This choice: Continue reading "School for Demons" • Go Back...Chapter #45School for Demons, Chapter 21 by: Seuzz   "I suppose you've carefully thought out how you are going to devour Taniguchi Hayato?" the demon said the next morning as Sota finished dressing.
"Huh?" Sota said. He was concentrating on the clothes. Ishia Yuuna's version of the uniform was more conservative than Sugawara Momoka's, or Ueno Akiko's. Her heavy skirt fell halfway down her calves, and she wore tall boots. With a jacket, it meant that nothing but her neck and face and hands were ever exposed.
But her form still stirred him with lust. The long skirt and the jacket made her look even taller than she was, and she was already a very tall girl. Her hair also fell in long locks beside her face, and her ponytail trailed almost to the small of her back. As Sota turned this way and that, to admire the severe lines of her uniform, he reflected that Yuuna really did look like nobility. It was one reason that all the other girls in school were afraid of her, and looked to her for guidance rather than friendship. They really are a perfect couple, Sota thought as he pictured himself with Hayato. Hayato to rule the guys, Yuuna to rule the girls. Ota Gorou and Ueno Akiko to enforce the law, and Sugawara Momoka to deviously craft plots against their enemies. Between them, no one could stand up to the Elite Funtime Club.
And when Sota had filled the president with his "breath of spirit" and made him a puppet too, then all the jealousies and cruelties that they picked at each other with would be forgotten, and they would crush all opposition!
"Hrm," said the demon, "I suppose you could work it that way. I think you'll find you won't."
"Huh?" Now the demon had Sota's full attention. "I mean, what did you say?" he corrected himself, using Yuuna's most imperious voice, the one that always sounded like she was really asking, Who do you think you are to talk to me?
"Nice," the demon gloated. "I only meant— Well, you'll see for yourself soon enough."
Sota's anger flash-boiled. "Then maybe I won't devour Taniguchi Hayato for you, if you're going to hold something back! Wait, did you say that I was going to devour him?"
"I meant it as a technicality." The demon's voice was as greasy as molten butter. "Technically, you've been devouring all the students. I gave you the power to. But because I'm inside you, I've been siphoning off their meat and their souls and taking them for myself. I've been, well ... I've been sort of a parasite."
"Hmph. 'Sort of' is putting it as an understatement." Sota picked up his backpack and strode out of the bedroom. But he continued addressing the demon even with his lips pressed firmly shut. "Perhaps I'll devour one of my own without sharing it with you, and I'll see what it's like."
"You won't be able to," the demon chortled (a noise like blast furnace being shaken in an earthquake). "Demons can only devour mortals who are in their power. I could have devoured you after those fucking assholes summoned me, but I used the loophole they left me to devour them instead."
"What loophole?" Sota asked.
"They fucked up the ritual. When a summoner fucks up a ritual, the demon has his choice of obeying the summoner or of devouring him. Or her. Or them, in this case. That is why I cannot devour you. Because once you used my power to devour Sugawara Momoka, I was committed to devouring the rest of the Elite Funtime Club. Once you have devoured Hayato, and I have siphoned him off to collect what is due me, I will be able to leave. And I will. Not that it hasn't been fun, Sota, it has been a real blast of Hell. But as I told you a few days ago, I need to get back to the Infernal Pit before they start thinking they need to mount a rescue mission for me!"
"And when you're gone," Sota continued as he got into the back seat of the Lexus for the ride to school, "you will take your power with me and I won't be able to devour any more students?"
"No, you will still have the power. But a demon's powers can only be exercised against those who put themselves in the demon's power. You will— Well, you will see."
Sota felt a chill run up his spine.
* * * * *
"So, have you forgiven Akiko yet?" Hayato asked. Sota was already seated in Yuuna's first class of the day when he sauntered in. He grabbed and fondled Yuuna's ponytail.
Sota yanked it from his grasp and glared at him. "I haven't seen her yet. When I do, if she says the right words I will."
"What about me?" Hayato bent over to put his glinting eyes close to Yuuna's. "Remember who your betrothed is," he murmured through frozen lips, "and who expects you to marry him one day."
"You'll have to find better words than that," Sota retorted. "We need to have a club meeting to discuss things. There's a lot of air we have to clear. During lunch, down in the basement," he continued. "Where we cursed that little shit the other day."
Hayato snorted. "You can eat your lunch down there if you want."
