There's some things in this chapter worth warning about, and for that I cut straight to the chase:

WARNING: Cannibalism, angst, foreshadowing, etc. Mephisto being the major asshole he is and more.

You have been warned.

I try not to do this anymore, because it adds a ton of unnecessary length, but I really can't help but put the lyrics to this song in this chapter because the whole thing just fits my interpretation of Mephisto in this story to a T. You're welcome to overlook it if you must; credits are at the top this time.

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CH V: Hate me until you can't.

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Half God, Half Devil ~ In This Moment

'''

You look at me like I'm a revelation,

You wanna know if I can bring salvation –

You saw a sinner,

saw a saint inside of me –

You wanna know if I'm a friend or an enemy.

'''

I waged war in a fiery blaze;

I found peace in a purple haze;

My angels and my demons,

they don't know their place –

Ready or not,

they're gonna come out and play...

'''

I can be your Heavenly,

or I can be your Hell;

I can say a prayer for you,

or I can cast a spell;

I'll push you to the darkness

just to pull you to the light,

Cause I can take away your breath

Or I can bring you back to life –

''

Half God,

Half Devil (x4)

''

I won't pretend that I resist temptation –

I think it's funny when you preach damnation;

I've been to Hell and back,

and now it's just a part of me –

Without the darkness, there would be no light in me.

''

I waged war in a fiery blaze;

I found peace in a purple haze;

My angels and my demons,

they don't know their place –

Ready or not,

they're gonna come out and play...

'''

I can be your Heavenly,

or I can be your Hell;

I can say a prayer for you,

or I can cast a spell;

I'll push you to the darkness

just to pull you to the light,

Cause I can take away your breath

Or I can bring you back to life –

''

Half God,

Half Devil (x6)

(repeat the above 2 verses)

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Yukio was not a very strong person. Really, he was not.

Particularly not now, with a sizeable piece of slimy, pinkish meat in front of him. Saying something and actually doing it took two very different levels of courage – courage that the teacher wasn't sure he had in him at the time. His mind was a venerable mess – was this really okay? Could he really live with having done this? He supposed he'd done some rather unsavoury things to himself and his classmates before – but this? This...was not the same. It didn't sit at the same level of depravity. He could admit to himself that it took a considerable amount of lacking in caring or judgement to point a gun at not only himself, but his own student, his own sibling too. And he'd be lying to himself if he were to say that he didn't feel guilt about doing all those things.

But this? Cannibalism? Even as his stomach lurched with a painful cramp and his vision swam with hypoglycemic vertigo, his instincts revolted. No manner of day-dreaming or trying to disguise the fact could change it – he knew what was in front of him. Worse, he knew exactly who it belonged to. While never close to Nemu, he had still been the boy's instructor. It was kind of funny, actually, how much such a shallow relationship seemed to mean when he was facing the moral challenge of choking down human flesh.

Yukio watched a satiated Mephisto slink around the room like the rat he was, mockery in his every movement. It was the demon who had judiciously ripped the meat into strips and then, with a sadistic smile he tried (and failed) to hide, divided among the exwires. For Yukio, it felt as if the demon were trying to shove it down his throat, rubbing salt into the wound he'd made in himself when he agreed to eating it. Worse was the fact he knew Mephisto was manipulating his emotions, purposefully tormenting him for his own twisted amusement.

Never before did the title "demon" suit the man so much.

"You can be angry all you like," Mephisto said, finally settling against the far wall, directly beside Amaimon, who was still nursing his injuries. In spite of that, the younger didn't seem bothered that his sibling sat beside him. But then, nothing ever seemed to bother Amaimon. "But I'll hold you each to your word. You were, after all," the old demon gazed directly at Yukio now. "quite correct. A few weeks from now, and this boy's sacrifice will have looked like a dream come true."

"Sacrifice? Sacrifice?!" Rin upstarted. "He wasn't even conscious!"

