Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 10 - Chapter 2

THE HERO DANCES ON THE BATTLEFIELD 
Amid the chill yet supremely awkward atmosphere, Albert glared at the dust around his feet as he followed Suzuno. 
“Hey,” he said, “did you know there was someplace like this in Heavensky?” 
“I had some intelligence on it, yes.” 
“Intelligence… Oh, that?” 
“I am part of the ‘fanatical dark side,’ remember? You know just as well as I do, Albert, that half the missionaries serve as secret agents sent out by Sankt Ignoreido, unafraid to stake their lives for the sake of our god. So they do just that, risking their necks to send intelligence back to the capital.” 
“Yeah, but man, talk about a find! How much time and manpower does it take to do something like this?” 
The two of them were walking down an underground passage—and not a normal one. It was part of the catacombs, the subterranean passageways that served both as crypts for the dead and as alternate paths beneath the castle walls that crisscrossed Heavensky all the way out to the agricultural districts. Under the light of the magical illumination Suzuno had crafted from her hands, the path was quiet, immobile and frozen in time except for the dust they were kicking up. 
“In case of a national emergency, the Azure Emperor is to be taken through a specific route in these catacombs to the Cloud Retreat in Heavensky. It has never been used for that, but the Regal Azure Scarves have all their stations underground in here, in order to keep them classified and ready if the worst happens.” 
Albert shrugged as he followed Suzuno, who was keeping a close eye on her surroundings as she unerringly navigated the twisting passages. 
“Funny to think of a Church official talking about ‘classified’ information from Efzahan and all that.” 
Suzuno nodded in agreement. “Well, the entire idea behind it is a farce. If the Azure Emperor was actually forced to use these crypts to escape, it would mean the empire of Efzahan was essentially no more. If he would ever willingly abandon the capital of an empire so rife with the seeds of conflict as this one, his power would crumble in an instant. That is both the reason why these catacombs must exist, and why they must never see actual use. Thus, their existence is both classified and out in the open. Parts of the network are even visited by tourists in search of the tombs of the pre-Efzahan kings.” 
“Ooh, yeah, I heard about that. Some of the passages under the eastern walls are giant graves for the old dynasties ’n’ things, right? Is that what we’re in? Whether it’s a public secret or not, if we can get in this easily, wouldn’t this be a perfect base for rebels?” 
“Indeed. That is why the Regal Azure Scarves, the group closest to the emperor, is responsible for managing them.” 
They had entered this catacomb through an Eight Scarves station on the dividing line of the capital’s merchant district. One wouldn’t normally expect that to serve as an access point for the general public, but the soldiers normally securing the checkpoint weren’t there at all, leaving it wide open. It couldn’t have been a trap—there were over a hundred of these stations lining the walls in Efzahan, and considering Heavensky was still unaware of them, the idea of contriving such an elaborate ruse for an enemy they didn’t know to exist seemed impossible. 
“And that is only the Regal Azure Scarves,” Suzuno continued. “Soldiers ranked Inlain Jade or below, even if they are aware of the catacombs, would never know the correct route to the Cloud Retreat.” 
Although known collectively as the Eight Scarves, the knights in Efzahan’s service were subject to a strict pecking order. The Regal Azures up top, and the Inlain Crimsons on the bottom, were often so far removed from each other that even conversation between them was taboo. 
“Wait,” a confused Albert interjected. “So how do you know the way, then? I don’t care how many moles you Church people have; if only the Regal Azures know about this…” 
He was stopped by an icy stare Suzuno shot him over her shoulder. No longer was this the friendly Suzuno Kamazuki whom Emilia relied upon in Japan. 
“You cannot see it, Albert?” said the former highest-ranking official in the Council of Inquisitors, the tyrant known as the Scythe of Death. She flashed a light smile, turned back around, and kept going. “Exactly when these passages were built underneath this metropolis, I cannot say. But tread along the same paths for a few hundred years or so, and they will start to look quite rutted to you.” 
“Oh?” 
