CHAPTER SIX - CRAZY RAIN ARC - SLOTH

With one final slash, the insectoid demon's torso is sliced into pieces. Its lower body erupts into a fountain of blood and falls to the ground.

A young Riru lets down her blade, taking heavy breaths. She lifts the mouth-like mask off her face and unveils a twisted smile.

She continues to stab the corpse of her foe over and over again. 

 "That was crazy. Do you realize what we've just done?!" panics Raz, the razorblades on his arms sinking back into his flesh. 

"This is warlord Bael's domain, you know! And we just, like, waltzed right in!"

"We did! And we won!" Des loudly proclaims, thumping a fist against his chest. 

"We won... you're right! We won! Hahaha!" Raz seems to come to a realization as a look of elation spreads across his face. 

Suddenly, his expression sinks.

"We're so dead, aren't we..?"

"BWAHAHA! Definitely!"

"You're not supposed to agree!"

Des has a serious look in his eyes.

"We wanna prove ourselves, and that's what we did. The Princes of Hell only respond to strength, and we're gonna make them listen!"

 Riru, now satisfied with her victory, walks over to join the two. Des confidently looks off into the distance.

"And with this... we're one step closer to getting our names."

Raz has a soft look on his face.

"...Yeah. You're right. We just gotta keep at it, huh?"

He flashes a genuine smile.

"I'll do whatever I can!"

"I will too!"

"Huh?"

The two look over at Riru as she makes her proclamation.

"I'll do what I can too... to help you guys." she says with a blank expression.

"BWAHAHA! Thanks! But come on, be honest with yourself!"

Des grins at her.

"You just wanna kill, don't you?"

...

The other two laugh while Riru stands watching, confused. Reaching into depths of her being, she desperately manages to force out a laugh too.

"Haha!"

Suddenly, a sharp pang rings against her brain.

"Agh!"

She collapses onto her knees, and the sound of her blade dropping against the rocky terrain echoes across the cavern. She grabs the side of her head, wincing in pain.

Another horn shoots out from the gaping hole in her head that her blade once emerged from.

It keeps growing. and growing. 

"AAAAGGGGHHH!"

She grabs the horn, using all her strength to try and shove it back down into the depths of her cranium.

The force is too strong. As if it has a mind of its own, the horn rips itself out of Riru's head as a torrent of blood explodes from the hole left behind.

A dark silhouette of a devil emerges along with it. 

The figure, its body now fully exposed, crawls across the ground. It has long, unkempt hair with a single large horn jutting out from its head. Drool drips from under the hair obscuring its face as it slowly stands up.

Lifting its head reveals it to be a near identical copy of Riru, but with a giant gaping mouth in place of her face. 

"Agh... huh?"

Looking up as she recovers from the pain, Riru meets the doppelganger's gaze. Her eyes widen.

"What?! What's going-"

She turns around to face Des and Raz, only to find their bodies twisted, mangled, and cut apart with a pool of blood spilling out from underneath them.

In an instant, the space surrounding Riru and the figure disappears. Sound, sight, and smell; each of her senses cease to exist with a single exception for the unknown being standing in front of her. 

"They avert their gaze and silence the noise..."

The voice seems to emanate from the doppelganger’s open jaws, but it feels as if its piercing deep past Riru's physical body and into her soul. 

"...In a hollow rejection of sloth."

The other Riru grabs its horn and rips it out, revealing a long blade identical to Riru's.

Riru looks down at her hand, only to notice she's holding a blade of her own.

Without wasting a single second, her replica lunges at her, pointing its blade straight towards its prey. 

Riru deflects with the sharp sound of scraping metal. Their blades parry, again and again, as the two's movements almost seem to mimic each other.

Finally, the other Riru thrusts its blade forward, softly grazing Riru's face. A drop of blood falls from her cheek. 

"Happiness and denial, acceptance and dishonesty..."

Once again, the voice reverberates from the pitch black abyss from within the other Riru's cavernous maw. 

"You crave them both."

Riru ducks under the blade, knocking away her opponent with a kick.

She swings with upward momentum, and the other Riru just barely evades with a backflip.

"You are nothing... but an endless hunger."