"All the same, he knew he would die. When doesn't especially matter now that the deed is done, now does it?" Mephisto replied calmly, shrugging his shoulders with a sardonic smirk. His expression became more serious as he gazed at Rin with an unreadable look in his eyes. "Now, boy, let me tell you something that might help you out here – as the Master to Death itself, I can assure you that once that fleshy prison is empty, the body vacated of it's host soul, whatever the sort, that there is truly nothing left of a person but the flesh they leave behind. I can't say as I've ever understood the human standard for revering the dead – particularly where funerals are concerned. You put a petrified corpse that has no thoughts, no soul, no life at all up on a pedestal for people to see and speak to, despite that they can not hear – sounds like the average cult ritual if you ask me!" The demon grew more animated as he spoke, breaking into a foxish grin, but now calmed. "My point being, there is nothing left of the boy you knew. Not a damn thing. His body doesn't unto itself hold anything right now except valuable nutrients and sustenance to keep all of you alive for as long as possible."

Rin was quiet for a long minute, processing things with a vacant expression.

"To reiterate again what I've already said," Mephisto continued when he received no reply. "you will regret not taking this opportunity while it is here. You think tormenting yourself over cannibalizing a boy you barely knew is hell? Think about doing it with the people sitting right next to you." Eyes and hands shifted uncertainly as Mephisto's words gained conviction.

"Why?" Rin piped in quietly, head down. "Why are you pushing so hard for us not to die? You said it yourself – you'll eat any corpses. So where's the benefit for you in not letting us starve?" Rin said this all quite deliberately, and without raising his voice. The tone alone was a shock for Mephisto, but the boy's words inspired a toothy smile to split his face. Maybe his little brother wasn't as stupid as he looked.

"Because I don't like to lose." Was all he said, closing his eyes and regaining some of his composure. "Now, will any of the rest of you join them?" Mephisto asked, motioning to a small total of Yukio and Bon, who'd been the only ones he'd deliberately handed the meat to.

A long, dreadful silence ensued. It wasn't as if the demon didn't know what he was asking them – though lacking in human emotions himself, he wasn't any less aware of what they were feeling. Years and years of human-watching had taught him the social and emotional cues they used very well – which was perhaps the only reason he passed off as one so well when he needed to.

By show of a raised hand, Shura joined the group of willing cannibals. Mephisto suspected she would, having been brought up by a demon when young. Shima, in spite of his upbringing with priests, didn't hesitate to pop his hand up, looking rather nonchalant about it, as usual. Mephisto's lips threatened to smile at the sight. Shima was indeed a very strange boy with a very strange and unusual mind for a human. Another reluctant hand went up from Izumo, who held her composure by a thread. She, too, was an odd little human – but then, Mephisto was hardly one to judge the strange.

Mephisto glanced at Shiemi, who did not budge from her position. Mephisto nearly shook his head at the girl. Poor creature was far too compassionate for her own good. Glancing at Amaimon from the corner of his eye, he had to wonder if anything between them would really work. Amaimon could be affectionate, when he wanted to be (which wasn't often) but his temper might end with Shiemi being buried alive or worse if he were to legitimately pursue her.

Konekomaru also did not budge. Mephisto expected that the boy wouldn't last long in here. He wasn't as physically frail as Shiemi, who literally wilted like a flower whenever the conditions didn't suit her body right, but he was in less of a fit mental state than even Yukio – not because he was delusional, but because he just didn't have any mental fortitude or confidence. Mephisto respected the fact the kid knew his own boundaries – he couldn't handle eating another human being. He was far too righteous and far too prone to self-dissection for that to work out.

Oh well. He'd be another body soon, then.

"Hmf. Don't act as if you haven't already taken the best parts for yourself." Shura huffed quietly. "Sure, there's still value in what remains – but that's all they are. Remains. You already ate the liver, which has more iron in it than anything, and the heart – full of vitamins. You've eaten the fatty parts of his tissues, his abdominal muscles and around the ribs. You say you want us to live, yet leave barely enough to feed us all before the body rots, which will be soon. And you also, you greedy bastard, have ensured there's just enough meat leftover that it will rot, making it inedible for us, but perfectly fine for you." Shura challenged. "Don't play like you're doing us any real favors. You're just prolonging the inevitable. We all are."