“It would be quite unlikely to have concrete information on pathways that were never meant to be discovered. But look around us. It is much safer to use magic-driven illumination in caverns like these instead of fire—the Regal Azure forces are packed with talented sorcerers. And if a pathway’s been lit by magical light over years and years, it could hardly be easier for me to spot it.” 
“…Well, huh. Impressive.” 
It was then that Albert realized that Suzuno’s feet were making no sound whatsoever as she moved. He could only hear his own footsteps echoing in the chamber. It reminded him all over again that this was no rank-and-file Church cleric he was traveling with. 
After a moment, something else occurred to him: 
“So how come we aren’t seein’ any Regal Azure men in here?” 
“…” 
“There’s gotta be some people in the volunteer force who’re high up enough in nobility to know the way through here. They might even use this path to stage their attack. And whether the Razures left in Heavensky are gonna side with them or with Alciel, the fact is that there ain’t a soul down here besides us. You don’t find that odd?” 
“Indeed. I do not know the reason for it…but if you think about it, the Eight Scarves post we used to access these catacombs was empty as well. Ever since I set foot in Efzahan, those forces have been acting rather strangely in my eyes. Soldiers are not posted where they should be. Instead they are being sent away from the capital, into the outlying areas where they are hardly needed.” 
Suzuno recalled the Regal Crimson Scarves patrol she ran into on the way to Honpha. 
“The capital has to know by now that the volunteer force is coming for them. They must have a reason to position their forces where they are. Whatever it is, it certainly suits our needs right now. We need to take full advantage of it.” 
She floated her light ahead of her a bit and let out a soft groan. 
“If we can see the goal in front of us, we need to keep pressing forward. Even if it lands us in the tiger’s den.” 
“Yeah…” 
Presently, the two came upon an enormous gate that was just ever-so-slightly ajar, like a predator hiding its fangs. Beyond it was a stairway that extended upward to parts unknown. They paused for a moment to scope it out. No demons or Regal Azure soldiers were about. 
“Let’s go. Do not fall behind me.” 
Dimming her light down to a faint glow, Suzuno shot up the stairs like a gust of wind, ascending its full length in short order. Albert faithfully followed, although the lack of traps or guards along this stairway that seemed to go on for hundreds of steps unnerved him. Once they were up, they were in another corridor, lightless and of the same build as where they’d come from. It wasn’t a very long one, and on the far end was a plain, unadorned wall. 
“You think that’s a revolving door or somethin’?” 
“No. Above us. Lend me your shoulder for a moment, Sir Albert.” 
“Above us? …Whoa, wait a minute!” 
Without bothering to wait for a reply, Suzuno hopped up and planted her feet squarely on Albert’s shoulders. 
“Is this what ‘lending a shoulder’ means in Japan?” Albert complained as Suzuno peered at the ceiling. 
“It is so helpful to have a man helping me at times like these.” 
“I ain’t a stepladder, y’know! What’re you even doing?” 
Albert tried to look up at Suzuno’s hands, her flowing robes guarding him from any accusations of peeping. 
“Keep your legs braced.” 
“Huh? Erf…!” 
Suddenly, he felt a great weight upon his shoulders. 
“Nnhh… Oof!” 
Suzuno’s heels dug into him. He did his best to stand strong, and as he did, Suzuno let out a low grunt of effort that didn’t seem to match her light form at all. The dust around Albert’s feet lifted into the air, and then light began to come down from the ceiling. 
“…Ah. So the entrance to the hidden passage was in the ceiling, then, not the wall?” 
“It seems to be the case, yes. Lift me up, could you? Then I will pull you up.” 
As instructed, Albert pushed Suzuno’s body above his head. In a moment, she had an arm dangling down to pick him up—something she did with seemingly no effort, despite how thin her limbs were. 
Once he was through, Albert found himself in a fairly roomy chamber that seemed to be a sort of changing room. It was dark, simply because it was dark outside—Suzuno and Albert had been underground for most of the day. Still, thick candles were all they had to gauge the room with. There were mirrors on the wall, oaken chairs with ornate designs on them carved by some master woodworker, and a separate small dresser with a mirror on top. The walls featured paintings of natural scenes done in brilliant pigments and even a bit of gold leaf. Anyone would assume that the room belonged to someone in nobility. The light, sweet smell that pervaded the air might have been perfume, or incense. 