Using the impact of her fall, the other Riru springs off the ground, darting towards her opponent with a low sweep. Riru evades with a jump, swinging her blade down below her.

The other Riru turns its head around, clenching its jaws onto the incoming blade.

With a forceful bite, the blade shatters into pieces.

The creature's body twists and contorts, slamming one of its legs into Riru's body with a powerful impact. She tumbles across the empty space. 

"Let it all out. It's okay to give in."

The other Riru continues its relentless attacks, while Riru deflects with nothing but her own body. Her arm flies off, and she quickly draws a sigil to regenerate it.

Next, her leg.

Then, another arm.

Riru's severed limbs continue to fly off her frail, battered body with sprays of blood as she uses every spare second to repair herself over and over again. 

Finally, with the last of her strength, she grabs onto the other Riru's arm with her bare hands, ripping it from its torso.

She takes its blade for herself, and without hesitation, stabs it straight through the figure's stomach. 

And yet, it continues to speak. 

"You want them to see it all."

Riru's severed limbs are scattered across the dark and ethereal space.

"Your flesh, your bones, your blood."

Riru ruthlessly slashes at the body of her imitator in a desperate attempt to cut it to pieces.

"Maybe once you finally peel back all those layers of filth..."

She keeps cutting. And cutting. And cutting. And cutting. The figure has been reduced to a bloody mass of innards and bone, its mouth no longer visible.

And yet...

"Once you show them who you truly are..."

Riru interrupts the voice with a scream.

"JUST..."

SLASH!

"FUCKING..."

SLASH!

"..DIE ALREADY!!!!!!!!"

STAB!

...

She haggardly breathes as her blade sticks out from the pile of ravaged flesh.

...

"Maybe then, they'll want to kill you."

She is now able to identify the voice as her own.

Below her is no longer a mass of blood and flesh, but simply the other Riru's lifeless body, her face now restored from the gaping mouth that once took its place.

Touching a hand against her own face, the cold and hard touch of porcelain rubs against Riru's fingertips. A mouth-shaped mask obscures her tears. 

"It's you, right? Hey, are you okay?!"

Fukuzaki runs over in a panic, holding Riru's shoulders from behind. 

"Stop it! Please, just get away from me!"

Riru pushes Fukuzaki in a feeble attempt to send her back into the darkness from which she emerged.

"Please, just... go..." her voice cracks. 

Suddenly, she notices. The other Riru's corpse who once lay lifeless on the ground is no longer there.

She spots the glint of a sharp blade behind Fukuzaki.

"H-Hey, watch out!"

She tackles Fukuzaki, moving her out of the way a second before the blade can slash down upon the two. The other Riru emerges from the darkness.

"Do you really want to protect her?" it mocks.

"You know how she feels about you."

Riru looks up, her expression hidden under her mask. 

A single memory pops up from the darkness of her mind. An image of Fukuzaki and her friends exiting the photo booth while laughing. Only for a second, her eyes meet Riru's.

The other Riru is now gone, and the voice comes instead from Fukuzaki. The two stand alone in the lobby of the arcade. 

"You're awkward, and stupid, and it's easy to tell you what to do. But hey, that can be funny sometimes, right? Why not bring you along, if only for a few laughs? It's not like it really matters."

Riru looks off to the side.

"I-I know. You don't have to tell me. I know, but still, I-"

"Thinking about it now, you probably knew how he felt too, didn't you?"

The space around the two warps, and Riru now suddenly finds herself hidden in the janitor closet at Yamabuki High.

Staring back at her, his face just a few inches away, is Mitsugi.

"I love you."

Riru couldn't control what came out of her mouth. It couldn't be described as anything but instinct. 

"I..." Mitsugi stammers.

Riru stares deeply into his eyes, and for only a moment, she sees something she never saw before. Or maybe something she simply she tried to forget.

The slightest hint of fear in his eyes.

Mitsugi smiles and speaks.

"Maybe that's why you killed me. So you didn't have to hear it."

Riru now sits in a puddle of guts, torn pierces of Mitsugi's body lying scattered around her. Blood is smeared across the mouth painted onto her pure white mask. 

The floor opens beneath them, and Riru falls into an empty black abyss.

The other Riru walks towards her, now taking on the appearance of her younger self, wearing blood red robes with perfectly straight hair.