"So then, you refuse to eat?" Amaimon chirped in, happy about getting more for himself.

"I didn't say that –"

"Ah," Mephisto interrupted with a smile full of teeth. "Feeling picked on because you only got the leftovers?" He mocked openly. His expression and voice became more eerie when he said, "Be grateful you have even that much. I could have let Amaimon finish him off. In fact, I'm positive he will, as might I, before tomorrow evening." The demon's smirk was cruel now, his voice lowering in pitch to a more apprehending tenor. "You really don't have a large window of time. Gluttony is in the nature of any demon. We eat what we can, when we can, as quickly and as often as we can, in order to sustain our larger energies. I can not deny my own hunger, which lingers still – a constant presence, is more like it." he hissed the final consonants, a deepening threat in his stance, which tilted his head forward and down, somehow making him appear larger even though he was sitting down. "I can fast for a long time – a long time – but I can not halt temptation, and neither am I known for resisting very well what I know is supposed to be out of reach." A sharp click had his teeth snapping together, a well-worn warning by itself. "I do not expect the likes of a human such as yourself to understand why I am doing what I am – as I've said before, I'm far more a monster in this situation than you'd ordinarily consider." His stance and tone relaxed a bit. "And I am certain you will hate me for that." He stated flatly. "But do mind your pretty little mouth, miss Kirigakure – lest you find yourself at the bad end of worsening impulse control."

Mephisto turned sharply to Rin, who watched the debacle with ears tilted back as far as they'd go and a nervous tail at his side, though it twitched in irritation also. "As for you, little brother, I once more remind you that you have a choice to make – here and now." Mephisto gestured to the half-eaten corpse, entrails now vividly exposed. In a way, the guts served to calm rather than frighten the humans – perhaps it was easier for them to now distance themselves from the person who used to live in that shell, now that he was literally nothing but a pile of bloody flesh on the floor. Humans were certainly odd little creatures that way. "You must decide, here and now, whether you are going to go to the required lengths to survive, and in doing so retain your humanity in the future; or if you are going to preserve what's left of your humanity now and wind up sacrificing it, as well as your own life, in the future."

"This is ridiculous!" Bon spoke up in Rin's defence for once. "You can't expect him to make that choice so abruptly – he hasn't lived like us, isn't like any of us!"

"Indeed he is not." Mephisto said in a strongly clipped tone, a sharp gaze thrown Bon's way shutting him up. "And that is precisely why he must choose. Eat the human, and accept that that is what he must do, or refuse, and wind up becoming food himself." Mephisto half-smiled, half bared his teeth to the humans – he was quite done having to explain himself over and over. "It only takes one bite – whether that's his bite into human flesh or mine into the spine of his neck, I care not."

"Fucker." Rin murmured, distressed by the choice before him. He knew which one he'd have to make, but damn if it didn't make it any easier. "You really are a sick sonofabitch, you know that?" Rin huffed flatly. Mephisto grinned like a Cheshire cat.

"Believe me, little brother, you haven't the foggiest just how sick I can be." Mephisto said haughtily,clearly taking a measure of pride in that statement.

Rin thought on it in silence for several minutes. Yukio, meanwhile, took the opportunity to swallow his nerves – and in turn, attempt to swallow the cool chunk of meat he'd reluctantly bitten off. Bile shot up his throat at the bitter, raw taste – but once it was down his throat, his body insisted he take another bite, followed by another and another. The more he ate, the less the taste seemed to perturb him – an idea that, as a half-demon himself, was disturbing.

An air of apprehension rippled through the group, who watched Yukio take the first incentive with mixed reactions of surprise and stagnant awe. If the exorcist was being honest with himself, he'd admit he did it for his own sake – to appear like less of a wimp in the eyes of the predatory demon currently looking him over with a wry smile. However, he'd also tell anyone else, with some measure of half-truth, that he did it to encourage the others as well as Rin to take the plunge. Brothers they may be, and get along they may not always, but he didn't want to see Mephisto do to Rin what he'd witnessed with Amaimon – except he knew that this time, his elder sibling wouldn't be able to walk away from the attack.