“What kind of room is this, then?” 
Albert was hardly lowborn, but he had never been one for luxury, either. He asked the question out of sheer curiosity, then quickly regretted it. 
“A privy, I would imagine.” 
“A…what?” 
He looked down at the hand he had just used to touch the floor earlier. 
“Like a toilet?” 
“Seems so.” 
Albert started looking around the room, suddenly flustered. “Well… Well, I dunno much about how the nobility around here live, but how could anyone relax in a bathroom as big as this one? And…um, where would they do it?” 
He had assumed it was a changing room or something, but no—it was a bathroom. And it seemed to be lacking the one thing any bathroom needs. 
“…Is it that thing?” 
He looked to Suzuno for confirmation as he pointed at an object in the corner, a box-shaped silver compartment situated lower than the rest of the room. 
“Pure silver, if I had to guess,” Suzuno reported. “I could hardly imagine the work and expense to keep that clean. Alciel would be shocked.” 
“What’s a secret passage doing in here, though…?” 
“When you are building a castle, it is vital that only a limited number of people know where the secret passages are. That is why you often find them in baths, or privies, or within the sewers—areas where extra space next to a room would not raise any eyebrows on the blueprints, but are never accessed on a regular basis.” 
“Well, yeah, but how many people are gonna be opening up the floors of their bathrooms, normally?” 
“The passage below us is connected by the ceiling instead of a revolving door in order to trick intruders into believing they have reached a dead end, I would imagine. There might have been another exit elsewhere besides this one, of course, but this is the path we have found, I suppose.” 
“Oof… Rough.” 
Albert couldn’t articulate exactly what was rough, but that was the only way he could put his feelings into words. 
“Nothing to worry about. This privy is obviously meant for nobility. Hardly the kind of thing peasants in the Western Island would use. I am sure the floor is polished regularly.” 
“Yeah, I hope so.” 
Albert gave another sad look at his palms as Suzuno put her ear on the door leading out of the room. 
“Hmm.” 
“What is it?” 
“…Rather strange place, this.” 
“Strange?” 
“I am detecting a large amount of demonic force, right alongside a barrier of holy magic. Do you feel anything a little above your head?” 
“Hmm…” Albert looked at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and quickly nodded. “Oh, you’re right. Wanna check it out?” 
“I doubt it is Alciel, but demonic force and a holy barrier so close together have to be there for a reason. It would be worth examination.” 
“True, but we’re definitely gonna be runnin’ into some Eight Scarves or Malebranche guys now, yeah? What’re we gonna do about—” 
“Ah!’ 
“Ahh!” 
“…Oh.” 
With no warning whatsoever, the door to the privy opened. Two men entered, bolts of deep green cloth wrapped around their arms identifying them as Regal Jade Scarves. They had cleaning equipment in their hands, and the sight of Suzuno and Albert clearly gave them pause. They weren’t expecting the room to be occupied, and Suzuno had been too preoccupied with the twin magical forces nearby to spot them. 
““““……”””” 
They looked at each other, shocked into silence, but only for a few seconds. 
“Well! Nice to see how clean it was in the end, yes?” 
“Yeah, but I still feel kinda bad for ’em…” 
“You should be more thankful. Now we know where the Azure Emperor’s Cloud Retreat is, am I right?” 
There was a twinge of regret to Suzuno’s and Albert’s voices as they boldly ran their way down a Cloud Retreat hallway. 
The two Regal Jade soldiers had been left behind to take care of the emperor himself, and the privy was one of several that only the emperor was allowed to use (the fact he had several exclusive johns was a further surprise for Albert). 
Despite the circumstances, the emperor was too important to leave by himself, so several Regal Azure and Regal Jade men were still serving as his personal guard, even as the Malebranche took over the castle. Only the Razure were authorized to wait on and guard the emperor himself, however; Regal Jades were forbidden from even coming near him, so they occupied the time by maintaining his chambers and household equipment. 
