- Now, let's begin.
Seven Crimes and Punishments is a short story (though really stretching the definition at multiple chapters long) in the Seven Deadly Sins of Evil/Clockwork Lullaby series of the Evillious Chronicles franchise. It was released in 2015 to buyers of the Seven Crimes and Punishments album’s limited edition, written by the Japanese producer Akuno-P (mothy) and illustrated by Ichika.
The story has heavy spoilers and gives several implications towards the eventual end of the Evillious Chronicles, while giving even more details about the Seven Deadly Sins series overall.
The story concerns Allen Avadonia of the Story of Evil, having spent the last five hundred years of his afterlife studying in the Heavenly Yard under the sun god of the world, Sickle. Now that the world has been destroyed because of the events in the Wrath arc, the Hellish Yard and Bolganio are merging and all the souls of the Heavenly Yard are quite literally dragged down to hell. It's now up to Allen to help Sickle fix things. To do that, he'll need to understand the history of Bolganio first.
To do that, he'll have to speak with the seven most important people possessed by the Vessels of Sin, each in their own illusory worlds in the Hellish Yard.
No relation to Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, though the title is likely inspired by it. Also unrelated to the 2014 Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments video game.
The short story contains examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: Riliane, famously considered the only one of the demon contractors to repent for what she did, is back to her spoiled princess ways in the Hellish Yard. She's the most jarring example, but all the sin characters act as though still possessed despite being free of their demons. A later novel expands on their behavior and shows that they have in fact learned to be better than in their previous lives, but it didn't exactly show in the small window Allen saw them in.
- Apocalypse How: The entire world's been destroyed by Punishment. Before the events of the book have even started, no less.
- Arc Words: More like an Arc Melody; "Lu li la" appears again at the end of the last chapter.
- Axe-Crazy: Margarita isn't hiding her true nature as Eve Moonlit anymore, and is easily the most deranged sin character Allen meets with—this is even next to Kayo. Although it becomes a bit sad when you find out in the Heavenly novel that it's Michelle, who had contracted with Eve and took on the appearance of Margarita.
- Big Damn Heroes: A couple times in the story Hansel, of all people, comes to Allen's rescue at key moments with some of the more dangerous sin characters.
- Book Ends: The prologue and epilogue both feature excerpts from the Levin Bible that are relevant to the story as a whole, followed by Sickle greeting Allen within the Black Box.
- Cliffhanger: The story ends with Allen, having stolen the Golden Key from Nemesis, planning to go down to the earth one more time to meet Riliane and then try to give everything "a new beginning".
- Deadpan Snarker: As always, Allen.
- Easily Forgiven: Venomania; not by everyone, at least, but the main four of his harem don't seem to hold too strong a grudge against him for what he did (save for Maylis, who clarifies that she does, in fact, hate him even as she's willingly remaining in his harem.)
- Emotionally Tongue-Tied: Gretel, having the collective memories of her past lives, thinks to try and apologize to Allen for killing Michaela as Ney—in the end, she's unable to actually say it.
- Empty Shell: Kayo stops being responsive after going to receive "judgment" and never quite snaps out of it; she shows no emotion when she's taken to the guillotine in Gallerian's court and aside from moving when told to do so, does not react to any external stimuli, only barely acknowledging the Master of the Hellish Yard when she speaks to her.
- Enemy Mine: The Demons of Sin, who had previously caused so much havoc in the Third Period, are now working with the sun god to save it; Allen can't help but note the irony.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: In the end Nemesis was killed by Punishment after she tried to destroy the “hell” called Evillious. Or at least, that's what Allen believes.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Hansel. While he's still working for Banica, he's Allen's main ally for the better part of the book, saves his life twice and shows signs of developing a friendship with him. While he states mostly doing this to kill his free time, there might be more to it.
- Heroic BSoD: Allen suffers a breakdown in Gallerian's illusory courtroom, screaming when he sees Kayo about to be executed at the guillotine—the same way he was killed—and breaking down completely when Gallerian decides to have him take her place as payment for sparing her. His narration becomes far more broken and he's almost unable to comprehend what's happening.
- Identical Stranger: With all the identical strangers put together in the Hellish Yard the theme is turned up to eleven, especially when Allen meets three other boys that look like him: Hansel, Irregular, and the boy of Punishment.
- To a lesser extent, Michelle who was posing as Margarita both look similar.
- Info Dump: Allen provides one at the start of almost every chapter to explain who each of the sinners are. While most of this is just recapping, the ones on Kayo and Nemesis provide new information.
- Kangaroo Court: Once again in the Hellish Yard Gallerian is running a corrupt courtroom, punishing other souls of the Hellish Yard unless he’s paid.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: While being careful not to give away the spoilers of the upcoming novels, despite focusing on the end of Evillious, the novel also is careful to keep secret the spoilers of some previous Deadly Sins of Evil novels, in particular Venomania's past being touched on only slightly and Margarita's true nature only hinted.
- Magical Guide: The Demons of Sin all serve this role for Allen in one chapter or another, each with their own degrees of helpfulness. Clarith also serves this role when stopping Margarita, but it's subverted in that she doesn't know what to do, she's just expecting Allen to.
- Multiple Endings: A non-videogame example; the Levin Bible, at least, asserts that there are four possible endings to the world, each corresponding to the four Masters—essentially two bad ends, one arguably good ending, and one Golden Ending.
- Precision F-Strike: Hansel says that everyone's "a son of a bitch" in the Wrath chapter after meeting Nemesis; downplayed because the phrase was a direct quote from the Master of the Hellish Yard song.
- Spirit World: The Hellish Yard merged with Bolganio becomes the spirit world for everyone, and becomes increasingly bizarre as the story goes on.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The twins Hansel and Gretel are able to change their shape to appear like their multiple incarnations. The Demon of Envy is also capable of this. Michelle is also able to take on the appearance of Margarita once she contracts with Eve.
- Walking the Earth: Before the end of the world, contractors of the Demons of Sin were the only souls barred from entry into the Heavenly Yard, and so most were fated to either go to the Hellish Yard or wander the Third Period.
- Wham Episode: The Wrath chapter. Turns out that, against all implications, Allen and Irregular are not the same individual. And there's another boy with Allen's appearance, Punishment, the boy Nemesis used to destroy the world, around as well.
- The Greed chapter for a similar reason. The Master of the Hellish Yard is not Nemesis. She's Gumillia.
- Wham Line: When speaking to the Master of the Hellish Yard (a different one from Nemesis), she says a certain phrase.Master of the Hellish Yard: —Honorifics. Use honorifics with your elders.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Allen, who has spent the majority of his afterlife wanting to see his sister again, doesn't quite get to reunite with her in the Pride chapter—she’s always preoccupied, running away from something, or Allen just has to leave quickly to continue his journey. He ends the story still hoping to see her again before he tries to fix everything.
