A.N. A big thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and/or put this story in their favorites, along with those who did any combination of the aforementioned things! It really is great to see that so many people are enjoying this story. The reviews made me crack a few smiles for sure, especially the ones that apparently foresaw the future; I'm looking at you, Mister Guest! Hehe, anyways, I do hope you all enjoy this chapter which I must say was a blast to write. Fun fact: When I first began writing this story almost a year ago, I envisioned Gluttony as being a dull chapter. Forgive my biased opinion, but it is certainly not dull in the slightest! Please, read on and see what I mean. Enjoy!
Konekomaru had managed to free himself, compliments of what one would, under normal circumstances, count as a cheap-shot. That he had followed through with a brutal punch to Suguro's already damaged face highlighted the nigh bald boy's thinning patience with today's class. His Aria verse had come next.
That was all a few minutes ago, during which time frame Yukio had sat himself at his disheveled desk, face planted firmly atop it, Izumo returned to the furthest corner of the room and hugged her knees to her chest in a desperate attempt to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible, all the while rocking back-and-forth and holding together the garments she had apparently begun tearing in a fit of passionate rage, and Rin and Shiemi knelt in the center of the classroom, huddled together and each of them staring with frantic, unblinking wide eyes at their lecherous assailants. Though nobody seemed to notice, Shima and Suguro were still unconscious, both in terrible sprawled states, the latter of which hung bent over a desk.
"This is madness!" Konekomaru shouted. He'd already been through this twice since dispersing Lust, but persistent towards all things righteous as he was, he was trying again. "Mr. Okumura, you have to stop this lesson!"
Shiemi let out a frightened peep at the mention of that terrible perverted man and clung tighter to the demon boy.
Yukio lifted his head and did everything he could to avert his gaze from Shiemi. Though his glasses were crooked and resting halfway down his nose, he did not adjust them. Instead, he inhaled deeply, coughed twice, and then announced, "Let us move on to the final two, starting with Gluttony."
Konekomaru, obviously taken aback as he even took two steps backwards, protested, "You can't continue this!"
Rin nodded hastily in agreement, his eyes not once allowing the erotomanic Izumo to leave his watch. Said eyes suddenly widened to the point that they were threatening to pop out of their sockets, for worry of what gluttonous desires the nightshade-haired girl might wish to indulge in crossed his mind. His desperate grip on Shiemi tightened.
Against his students' pleads, the teacher opened The Divine Comedy. Yes, the only way he could possibly play off his immoral behavior towards his student and save his teaching license was to see this lesson through to the end and file all the disasters as part of the learning experience. He grinned, knowing full well his capability to bend the truth and keep secrets. "We will now begin!" One shockwave later, little gluttony demons danced around the classroom.
Izumo was fidgeting more erratically than before. Rin swallowed hard and pulled Shiemi even closer. He stared and stared and stared, looking for even the most subtle change in her demeanor that could serve as a warning of attack. Luckily for the demon boy, nothing of the sort seemed to be developing.
Konekomaru regained his composure and sat still like a statue as he had done nearly every time.
As Yukio surveyed the class minus Shiemi, he put a palm to his face and began laughing at himself. Of course, it was so simple! None of them were excessive eaters! None of them had a single trace of gluttony! Why, his own brother enjoyed cooking! For the love of all things holy, how could he have not seen this and started with Gluttony? Maybe it could have served as the introductory stepping-stone they all needed! Maybe it could have built up their resistance to the other demons! Maybe all of these disasters could have been prevented! Maybe—
Someone was laughing—someone other than himself. And not just any laugh, but a sinister, immensely dark, wicked and chill-inducing cackle. An overwhelming aura, one shrouded in dread and oozing a sensation of pure evil strong enough to unnerve even the strongest of exorcists, permeated the atmosphere in the room. Yukio's sweaty palms went to the grips of his guns as he stared at the perpetrator: Nemu Takara.
The puppet guy murmured darkly, "You fools…" and then burst into frenzied laughter. He tilted his head back and held his hands outward on either side of him, all of his fingers separated and curled into stiff hooks. His laughter halted instantaneously, and plainly and almost boorishly he said, "I will devour you all." Slowly his head craned downwards, and a sudden menacing grin sent the occupants of the classroom into hysteria—except for Rin. Rin was too busy being fixated on Izumo.
