Dude, I have no idea. I was sleep-deprived and I read a prompt by JustMonica on the discord and I was like, 'Hey! That sounds fun!', then it devolved to whatever this is.
I got no clue if I'll ever continue this, but it was fun to write so whatevs, more practice at the least.
THIS AIN'T SUBARU X DAPHNE, EVERYONE KNOWS DAPHNE'S BEST SHIP IS DAPHNE X FOOD.
Eh?
What is this place?
What was I doing here? Am I asleep?
…
No, I can see my hands in front of me. Which means… What, exactly?
A lucid dream?
I now see… Emilia-tan's beautiful angelic face!
…
That's a mood killer.
Guess that means I'm just here with myself… What to think about…
Well, how did I get here? It's just… darkness… No, rather it's just black. Except for me. Which is weird.
Wait, isn't this like Echidna's garden place or whatever?
Similar.
...Whoa-!? Who are you?
That sounds like something Fluggy would say.
...Who?
Yeah, that.
...
...
Oh, wait.
Fluggy was The Sage, he- Well, he would forget stuff all the ti-me.
Sage? You mean, Flugel? The jackass that left Shaula in that tower?!
Forgot her too? And Shaula's still in the tower? Maybe I left too little natural desire with her…
…What…?
…
Oi! Answer me! What does that mean?!
I might've been a part of her creation.
She did mention a mother once or twice...
She called me that, but it's not like I had the desire to birth her.
Earlier you said that this was similar to Echidna's garden place. Then did you invite me in?
Why don't you think back, but don't strain yourself or you'll use too much en-er-gy. What happened before coming here?
I was at the tower… Satella had attacked and I was saved by Volcanica… The next thing I knew, I was here…
...That's it?
Yeah… Uh… that's it.
Hey, wait! What's the point of that if you're the owner of this place! Just let me out!
Noooope. Tell me who I am and we can st-ar-t.
Start? Like start leaving, or waking up? Wait, there's no way I can know who you are if I can't recognize your voice. So just send me back already!
Think back.
Alright, fine. This is similar to Echidna's dream garden place, so you must be in a position similar to her, correct?
…
Tch, you're of no help… Then I'm going to guess that you're a witch from Echidna's era, but I don't recognize your voice in the slightest, so you can't be one of the ones that were in the garden…
Wait, she said something about one of your groupies still being alive!
Uhhhh… There wasn't a witch for Gluttony there… But the name was… Ah…
…
…
…
...Denice?
Daphne.
That's what I said.
"No, it wasn't."
Subaru jumped, hearing her voice from behind him instead of in his mind like he'd gotten used to. He quickly spun around to reveal the owner of the voice, who was... hung up inside of a weird-looking coffin by chains and other restraints. "Why the hell do you witches like doing that?!"
"Your name… What was it again?" The creature asked him. Her jaw popped open and cracking multiple times like it hadn't been used in eons.
Subaru stared for a moment at the display, "You're not going to explain the giant coffin that you're strapped up in?"
"..." She didn't answer the question and simply sat there.
Subaru huffed at her unapologetic attitude and opened his arms out to the side like he was showing something off, "You have to admit that this is overwhelming. I suddenly appear in this dark void place, and then you start making me think of some unpleasant memories for your little gameshow! THEN, you appear behind me in a giant coffin and look… really disheveled."
Coffin aside, the woman in the coffin looked like she'd never seen the inside of a washroom. Her hair was unkempt, tangled all over, and looked like there was even a bite mark out of it, however that worked. She had what looked like a white and black bodysuit on, except it was for restraining purposes with the large amounts of areas where chains could be attached to.
The strangest thing about her (other than literally everything Subaru could see), was a blindfold that was very obviously loved. The rest of her BDSM outfit was scratched up, had holes in it, was obviously discolored, and generally gross to look at, let alone wear. Her blindfold was the opposite, although it was well-worn, it wasn't torn or had holes in it, there were even sewing marks on it where such things were likely removed.
"I've been alone for a while," She held a matter-of-fact tone. "The bi-gg-est thing to consider is that your name is 'Subaru', correct~?"