"All of us will be there, Hayato." Sota blasted out a telepathic message to his puppets. "Do you want us making a club decision without the president?"
Hayato flushed. "Be that way then, you bitch. I'll be there too." He darted in and kissed Sota on the cheek. Sota cried out and slapped him away. But Hayato just laughed and threw himself into the desk opposite her, and stared back with an arrogant eye.
Over the next four periods, Sota schemed out ways of doing it. He wasn't fully satisfied when the bell rang for lunch, but he liked the idea enough that he didn't regret having to put it into practice.
As he approached the door to the basement, Sota saw Gorou-puppet stepping onto the topmost stair. At a thought from his master, the puppet turned back and held the door open. Sota swept past with a sniff.
Ugh! How greasy and dirty the basement was! He pulled in his arms and breathed through his mouth so as to keep the disgusting smells out of his nose. It was far uglier than he remembered it being, far uglier than when used to hide out in it before he was cursed. He shrank further inside himself as he entered the room where the cursing had been performed. It was a stale and rank-smelling room. It was cold, too, as though the fear and loathing that permeated the hallways above had sunk through the floor and condensed into a nauseating miasma. The smudged remnants of the circle, with the guttered candles, was still in evidence.
Good, thought Sota.
Akiko-puppet and Momoka-puppet were already present, and Gorou-puppet followed him in. That left only Hayato to come. Sota tapped his foot and frowned. The puppets flinched. Sota noticed, and relaxed, but they still looked at him warily.
"Akiko," Sota said, grasping at something to do to fill the minutes. "Is there something you want to tell me?" Sota tossed his long hair back.
"Yes, Yuuna," Akiko-puppet said in a humble tone. "I want to apologize to you."
"You already tried that!"
"I didn't apologize correctly, or for the proper thing. I apologize to you, Yuuna, for cheating on you with Ota Gorou, and for acting in such a way that I was obliged to. I also apologize for cheating on you with Sugawara Momoka."
Sota felt forgiveness well up in his heart, though it was an emotion that he knew was feigned and that left him laughing quietly. "Oh, Akiko," he gasped, "that is all I wanted to hear from you. I forgive you! Embrace me!" He opened up his arms. Akiko sprang into them, and she and Sota put their open mouths together.
They were interrupted by a slow clap. "Sexy!" a jeering voice called. "So very sexy!" Hayato stepped into the room, a leer spreading across his face. "I think I was wrong to try driving you two dykes apart. Akiko, promise to give me videos of everything you two do together, like you did with Momoka, and I'll never make trouble for you again! Now, is that what this club meeting is about?" He looked around with a curved lip. "So Gorou and I can watch a bunch of dykes getting it on?"
At a thought from Sota, all the puppets turned a cold glare on Hayato.
"We had a club meeting in your absence, Taniguchi Hayato," Sota informed him. "We've formed a new club. We're calling it the Make-Taniguchi-Hayato-Our-Bitch Club."
Hayato hooted, but Sota saw the change of light in the president's eye, and knew that a hairline crack had opened in his arrogant facade. "Do you know who our president is?" Sota asked him. "It's whatsisname."
"Who?"
"The boy you like to call whatsisname," Sota repeated. "Sano Sota."
Who? Hayato started to ask. Then his expression changed again, to show recognition. "That whiny little bitch we cursed into killing himself?" He guffawed.
"Sano Sota," said Momoka-puppet. "Sano Sota," said Gorou-puppet, and "Sano Sota," said Akiko-puppet. "He didn't kill himself," Sota said. "He just changed his appearance."
Hayato's brow furrowed. Sota gave him a moment to find something to ask.
And when the president of the Elite Funtime Club just rolled his eyes and snorted, Sota did as he had done with Yuuna. He grabbed the upper lip of his stolen face, and pulled it up and over his head.
Hayato's eyeballs popped open. He gasped, gabbled something unintelligible, and stumbled back on his feet.
Then he sprang for the doorway. "Catch him!" Sota yelled in his real voice.
Akiko-puppet was too slow, but Gorou-puppet grabbed Hayato by the hair as he ran by. The president squealed and stumbled. Gorou-puppet twisted him about and put him in a headlock.
Sota marched up to him with a smirk. He was about to address the white-faced Hayato when he had a better idea.
So grabbed his upper lip, and wrenched back the face of Sano Sota to show him the face beneath that one.
* * * * *
To continue investigating the room: "Disposing of Lucy"    indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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