First meetings

Chapter 10: Dance battle, go!

A loud crash resounds through the dormitory kitchen, followed by sounds that were similar to fireworks flying through the halls. Solomon, who was beside Tetora, peeks out from under the table. "It's done!" He scrambles out and takes off the lid of the pot which had surprisingly not been blown to pieces. There is an odd aura in the air that Tetora noticed was somehow coming from the pot. By odd he meant a 'Don't eat me or you'll die!!' kind of aura which was different from the usual 'I'm okay to eat, just a little burnt!' from what he normally cooks. He shuffles out from under the table to move beside Solomon. He hears Hinata and Asmodeus come out too and sit at their seats. When he takes a look at the pot, he suddenly understands why he felt that way. The 'food' Solomon had cooked looked as though he had grabbed every single thing in the kitchen and stuffed it all into a pot, including inedible things like a random fish bone, he might as well have tossed parts of an intergalactic monster in as well!

"I am missing some ingredients that don't exist here so it may not taste the same as it normally does," Solomon sighs a little upset and sets down the pot in the middle of the table. Hinata flinches a little in surprise as he looks up from his phone and sees the contents of the pot. Asmodeus looks like he's trying to stay calm but he was doing a really bad job of it as Tetora can see him not so subtly glancing around for a way out of this situation.

At the perfect timing, Niki walks into the kitchen, most likely looking for an afternoon snack. "Mmm, what's in that pot?" He glances over at the pot and cringes when the smell hits his nose. "Hmm, I'm just gonna go back to my dorm and cook something foorrr... Rinne, yeah, Rinne-kun! I'll see you guys around.." He quickly backtracks his way out of the kitchen at the speed of Mitsuru on his way to try a new flavor of bread. "That was fast," Solomon says after Niki leaves the premises, "Are you two hungry?" He points the ladle that he had grabbed earlier at him and Hinata. They both shake their heads with all the energy they can muster to get the point across to the sorcerer. Solomon shrugs. He looks over to Asmodeus and points the ladle at him as if asking him 'Want some?'. Asmodeus seems like he's mentally crying because he couldn't refuse his boyfriend. Solomon prepares 2 bowls and hands one to Asmo with a spoon. Tetora watches as Solomon grabs a spoonful and eats it. The trio grimace as they watch Solomon eat his bowl of 'god knows what' with vigor. Tetora and Hinata look at eachother and make a silent agreement. They both sneak out of the room as quietly as possible and leave Asmodeus to his demise. Asmodeus gives them an extremely dramatic look of betrayal.

(Rip Asmodeus, he lived a beautiful, sexy life)

"WAaa!" Shinobu almost falls face first onto the floor. What did he trip on? A pillow? Oh, it was a person. Were they dead?? Shinobu walks over quietly, in case they were sleeping. He pokes them on the shoulder and hears the person groan and shuffle a bit. He lets out a sigh of relief. He was about to get up when he felt a tug on his leg and fully fell over into a very tight hug. He attempts to squirm out of the deathgrip but they just squeeze him tighter. So he's just gonna stay here now and hope someone finds him or the guy wakes up.

It took 3 hours for the guy to wake up. Shinobu's bones should have gotten used to bear hugs by now from all of Chiaki's bear hugs. But this guy, who he now remembers as Belphegor, squeezed him as if he were a stress toy. "Sorry." Is all he mumbles sleepily as he walks away as though he didn't almost choke someone to death and have them miss three hours on the first day of school. Shinobu checks his D.D.- y'know what, he's just going to call it a phone, much easier to say. It was around lunch now so he should be headed to the cafeteria. Where was that again? Oh well, he can just walk around and hopefully bump into someone he knows. Or he could follow Belphegor but he doesn't remember where he went.

He decides to try and follow where Belphegor went but the hallways were a hot mess to navigate. As he turns the corner, he harshly bumps into another person. "Sorry, de gozaru!" He apologizes quickly. The other person though, a demon he can tell, doesn't seem to hear him and instead takes interest in his height for some reason?. "Hm? Another human?" They grin. "It's so small, it's kinda cute!" another demon squeals, attempting to pinch his cheeks to which he squirms away from. Now they're finding him cute, he really wants to leave now. "Maybe to the point that I could just eat you up!" a third demon interjects. Aannd that's his cue to leave. The demons block him off from escaping. "Y'know, I'm kinda hungry now that I think about it.." The first demon says. "Maybe a little snack'll fill me up!" The demons lick their lips. Shinobu is practically frozen now, what should he do? He remembers vaguely something that was said at the meeting, something about a speed dial in case they were in danger. Right, his phone! He pulls it out and taps on the app that looks like a phone and taps the speed dial button.

Almost instantly, three people poof into existence. Shinobu recognizes them as Satan, Beelzebub, and Belphegor. The three demons that were ready to eat Shinobu back away and he's pretty sure he hears one of them say "Oh Diavolo, not again..".

"Hm, it's been a while since we've done this." Satan comments idly while doing stretches(?).

"I mean, Mc doesn't really get good cards of us so it makes sense why we don't come out that often." Beelzebub says with a mouthful of, was that a cheeseburger?

"So that's why I keep hearing them scream 'Why won't you come home, dammit!' from the attic." Belphegor yawns.

"Is the music ready?"

"Yep." the twins say at the same time.

And then Shinobu proceeds to watch a dance battle break out directly in front of him.

By the time the dance battle was nearing its end, a large crowd had formed, cheering the brothers on. It seemed that this was a normal occurrence as no one was taking any videos as if this was the thousandth time this had happened. Some of them even had glow sticks and were waving them around. Shinobu was having trouble watching as he had gotten squished in between a few people but he was able to see that they were great at dancing. His eyes scan over the crowd and he sees the vice president of Cospro, Ibara, typing notes onto his phone while glancing at the dance battle. He was probably thinking of ways to hire them into Cospro.

He turns his attention back to the dance battle to see that it had ended. The crowd started to thin out and the losing demons fled the scene leaving a few people from ES and the three brothers who didn't look very fatigued, except for Belphegor, he was already sleeping on his twins shoulder. Sort of reminds him of his senpai in knights, Ritsu, who was being carried by Mao.

He didn't realize there were a few people staring before Satan said out of the blue, "You look very similar to Belphegor."

In a few minutes, they wake Belphegor up and put them as a side by side comparison. It seemed that there were a few students passing by that had taken pictures of the comparison as the very next day, there was a blowup on the new tag of #BelphegorLookalike and propaganda about Belphegor's new twin.