“Has to be a pretty crappy job, though,” Albert whispered, eyebrows furrowed downward. “Hope they transfer somewhere better once things calm down a bit.” 
With as clear and insurmountable a hierarchy as the one the Eight Scarves had established for themselves, and with the sense of pride the Regal Jades seemed to have at being their leader’s official toilet scrubbers, Albert couldn’t help but feel pity for them. 
“I am sure,” Suzuno countered, “that their opinion of their current post is why they told us where the Azure Emperor was. We were clearly trespassing, but they decided helping us was still better than leaving the castle in the hands of demons. They deserve a royal commendation, if anything.” 
The troops had ordered the two intruders to identify themselves, but it was clear in their voices that their hearts weren’t in it. They were clearly exhausted, and when Albert gave his name, one of them recognized his face—the face of the past liberator of the Eastern Island. That eliminated any threat that it’d come to blows, and the Regal Jades believed Albert when he had said they were here to rescue the emperor. They gave a verbal description of the Cloud Retreat’s layout, and then they ripped up their jade armbands, cutting each one into three ropes of fabric that Suzuno and Albert could use to avoid combat with other Eight Scarves men. Two ropes went on the left arm, one went on the right—an arrangement that, in the signaling language of the Eight Scarves, meant the wearer was an ally. 
“They did say something interesting, though…” 
“Oh?” 
One of the men had stated that the Regal Azure and Regal Jade forces had been “left behind” to serve the Azure Emperor. This meant that, behind the scenes, the forces that hadn’t been left behind had been ordered to go somewhere else. And in a Heavensky Keep that was crawling with angels, Malebranche, and a Great Demon General, it seemed hard to believe that the emperor had any direct managerial control over the Eight Scarves by this point. So who had the power to control the Eight Scarves men who weren’t part of the volunteer force—men still under Heavensky influence? 
“…No,” Suzuno said. “Now is not the time to think about that. The emperor should be at the other end of those stairs. I feel a powerful barrier of holy magic. Let’s go!” 
Things seemed to be going a little too well at this point. But if they could secure the Azure Emperor, all they had to do then was make a beeline for the main volunteer force base. Staying undercover wouldn’t matter at that point. The Phaigan forces’ primary mission was to release the emperor from demonic influence, and that naturally meant ensuring he was safe. If Suzuno could accomplish that, it would at least buy them some more time before hostilities between the volunteer and capital forces began in earnest. 
“What…is this?” 
At the top of the stairs, Suzuno and Albert found a large, broad room—a chamber, really, one far more ornately decorated than even the privy they had climbed into earlier. A room literally fit for a king. The lack of furnishings for entertaining visitors or holding royal hearings indicated this was likely a private room. 
It contained a bed gigantic enough to house ten grown adults, and when Suzuno spotted the figure lying on it, she stiffened her posture a bit. This was the Azure Emperor, nothing more than a strategic presence in her mind up to now, but he was still the leader of a nation. It was no one Albert or Suzuno would normally ever have the right to see in person, and regardless of what they personally thought of him, they would have to approach him with the utmost respect. 
“<Your Highness,>” Suzuno began in carefully worded Yahwan, “<please forgive my rudeness in invading your private bedchamber.>” 
There was no response. 
“<…? Your Highness…?>” Suzuno took a step forward. 
“Wait.” 
Albert stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. 
“That ain’t the Azure Emperor.” 
“What?” 
“Plus, where’s the holy-magic barrier? I thought there was supposed to be one around the room, around the bed—” 
He failed to finish the sentence. Before he could, the air around both them and the bed suddenly began to warm and dim. 
“Well, well, who is this? You have quite the impudence, invading the emperor’s personal bedroom.” 
““—?!”” 
Faster than anyone could notice, Suzuno removed her hairpin. Albert joined her, balling his fists into a fighting stance. But the figure that appeared from the swirling black took its time to stroll forward, apparently uninterested in a fight. She looked at the twisted, one-armed figure, then gasped. 
“L-Libicocco?!” 
“…Ah. You, eh?” 
She knew this demon. In fact, they had just met about a week ago, Church cleric Suzuno against Malebranche chieftain Libicocco, in the air above Chiho’s high school in Sasazuka. 