It looks down at Riru, curled up in a fetal position on the ground.

...

"I... am a devil."

Riru manages to force out these few words.

"I’ve fought. And I’ve killed."

Her voice wavers.

"And I’ve hurt so many people. I'm sorry."

The mask falls off her face, revealing her tears.

"I'm so sorry..."

"You need not be ashamed," her younger self speaks. "Embrace the truth. Cast off your filth."

It stares at her with a lifeless look in its eyes.

"Live, and be slothful."

"But I..."

Riru continues. 

"I don't wanna hurt anyone."

The other Riru's expression is unchanging. 

"Misaki, Inuyama... Fukuzaki... I don't care if they like me or not. I wanna protect them."

Riru slowly gets up.

Emotionless, her other self kicks her to the ground.

Riru cries out.

"Is there really something so wrong with that?!"

...

She looks down, catching her breath.

...

"...You're right about me. I don't think I'll ever be satisfied."

The other Riru kicks her again in the gut.

"I want to fight. And I want to live. I want someone to love me, and... I wish I knew how to love someone else."

She takes another kick, but gets back up on her knees.

She shouts.

"I'm not good at it, but I'm really, really trying! And I’m not just gonna give up now!”

Finally, something inside the other Riru changes. Her eyes are lit with a burning anger.

She kicks her other self in the face with all her might. Riru recoils in pain.

...

But still, she continues.

"I guess... I'm just too selfish."

She picks up the mask, lifting it high above her head. The other Riru desperately reaches out to grab it.

"I don't wanna choose, between other people and me."

She throws it down with all her might, and it shatters.

...

"I... am gluttony."

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Riru is battered by fierce winds as she aimlessly drifts high up in the atmosphere.

Her giant horn appears to have shrunken down to its normal size. Another smaller horn erupts out from the other side of her head. Her eyes glow with a blazing yellow light.

Giant batlike wings erupt from her back, tearing open her flesh. In an instant, she spreads her wings with a powerful force, and millions of tiny droplets of blood shoot out into the air. Her long, sharp teeth extend from her gums as her jaws unhinge and her mouth falls agape.

Before her floats a colossal being.

Belphegor, one of the seven Princes of Hell.

Though massive, its torso resembles that of a human, and its arms are outstretched to each side. Two severed devil heads hang from each arm and its ribs pierce out from under its skin. Rather than having a face, sixteen twisting horns cover every corner of its head. 

The lower half of its body is nearly incomprehensible. A hulking, twisting mass of tentacles, too many for one to count. Each curls and undulates at a different rhythm, hypnotic in their unpredictable movements. A water-like substance drips from the creature onto the surface of the Earth thousands of feet below. 

Riru opens her mouth even wider, digging into her throat and pulling out a long, horn-like blade from within. 

In a flash, she zooms down towards the mass of appendages.

She flies slightly above one of the tentacles, letting down her blade and using her momentum to cut a giant, gaping wound across its entire length. 

Zigzagging across the tentacles from every direction, she slowly manages to slice her way towards the main body.

She grabs ahold of one tentacle, holding it tight enough to stop it from moving, and rips it from the body of the massive devil.

A loud scream pounds at her skull from inside her brain.

She lifts the tentacle above her head, shoving it down into the endless depths between her jaws. 

Blood spills through her teeth.

Thousands of tentacles instantly spring up from the twisting mass beneath Riru, flying towards her at a blinding speed.

She quickly and fluidly spins around her blade, creating a fan-like effect that shreds the tentacles into bloody ribbons.

She grasps the blade tightly with both hands, dashing straight towards Belphegor's body.

The horns on its head shift across its flesh, making room for a crevice in its face from which a single large eyeball peeks out. 

"Your hunger will never be satisfied," a voice booms within Riru's mind.

More of the thick, twirling tentacles are thrown her way, though each of them are swiftly cut down by her blade.

"You will devour, until there is nothing left."

Flying up towards Belphegor's torso, she cleanly cuts off his arms in two quick slashes.

"You are empty. Embrace the truth."

"I told you, you're right," responds Riru.

...

"But I don't just wanna leave things that way. I wanna learn..."

With one final stab, her blade pierces straight through the creature's single eye. 