Herd mentality kicked in at last, and having witnessed a leader of sorts, the remaining exorcists followed, carefully biting into the meat before them. Ironically, Shima was the last to taste his, though he chewed it with considerably more care. Rin, meanwhile, glanced upwards at Mephisto, who had come to stand before him with a strip of rib-meat in hand. He knelt to Rin's level, looking him in the eye with a much softer expression than he'd had.

"You decide your own fate this time, Rin. As the King of Time, I assure you that this," he gestured to the other exorcists reluctantly ingesting their shares. "is the wiser choice." The demon stood, moving gracefully back over to Amaimon's side.

Shiemi, meanwhile, thought and thought hard. There had to be some kind of way for them to survive here besides cannibalism. She couldn't help what the others were being subjcted to – glancing over at Rin, she couldn't bear to keep her eyes there. She knew he wasn't being given a choice – none of them were, really. But there had to be a way. There had to be.

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Evening fell silently. The lights began to dim, and Rin, curled up in a corner by himself, refused to join the group as they gathered together for warmth.

"Rin, you coming?" Bon said. Rin did not budge.

"Rin. Rin. RIN." Bon tried to get his attention. Still, the half demon did not react.

"Leave him be for now, Suguro." Yukio advised, sitting beside him with his eyes closed. "He will come back to us when he is ready to. I, for one, don't blame him for not being able to look at us." There was a note of anguish in his teacher's voice that had Ryuji cringing.

"Yeah. I guess so." He whispered.

"Oi, I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Shima piped up rather loudly in the quiet. "But I really can't hold this in any more." All eyes looked to the pink-haired exorcist, who was clutching his crotch with a pleading expression. "I have to pee." He complained. "But I don't have a clue where." He looked over to the corner Rin was in, desperation on his face.

That's when Shiemi had an epiphany.

"Guys...Guys!" She shouted uncharacteristically, gathering even Rin's attention as he shifted to be able to see the group.

"I think I know of a way to deal with that. With the...er, bathroom issue, and maybe food too...if this room doesn't bother him too much."

"What are you talking about?" Izumo inquired somewhat irritably.

"I'm talking about Nii-chan". A dumbfounded look is what she got from the better half of her audience.

"Look, they –" She motioned to the two demons and Rin "can't use their energy, right? But who says we can't?" Light-bulbs flickered over the hopeful heads of the human crowd – and a scowl formed on the face of the oldest demon. 'So, they're figuring out they aren't insects any more. Things are going to get interesting sooner than I thought.'

"I think I still have summoning papers – maybe I can conjure Nii-chan. I don't think the wards on this room will give him a lot of power, but maybe if I give him some of mine, he could grow some plants. Plants use waste stuff as food, so –"

"So it would help to eliminate the waste poisoning us, as well as providing fresh air – Shiemi, that's brilliant!" Yukio praised her, rising. She blushed profusely, but assented. " What about you, Kamiki?"

"I don't think the wards would let them in, but I can try to call them – even if it doesn't work, we still have that cell phone, don't we?" she looked to Konekomaru, who drew it from his pocket. He did not seem to be sharing the hopes of the others quite as much.

"Yes, but that wall has to open up first." He pointed over there. "And with as much as everyone is disagreeing, I don't know that it will be opened up. Besides, that's at least fourteen centimetres of steel – I don't know that even a demon could split that open without some leverage."

"Did you forget about me?" Amaimon piped up from the corner, drawing eyes. "I can probably pop that open with ease if I have a crack or dent to start from. All it takes is ramming into it a few times." he pointed to where he himself had made a shallow dent in the wall he'd run into. "However, I can't really do that myself without being able to transform, and I don't trust Rin."

"You don't trust me?" Rin, snapped out of his brooding, declared. "You're the one who attacked Mephsito, not me!"

"True. True. I got a little too hot in the head, and I paid the price for it." Amaimon gestured to his healing wounds. "But now that I've been put in my place, I won't dare try it again. I'm not that stupid, unlike someone who doesn't seem to remember that he's my baby brother."