"Yeah…?" Subaru answered, uncertain what that had anything to do with anything. "You seem… pretty mellow compared to the rest of the witches I've met."
"I'm not as hungry here, or else I might've eaten you the moment we met."
…
"..."
"Never mind, you're terrifying." He said, backing up a few feet just to be safe.
"Subarun~ That's a name for a star in the other world, no?" She cocked her head as far as she could to the side, which was only about an inch.
Subaru mirrored her movement, "Uh… I mean, yeah? But you added an 'n' to the end but… other than that?"
The woman smiled.
Subaru felt his terror spike in an instant, his palms instantly becoming slick with sweat.
The woman moved her body which seemed like it hadn't moved in a century. Her chains become lax as she releases her binding chains and sets her feet upon what could be considered the ground. Her body tensed as her muscles stretched, and she seemed to grow before Subaru's eyes as she stood to her maximum height, popping echoed out as she did so.
She walked up to Subaru, staring down at him due to their height difference. Subaru couldn't move due to the pressure she was emanating, it felt as though she would chase him down and attack him like a feral animal if he moved even an inch.
Her hand reached up and Subaru flinched, anticipating an attack or something of the sort. However, instead of what he expected, she reached up to her blindfold and removed it completely, revealing her two eyes.
"I see, your eyes are quite nice." She smiled down at him, her jagged teeth showing.
"Ah… Uh…" Subaru opened his mouth to speak to her, but no intelligible sounds could be heard.
"Ahhh, are you worried about s-ee-ing my eyes? Don't worry, you've already looked at them." Her stomach growled and she looked down with a despondent expression. "Hungry already…? Subaruuun, could I eat you?" She leaned closer to him, letting him see small bits of drool rolling down her chin.
"EH?! ABSOLUTELY NOT! NOT A CHANCE!" Subaru quickly screamed out, lest his silence be taken as a 'yes'.
"Mmmm… that's unfortunate… So I'll settle for this…" Daphne leaned backward out of Subaru's personal bubble and started chewing.
"...Ummm, what are you eating?" Subaru stared at her and questioned. He didn't see her put anything into her mouth...
She didn't respond and continued chewing. Her mouth made empty clicking noises signifying her teeth clacking together.
"You're not eating anything are you?" Subaru looks on in exasperation. He was glad she decided not to eat him, hell, he was glad she didn't eat any part of him. But she was just chewing the air, he was even hearing her teeth hitting each other!
She chews faster and swallows. "Ah, sorry… But there is so-me-thi-ng I'm eating, you know?"
"There's nothing here, though! It's all just... just air? The hell?! You're eating air?!" Subaru sounded borderline hysterical, he wasn't sure if it was funny or scary that someone could do such a thing.
"Everything can be eaten with Gluttony, but air isn't filling in the sl-ig-ht-est," She said drily, her eyes on his. "This place has a lot of mana, you kno~w?"
"What are you, a spirit?"
"Spirit's don't fill Daphne's belly… Mana only keeps the edge off my hunger, but I'll need to eat something in the real world…"
"You better not eat me!" Subaru demands her compliance with not eating him.
"Mmmm… That might've been a problem in the past, but Daphne has long since lost her sense of smell~. Subaruuun might've been too enticing if I hadn't…" She eyes the visible parts of his body, and the indents where his clothes couldn't hide his muscles. Drool slowly falls out of her mouth and she quickly laps it up. "Too enticing~~"
"I-I'm going to assume that you won't, and will now ask you to wake me up." Subaru tries to keep his voice steady, but little cracks poke through. However, his eyes continue staring into her golden irises. "Would you wake me up...uh, please?"
She shakes her head, "Subarun has entered my world of Gluttony, which means you can't leave until you find your ideal hunger."
"My… Ideal hunger…?"
"Dona-Dona was the first to find the exit, but she didn't leave because her ideal hunger was rooted in staying longer," Daphne turned around and started walking back to her coffin. "Daphne's told you everything you need to know, Subarun just needs to use my eyes."