With his frenzied laughter returning, the puppet guy raised his puppet and opened its mouth. From the depths of its throat burst forth an abundance of long ectoplasmic tentacles that whipped around the room and grabbed at the occupants. One plastered itself across the face of Yukio, preventing him from intervening as Izumo became bound by a tentacle and thereafter started being slowly dragged against her will towards the source of the chaos: the puppet's mouth. His brother, however, sat idly by, still clinging to Shiemi and with a growing smile on his face as Izumo's predicament became worse and worse; that she was screaming only served to heighten his bliss.
"Izumo~!"
The sudden cry of a delirious Shima came accompanied with the daring act of him leaping onto the tentacle. His face still bruised beyond the definition of brutally made his speech seem slurred, so when he subsequently stated boldly, "I'll save you!" it sounded more like "I'll shave yew!" Temporary speech impediment aside, that he was now clinging for dear life to the tentacle that randomly whipped every which way in a frenzy put a hefty damper on his second heroic act of the day.
Rin blinked. His smile had been fading at the same speed it previously grew. What was he thinking? He watched Izumo's desperate, cringed and pleading face as she continuously screamed for help. What was he thinking? He let go of the person he clung to, the person who shared his suffering and eased it simply with the notion of understanding what he had went through firsthand; and she reached out to him as he left, her fingertips falling just tragically short of grasping his shirt.
"Izumo~!"
Now it was Rin who cried out for her. It happened in an instant, the drawing of his blade, severing of the tentacle, and sheathing. The blue hue that illuminated the room seemed like nothing more than a flash, and nobody really noticed it. He caught her as she fell, weak from the struggling and fear that had rushed through her veins. Her beautiful face gleamed from the sweat glazing her forehead and tear residue on her rosy cheeks. When she opened her burgundy eyes, they seemed as deep and intoxicating as a pint of frothy ale. The movement of her lips as they slightly parted, even though barely noticeable, drew the demon boy's attention. He found himself enamored, drawn to their softness, and when she reached up with her hand and gently caressed his face, he lost it—it rightfully being her in his mind—dropping her without a second thought and leaping backwards fearfully. What was he thinking?! Needless to say, he was once again clinging to Shiemi, and Izumo was massaging her lower back from the ungraceful landing.
With a drawn groan and hand to his head as he pushed himself from the ground, Suguro could only manage a "What the hell…?" at the current state of the classroom. He saw what appeared to be appendages and leapt to his feet. "This again?!" He looked around, noting the differences and doing his best to calmly analyze the situation, but then he noticed Shima—well, the legs of Shima. Suguro wasted no time and was immediately pointing at the pair of legs, "Holy shit, is that Shima? This is a riot! He's being frickin' eaten!" belonging to Shima that flailed out of the enclosed mouth of a now enlarged rabbit puppet. The pompous jerk allowed himself to relish in laughter before acting to save his friend.
Pulling the pink-haired teen from the depths of the rabbit's mouth proved to be a more strenuous task than Suguro thought it'd be. While the tentacles seemed to pay him no mind, he had to still deal with the incessant squabbling on the topics of "world domination" and "futile struggle" from the puppet guy. After telling him to "shut the hell up" for the third and most harsh time, he managed to pull Shima free, only for the both of them to then be whipped away and slammed into a wall by one of the tentacles. Of course, that didn't stop Suguro from rising and roadie-running towards the puppet guy with the intent to dive tackle him. Just as he was about to execute the tackle, Konekomaru's voice rang out with the final word of an Aria verse. Gluttony vanished from the room and everything became as a statue.
A sigh of relief left Shiemi as she watched her earlier assailant hit the floor unmoving. She had watched Yukio's struggle intently, though he never managed to free himself from the tentacle and somewhere along the lines his body became like a ragdoll. Her tight grip on the demon boy relaxed and she let her head fall into rest against his chest.
"Is it over?" Konekomaru asked upon standing and surveying the classroom.
Nemu Takara laughed menacingly. "Fools! Nothing is—!"
Suguro tackled the puppet guy, slamming his back into the corner of a desk before crashing into the ground. Shima dove on top of Suguro, and even Konekomaru joined the fray. Rin wanted to as well, but after seeing Izumo at the top of the dogpile, he decided against it; a certainly wise choice, he concluded as he tightened his embrace on the blonde maiden.
A.N. Who knew gluttony could be such a disaster, eh? And that foreshadowing from the first chapter when Nemu Takara says that peculiar statement about what he'll devour. It certainly made for an interesting basis for the chapter of Gluttony, if I do say so myself! So anyways, that leaves one more chapter! Take care, and see you next time!