatient.

"Quit joking around! You've been at this for millennia! I've sent you into the Collective 1328 times and you still haven't been able to stay merged after death. Its time you realized your limitations." He shouted in with annoyance.

The other shadow then decided to join the already confusing and one-sided conversation. "He's right. As much as I love to watch chaos erupt between you and the humans, the insanity of repetition is something not even I can take amusement in."

Unlike the first voice, this one was almost torturous to hear, although for what reason, the dead man did not know. Even so, regardless of the difference, this voice too, was somehow familiar.

It was at this point that the markings on the shadows' masks seemed to twitch in annoyance, bringing Lelouch to a disturbing realization.

The 'masks' were in fact, their actual faces, the 'markings' were eyes, and the 'prongs' were horns.

Lelouch was starting to get an idea of his situation. Nevertheless he stammered.

"W-what are you?"

The so-called Demon Emperor began to be filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. It was as if seeing these entities as they really were had somehow triggered a deeply buried memory.

Whatever these beings were, they were something malevolent.

As Lelouch's voice faltered, the first of the two seemed to see something the other didn't. It walked up to the frightened young man and inspected him.

"This is… Interesting." the shadow said, eyeing dead man closely. "It seems you have retained your human identity even after death. I've never seen such a thing before."

"Really?" his three-eyed counterpart mused. "This should be interesting."

Lelouch found the second shadow's tone extremely disturbing. Whatever it was thinking, he did not want to know.

The four-eyed entity turned to face the dead man once more. "You have no idea what's going on do you?"

The former monarch simply shook his head.

"As I suspected." the shadow murmured. "My name is Eternum, The Grudge, beside me is my brother Asura, Madness, and this little slice of hell you find yourself in is the Pit. We live here. Make yourself at home. You're most likely going to be here a while."

Lelouch simply stood and stared.

Eternum thought about his 'welcome' for a moment. "Perhaps I didn't explain that all too well." He admitted. "We are sentient manifestations of negative emotion and personality traits, or demons, if you prefer. As you've probably figured out, we dwell outside the jurisdiction of humanity's Collective Unconscious. When I said this place was our private section of Hell, I meant it both literally and figuratively."

Having only confirmed his suspicions, Lelouch could not doubt the demon's claims. However, from the shadow's way of speaking alone, he could tell that Eternum was insane, and if the name and title weren't enough, he had a strong feeling that Asura was much more so.

As the four-eyed devil was about to turn away, he seemed to remember something. "Just in case you get excited about having a couple of Hellspawn for roommates, there's nothing to do here but go pick fights with other demons or go to the mortal world and mess around with the locals, so there's no point in hoping for any demonic escapades or whatever."

The deceased monarch felt a slight amount of hope grow inside him as he heard the words 'go to the mortal world'.

"If you can get to the mortal world from here, is there a chance of me getting out of this place and going home?" Lelouch asked.

"There's no escape for a human." Asura blurted out with a touch of mocking humor in his voice.

Eternum glared at his smaller sibling, causing him to hold his hands up as if to feign innocence.

"I'm afraid my annoying little brother is right." The larger demon said, glaring at his smaller sibling, who held his hands up to feign innocence.

"You'd have to be a full-fledged demon to do that." he continued "And even then, unless you were extraordinarily powerful, you'd only be able to possess an unconscious person."

Lelouch's hope disappeared almost completely.

"I guess this is my punishment." the dead man thought

Then he remembered how Eternum used the phrase 'full-fledged'.

"Are you saying there are different levels of demonism?" Lelouch asked.

The young man could swear that despite his lack of a mouth, Eternum was grinning like a madman on the inside. "I was hoping you'd catch on to that. The answer is yes, but I'd have to tell a story for you to understand."

Asura chuckled in the background.

Ignoring the discouraging amusement of the demons, dead man decided to play along.

"Enlighten me." he growled."

The four-eyed demon kept his amused tone "It's a story about the third member of our little 'Demon Trinity, My good friend Opus."

The former ruler's ears twitched upon hearing that name. It was very familiar. Too familiar.

The young man decided to listen more intently at the demon's story in order to find out why.

"He got sick of being a demon and had grown an obsession with humanity." Eternum continued. "He even wanted to be one. So much that he actually asked me to send him into the Collective Unconscious so that he could try to merge with it. As his friend I tried my best to help him, but no matter how many times he tried, once his human form died, he'd return here in demon form."

The shadowy devil paused for a moment

"Would you like to know how many times we went through this pointless game?" he asked

Having heard the supposed 'nonsense' Eternum had shouted at his arrival, Lelouch had already put the pieces into a very disturbing picture. He knew what the demon was implying. It was obvious. However, that wouldn't stop him from not believing.

"No." The dead man backed away.

"Yes." The four-eyed demon assured him "You are a demon."

"Welcome to the club." Asura chimed in.

Lelouch was terrified. "I'm… a demon." He thought. "A real demon?"

"Don't look too scared kid." Eternum said consolingly. "While it's true you and Opus are one and the same, you're still not a 'real' demon. Not completely anyway."

Lelouch turned confused. "What do mean? You just told me I was!"

The demon began to explain. "You're two sides of the same person, and for that to happen, he'll have to have at least partially merged with the Collective. That means right now you're neither truly human nor demon. You're a 'half-demon', and that's why I'm sending you back."

"You're sending me back to humanity?" the dead man asked, now completely confused. "Why? You even said you were sick of it."

"I may be a demon, replete with a number of sins, but going back on my word isn't one of them." Eternum exclaimed. "I told Opus that if he ever made any progress, I'd see things through to the end."

"That's not very demonic of you." Lelouch commented.

"True. But then again I'm the Archfiend of grudges, not lies." the now-declared 'Archfiend' pointed out.

"I'd also be lying if told you I wasn't also looking forward to seeing how crazy things will turn out with you knowing what you are." the demon added with a chuckle.

"I'll remember my past life this time?" Once again the young man was confused.

"I'll have to use my power to send you back in time in order to repeat the conditions that caused you to become part human." Eternum began what would be his final explantion. "In theory, if I put you through the same time period again you'll become even more human. Maybe even fully. Now stand still!"

A pentagram glowed red around Lelouch's feet.

"Wait! What do I do when I get back?!" Lelouch shouted over the excessive sparking of electricity shooting out the pentagram.

"We'll work out the specifics later." The demon told him. "For now, just try to stay alive."

Suddenly, everything went black.

AN: Sorry I'm so late with this. A lot has happened this December. The first real chapter of this is almost done. It just needs a little editing. Unfortunately, I still have a little work to do on Masks and Black Legions, but I'll do my best to get the chapters done as fast as possible.

PS: You'll see what makes the demons so scary later on in the story.