The woman stepped back into her coffin and the restraints magically wrapped around her once more. The coffin's legs moved and brought itself so that Daphne would be face-to-face with Subaru. He almost jumped back in shock at such a disturbing sight, but he didn't want to take any chances that Daphne would attack him because of her instinctual desire to eat him.
Her two golden eyes stared down at Subaru as she revealed her razor-sharp teeth once more. "Welcome to Daphne's World of Gluttony, Natsuki Subarun~"
And then Subaru could see.
He could see the ground, which was made up of flesh, wood, and mixtures of the two. The flesh was of animal, human, all variations of dragon, demi-human, and mabeast. It came in all shapes and sizes, leaving unnatural mounds littering Subaru's entire field of view. There were half-digested piles of flesh, along with easily discernible human body parts and all other life forms previously mentioned.
The wood wasn't just trees. There were tables, chairs, boards, even entire houses. Teeth marks were apparent along all wooden structures, and the holes that were left behind in the shape of a mouth bite were too massive to be from a human woman. But there were no small variations of the holes because they were filled in with flesh.
"Ah-ha… hahaha…" Subaru started laughing to himself in disbelief as he saw more and more of this hellish world.
Aside from the flesh-fused woods and buildings, there were living things roaming around, if you could even believe that they were alive.
A wolgarm with human arms inside of the usual paws. A flying dragon with mud spider legs instead of wings. A demi-human with a snake mabeast for a neck.
"In order for survival, one must change through evolution," The woman spoke as Subaru continued taking in the sights that lay below him.
"W-what the hell is this place?!" Subaru screamed in terror at the horrific nightmare that he must be having.
"Mmm? What do you mean?" Daphne looked over at Subaru with genuine confusion. "Daphne just to-ld you, this is her world of Gluttony."
"What do you mean your world of Gluttony!? This is hell!" Subaru shook his head in complete and utter disbelief at what's in front of him. "What are those- Those things!?"
"Ah-h-h, I see, that's why you're confused," She nods her head in understanding. "Daphne was surprised as well when those started appearing."
"Y-you don't even know what they are?!"
"Eh? Why should Daphne care? They can't fill her belly a-ga-in."
"You-" Subaru quickly cuts himself off, realizing what she said. He looks back to the chained woman, "Again…?"
"Daphne's eaten everything here, she can't eat the sky so it's not here," She yawns, having grown tired over the course of their conversation. "Once eaten, food can't be food anymore, and nothing escapes Daphne's belly once she's eaten it."
"T-then I'm-!?"
"Subaruuun doesn't have to worry, he was brought here because he wanted to be here."
"I-I… wanted to be here?"
"..."
"Oi, answer me! Why would I want to come here!?"
"...Ngh….ZZzzzzz"
"YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH YOUR EYES OPEN?!"
"Wuah! Ah, I must've dozed off a bit, talking is so tiring…" She closed her eyes and a blindfold snaked its way from behind where her head was on the coffin. It slowly covered her eyes and clasped itself on her face. "The day cycle is here…"
"Eh?" Subaru felt the ground beneath his feet give way as he started falling towards the ground. "WAAAH-?!"
"Don't worry- If your legs break, just get some new ones, after all, predators and prey use their legs for survival; whether to flee or chase, legs are important," The witch was falling with him in the mostly-empty sky. "Seven days is your total before you become a permanent resident of Gluttony."
"AH-H-AHHHH!" Subaru could hardly concentrate on her voice as he saw the ground slowly get closer.
"Find your ideal hunger, and use my eyes, that's the only way to flee from Gluttony," She calmly spoke, as if she's gone through this a thousand times.
A brilliant flash of light shines from the direction that Subaru fell from, causing the air itself to shake, sending Subaru through turbulence. "W-W-WHAT TH-?!"
Subaru's voice quickly quiets down as he gapes at what the cause of the light was.
Two opposing beams of energy clashed above him, the world seemingly barely able to keep itself together as cracks formed along the edges of the impact. Both energies were distinctly different, but Subaru recognized both of them.
