“Lulu?” a voice said. Shirley. It was the first thing she’d said since she’d arrived to help him. “I killed him. I - Even though he was responsible for my father’s death, I -”

“It’s not your fault,” he interrupted. “It’s because of me. It’s not your fault.”

Does the trick still work if people believe the devil exists? Does it work if people realise that a functioning society requires ethical behaviour? Why is it regarded as the devil’s greatest trick when the very idea assumes the existence of the devil to start with? Because, when you really stop to think about it the devil has pulled off a far greater deception that few, if any, seem to consider.

“But I could have let him go! I - I should have let him go! Should have made Schizoid Man -”

“He was a psychopath,” Lelouch firmly said. “If we didn’t stop him, then he would have gone on to kill countless people. He would have inspired fear in those that survived and made people do his bidding against their own will and reason!”

“I - I - I see,” Shirley stared at her hands. “He was abusing his power instead of using it to help people. Someone like that in a position of authority could have easily used it to help people, but instead… Instead I killed him. Because you asked me to. That should make you like me, right? Except I hate you because you killed my father, except I - I -”

The devil’s greatest trick was far more devious. The devil’s greatest trick was hidden in plain sight all along. The devil exists. Even if only as an idea or a concept, the devil exists. When an idea or a concept is powerful enough, it can play its own little tricks upon humanity without any semblance of sentience or personality.

She’s completely unstable! The shock of losing her father, then killing that monster through her Stand… On top of the psychological pressure her Stand was causing her already! She’s cracking.

Schizoid Man was flitting around, back and forth, the expression on its face alternating across the emotional spectrum. Its movements were erratic. Unpredictable. Where something that powerful was concerned, unpredictable meant the same thing as “highly dangerous”.

“Lulu?” Shirley said. “Is this… Is this how the Numbers view us? Are people like him what they think of when they think of Britannia?”

Another cliche statement is that the path to hell is paved with good intentions. And so, it is. What do you do when the only way to fight evil is with a lesser evil? A smaller evil to cancel out the bigger one. An easy choice to make. The lesser of two evils. Better the devil you know.

There was only one way to prevent her from undergoing a complete psychotic break. After her father’s death he had intended to ease her away and out of the picture, claim that Zero had perished as a martyr protecting people from Stand Out. That would not work now. She needed stability. She needed a purpose. Anything else would leave her completely traumatised beyond repair.

“Yes,” Lelouch said, completely honestly. “This is what they think we are like. And they’re not wrong to feel that way. This is what we do to them all the time. This is the result of ‘the strong devour the weak’.”

That’s the trick, right there in the gaps of morality! The devil is it. The devil is the biggest of the big bads. The greatest of evils, implying in turn that there are other and lesser evils! In so doing, allowing ordinary people to pave the road to hell with good intentions. Allowing people to justify to themselves petty, smaller evils to prevent what they saw as bigger ones.

Before the conversation could continue any further, a familiar sound filled the air; A helicopter. Lelouch limped back against the wall, while Shirley whirled around to look up at it. A bright light shone down on her and West’s corpse, and Lelouch could see a rather overeager Diethard leaning out of the side with a camera pointed directly at her.

“Breaking news regarding the battle against Stand Out!” Diethard excitedly declared, so loud Lelouch could clearly hear him even at this distance and over the helicopter’s racket. “If my guess is right, this masked woman wearing similar, yet distinct clothes to the Black Knights must be the mysterious Zero!”

Show time. Was he doing it because he wanted at some level to continue using her for this purpose? Or was he doing it to keep her sane? Was there any difference anymore? In front of Shirley’s eyes words would appear in shadow. Words that she would say, and instructions for how to act. Words for her alone to act upon.

“I am Zero!” she declared, giving her cape a dramatic flourish. Schizoid Man grabbed West’s body by the neck and lifted it into the air. “And this is Stand Out’s vile leader! A man that has abused his power for his own sake! Today, the Black Knights have brought him low. Tomorrow, we continue our fight for the sake of those unable to fight for themselves! To those with power, I ask only this: Will you abuse those powers? Or will you use them to help those in need.

“Because depending on your answer, we might need to kick your ass!”

There it was! Exactly what he was looking for. That natural charisma, delivering her lines perfectly. Schizoid Man turned and blew him a kiss, which never ceased to make him uncomfortable. But this was it! The moment he had been waiting for almost a decade to arrive! It was here, it was his for the taking, and all he had to do was nearly break the mind of a girl he was close friends with. Manipulate her feelings for him without being able to guess at how he felt for her. Kill her father, and deflect the guilt to someone else that she killed while following his instructions, and she did so to keep him safe. Another victim of Clovis’ beast of revenge.

He would justify it to himself by claiming that he was fighting a greater evil by committing a series of smaller ones, but that is where the devil takes his greatest delight. The little evils all pile up like grains of sand, and they stain the soul one dot of indelible ink at a time. On this night, though it may not seem like it one rebellion was put down and another was rising up in its place. Unnoticed by all, the seeming instigator of it all would lead with the devil himself sitting on her shoulder whispering commands and sins to lead the fight onwards for justice and freedom. Each justification leading to more, and more still. Harsher evils. Harsher sins. The sand would pile up. The ink dots form a mosaic. The devil laughs as he is born, alongside the most bizarre rebellion the world would ever see.

“Now then,” Lelouch whispered. “Let’s begin this properly.”

-Lulu's Bizarre Rebellion Chapter 19