"Enough, both of you." Mephisto said exasperately, coming between them. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I can appreciate the enthusiasm, and I agree that summoning Nii would be a good idea." He gestured over to Shiemi passively. "However, I would remain cautious of what you do. We are under surveillance, if you recall." A sea of wan faces told Mephisto that, no, they hadn't recalled. "Lucifer isn't going to make it easy to escape, in any case. The only person here who can do so under normal circumstances is me, and he's designed this cage specifically to keep me in it. That means," He translated, "that it might not be as simple as wire-tapping a signal through. Even if True Cross finds us, there is no guarantee that they will survive to make it to where we are in here. Lucifer is too damn crafty to make rescuing us that simple."

"...I hate to say it, but he is right." Shima said, straining still not to piss himself. "Lucifer doesn't like to lose either. He'll accept it better when he is beaten, but he sure as hell won't make it easy." Shima began to turn red, holding his breath. "Ughhhh, can someone please let me pee somewhere? I can't hold it anymore." Rin, with a short sigh, moved out of the way.

"Ugh, thanks man."

"Shiemi, try yours first." Yukio encouraged. "Even if Mephisto is right, we still have to try something. Anything is better than just sitting here and waiting to die. Are you ready, Shiemi?"

"O-okay, I'll try!"

Shiemi pulled a paper from her pocket and made the short incantation – and poof! Into the palm of her hand came her familiar. A wave of excitement transversed the group as the tiny greenman yawned.

"Nii-chan?" Shiemi said gleefully, earning a happy eep from her familiar. However, shortly upon standing, he seemed to lose his balance and fall back over, holding his little head.

"I know, Nii-chan – there's seals and stuff in here that are going to make you feel a little bad, ok? But we could really use your help. Can you give me any pillow moss?" Nii seemed to ponder this a moment before nodding. "We need it, er...over there." She indicated to where Shima had just finished relieving himself. "It will absorb the liquid and give other plants a root-hold."

"Nii!" The greenman hopped off Shiemi's hand, landing awkwardly on the ground. He picked himself up and hopped over to the corner, chirping as he did so. With a bit of strain, he produced a blanket of thick moss from beneath his feet, spreading it out across a sizeable bit of the corner. Rin watched with wide eyes as the moss spread up the wall as well as out, covering an area the size of a stand-in shower.

"Wow, Nii, you sure have a lot of energy!"

"His isn't cut off like ours." Amaimon interjected. He had a strange sort of near-fatherliness on his face as he watched the tiny creature grow the moss. The sight was a relief from the dull, steel walls of their prison cell, and much to the surprise of the Earth King, it seemed to boost the morale and moods of the exorcists as well, considerably so.

"Yes! Now we, sort of, have a bathroom – one that cleans itself." Rin's mood in particular had brightened. "Now we just have to deal with opening the wall."

"We shall have to wait until morning." Yukio said, quickly stalling his brother's good mood. He hated being told to wait, and the younger knew it.

"It's night time – it may not exactly be dark in here, but this is the time when demons like them and Lucifer," he gestured to Amaimon "are most active. Even if Lucifer predicts we will wait until he is most likely to be resting, we still have a better shot of doing this during the day – when the steel isn't so cold and rigid."

"Rigidity makes metal fragile, though – right?" Rin countered. "Shura told me that."

"Yes, I did," she agreed. "but in this case, it's not so cold as to freeze the metal, which means it really won't be easier to open. Not tonight, in any case." Rin's face became crestfallen. "But we can talk about this more tomorrow. Now, if you will excuse me, I also really need to pee."

"Use this to cover yourself, dear." Mephisto, with a sly smirk, threw her his uniform coat. "Even if the morale is better, it doesn't mean we need a show." Shura blushed as she took the coat, averting her eyes.

"Shut up, ya stupid prick."

Ok, well I decided to end that on a slightly happier note than the last.

Please, by all means, review giving me constructive advice! Even if it is to harp on me about my sometimes shitty attitude in the A/N. (Apologies for that one). I can't know I am doing anything wrong if no one tells me.

Until next time!