The Swordplay of the Astrea Family. The same one that he saw in the loot house when Reinhardt fought Elsa. However, this beam was on such a different scale it made Reinhardt's attack on Elsa seem like child's play. He saw Reid use that same technique on Julius in the Pleiades Watchtower, but that was on a smaller level than Reinhardt's attack in the loot house. Forget killing your opponent, that amount of energy would be enough to vaporize the entire watchtower. It was like that attack that Reinhardt used on Puck in that trial he once took, it was simply too much energy.
But the other energy was able to keep that incredible technique's power in a stalemate. It was one that Subaru has been personally hit by: Volcanica's purifying breath. However, his breath, much like how the other energy was stronger than before, was on another level than the one he saw at the tower. That seemingly all-power breath was being countered by the technique that Reinhardt utilizes, keeping the both of them at a stalemate.
Subaru could do nothing but gape in awe as the energies continued to power into each other, lighting up the dark void that had replaced the sky.
While powerful, those energies were still finite, and they eventually redirected each other into opposite directions.
With their light and energies disappearing, Subaru swallowed his fear from falling and looked back towards the strangely silent witch. "Why are those things here?! There's no way that you can use that technique or breath attack!"
"I told you. Everything I've ever eaten is here." She spoke in a dry voice, "Either way, the day-cycle has just occurred; your first day has just started, Subarun."
"That beam struggle is the day-cycle?!"
"Be sure to eat, Subaruun. Gluttony is the foundation of desire, after all." And with that, she vanished from his sight.
"Uh- AREN'T YOU GOING TO STOP ME FROM TURNING INTO A PANCAKE?!" Subaru screamed at the loss of his one sense of security, even if it was a witch.
"HOLY SHIT HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT-!" Subaru braced himself for Return by Death, hitting the ground at terminal velocity isn't good for his health.
And thus, his body met the ground.
"Gaaah…" A quiet breath exhaled throughout the clearing.
It was a small clearing in the middle of a normal forest, with no flesh ground or strange mabeasts. And there were only two people inside the clearing, anyways.
The Witch of Gluttony groaned when the full force of her hunger fell upon her once more. Being within the world of Gluttony took the edge off her hunger, but that also means that once she comes back to the real world, the full brunt of her hunger will come crashing down on her.
"Haaaah...Haaaah…" She felt drool fall from her mouth as the Gluttony Witch Factor opened a hole in her stomach. An insatiable hole that she's been unable to fill for 400 years.
"...Ah…?" Daphne suddenly realized that her blindfold was still off from the previous night. Her eyes started searching the clearing for it before her eyes were laid upon the unconscious form of a boy.
Desire to eat him overtook her body as she flung herself towards him in the coffin. She felt her mouth salivate for her impending meal as she was about to bite down
You're a person too, you know.
"Ghhk…" Her starved body fought against her as she tried to restrain herself through sheer force of will, her witch factor wailing at its master's refusal to eat. "Gaah…! G-Gluttony is- the path- to o-other desires…!"
Those words sounded out in the clearing, and with them spoken, all resistance from her body fell away.
She immediately ordered her coffin to distance herself from Subaru and it did. "Haah… Need to eat or else those words won't be enough…"
The restraints around her body become undone, and her feet lightly tap onto the ground. The pit in her stomach opens even wider, demanding something, anything, in order to sate its hunger for even a moment.
"Gluttony is the path-ghk!- to other d-desires!" She says again, she must keep her mind sharp enough to remember the meaning of those words; a sentence that she held close to her heart. Something that someone had told her long ago, in a time where she had nothing but the base desire of Gluttony.
The ground crunches underneath her feet as she begins walking out of the clearing. Her mouth opens and then closes.
A simple action, but the destruction it causes is immense. The trees in front of her disappear, along with everything within or on them. The size of the clearing instantly increases to quadruple the size with that simple chewing motion.
The foliage and grasses by her feet vanish just by her touching them. The air around her vanishes as she eats it.
The Witch of Gluttony leaves to feast upon everything that exists within the Badheim Jungle.
Alright so, base info I'm gonna leave to you in case I didn't explain it enough for you guys to pick up context clues. Daphne survived Satella and has been alive for 400 years, met Subaru after arc 6 at the very least, and now Subaru is in a world where everything she's ever eaten exists.
Damn, sucks to be Subaru, huh?