"...How to love."

The screams from within her brain seem to engulf every part of her psyche. 

Belphegor's body folds over backwards, and the swelling movement of his tentacles slowly comes to a halt.

"Come on, be honest with yourself."

The voice speaks its final words.

"...You just wanna fuck, don't you?"

...

"Huh?"

Belphegor's body disintegrates into ash, the effect rippling across its body from the tips of its tentacles. 

The eyeball is the last part to go, boldly staring into Riru's soul until the very end.

As the gigantic entity disappears, the sun shines out from within the clouds once again. 

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The rain, now dyed red with the blood of the giant devil, finally comes to a stop as the clouds part.

A tentacle falls from above, crashing down onto a nearby apartment complex and completely leveling it.

Another falls onto a busy intersection. Then another. Then another.

Shortly after, they all crumble to dust. 

Though the constant downpour had come to an end, the sky remains dark. 

Fukuzaki peeks up from the platform she's hiding under. The crazed Misaki and Inuyama, as if finally freed from a curse, lose consciousness.

The rampaging people throughout the streets all collapse onto the ground.

Michael, Lucy, and Sandalphon, once fighting amidst the chaos, are taken aback by the sudden tranquility. They look up to the clouds.

"My word..." Michael smiles unflinchingly.

"This shift in resonance... it could bring me to tears," Sandalphon proclaims.

"Just glad we don't have to deal with it," scoffs Lucy.

The black silhouette of a horned, winged devil blocks out the sun. 

Riru, floating high in the air, begins having difficulty breathing. Her wings and horns shrink back down into her body.

Overcome by a sudden fatigue, her consciousness fades, and she falls.

...

...

...

A sudden impact.

"Agh! Got you!"

Holding her in her arms is none other than Fukuzaki.

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Just a few minutes later, the dark clouds return, and rain covers the city once again. This time, however, it was by completely natural means.

Fukuzaki sits on the edge of the rooftop. Riru, along with Misaki and Inuyama, lay unconscious below her. 

Finally, Riru awakens.

"Riru, you're-!"

Fukuzaki smiles, then hesitates.

"Need..."

The sluggishness infecting Riru still hasn't completely disappeared. 

"Riru, is everything okay?!" Fukuzaki panics.

"...Ramen..."

Fukuzaki smiles.

"I guess you're still you.."

Riru looks up at her before suddenly widening her eyes. After a second, she averts her eyes, a sense of dread overwhelming her. 

"Did you, um, see..." she cuts herself off.

Fukuzaki doesn't respond.

...

"So... you're a devil, huh?"

An empty silence fills the air. Riru looks ashamed.

"I'm so sorry..."

…

"You’re not like any devil I've ever seen, that's for sure."

She gives Riru a quiet look.

"We all would've died if it wasn't for you."

From an indescribable feeling deep in her chest, tears well up in Riru's eyes.

For whatever reason, she can't quite get herself to speak.

Fukuzaki continues.

"You wanted to keep it a secret, huh? I can see why."

"...Yeah."

The two sit in silence.

After what feels like a full minute, Fukuzaki speaks.

"I... am Belphegor."

"Huh?"

Riru looks confused. 

Fukuzaki casts her eyes down.

"And my little brother, Kou, he's… he's in the hospital. I don't know if he's gonna make it out."

Her voice quivers. 

“It’s all my fucking fault. I dragged him out to go the festival that night. I wasn't watching him, and-"

She punches the ledge.

"Fuck! God damn it!"

She breathes heavily.

"I gotta help him, somehow. I dunno what I'm gonna do, but I, I just..."

She catches her breath.

"I don't know if I can forgive myself."

...

"But... I guess we're even now."

...

"Riru?"

She looks over at Riru, who has tears streaming down her face.

"Hey, hey, what the hell are you crying for?"

Riru can't get herself to respond.

Finally, a few words make their way out.

"I am Belphegor."

..

"And I… I ate..."

Suddenly, she hesitates for a moment. She wipes her tears and smiles.

...

"...Nevermind."

Fukuzaki looks at her, confused, before softly smiling back.

The two look off into the distance as a few rays of light peek through the parting clouds.

LOVE X DEVIL

CRAZY RAIN ARC - END