“You know him, Bell?” 
“…I do,” a clearly surprised Suzuno replied. Libicocco, watching her, seemed far less perturbed. “You had been dealt a grave injury…by human standards. Feeling better now, it looks like?” 
“…What about you? You can hardly be healed up yet.” 
It was somewhat odd for two fighters who had engaged in life-or-death combat a week ago to worry about each other’s well-being. But Suzuno was fine. Her massive slash wound was now just a red mark that didn’t hurt at all. Chiho could hardly believe it herself. 
Libicocco, on the other hand, was still missing the arm that Maou had removed with his sword. It was entirely possible, Suzuno figured, that some of the demon races could grow back missing parts like so many lizard tails—but here, on Ente Isla, the demonic force he projected seemed much weaker to Suzuno than what he had wielded at Sasahata North High. 
“Strangest thing,” the demon said. “The wound stubbornly refused to close itself, for the longest time. Treatment with dark force seemed to do nothing. And so here I am, away from the front lines, working the kind of guard duty that any human could do.” He eyed Suzuno and Albert again. “And who is that man with you? Whoever he is, he’s clearly possessed with more than his fair share of holy force. I was told to expect you, but nobody like him.” 
“What?” 
The observation set off alarm bells in Suzuno’s mind, but she wasn’t thrown for long. “Begone, Libicocco,” she shouted. “You know as well as I do that staying here in Efzahan will do nothing to restore the Devil King’s Army.” 
“…” 
“The Phaigan Volunteer Force led by Emilia the Hero is taking over Malebranche-controlled lands, village by village, city by city. Soon, they will be at the door of Heavensky Keep. Remaining in this castle will provide you with nothing but a needless death.” 
Libicocco fixed his eyes on her, still silent. 
“This was doomed from the start, and you know it! Though it may be difficult for your kind to accept, the Malebranche have been tricked by Olba Meiyer and the archangels. They have fallen straight into a trap set by the heavens. Do you think the Devil King wishes all of you to fritter away your lives? It is not too late, Libicocco. Call your forces back and return to the demon realms. Tell Alciel the same as well. He is hardly slow enough not to understand the situation.” 
“…” 
“Libicocco!” 
“I am aware. I am fully aware, all right? I know that we were idiots. I know that Raguel and that Olba man were fishy from the start. But you know what? There is no turning our backs to this.” 
“Raguel? Not another angel…” Suzuno winced at the unexpected name. Fighting against Gabriel and Camael was hopeless enough, but adding another angel to the mix meant she and Albert couldn’t afford to waste another second. The angels would seek to eliminate anyone and anything in the way of their plans, so standing around here in the Cloud Retreat, playing verbal tennis with a demon, was a dangerous waste of precious time. 
“Perhaps not,” she offered, “but that does not mean you lack the power to end this! All you have to do is hand the Azure Emperor over to the Phaigan forces and return to the demon realms! That is all it takes to keep you from wasting your lives. The Devil King Satan refused to punish Ciriatto for his crimes! He would doubtlessly be just as—” 
“That’s not the problem, woman. You don’t understand any of this.” 
“What?” 
“When I say there’s no turning our backs, I’m not talking about our current situation. I’m talking about the ideals of the original Devil King’s Army.” 
“The ideals?” 
He meant, Suzuno presumed, the tenet that the people of the demon realms should never have to starve. Maou had stated it himself. But what point was there to bringing that up at a time like this? 
“As Lord Alciel described it to us, this is our first, last, and only chance to give our demon tribes a chance to survive in the future. And now you are meddling in that. Perhaps you can understand our resulting…frustration.” 
“What are you saying? Do you actually think Alciel wants the angels to take advantage of you in their conquest of Efzahan?” 
Libicocco’s phrasing gave Suzuno pause. There was no way Ashiya could have overlooked the ones pulling the strings behind all this. He’d been kidnapped by Gabriel himself! 
But the way Libicocco seemed to be putting it, Ashiya, or Alciel, was in command of Heavensky. Which meant he was the one moving Eight Scarves forces around? 
“That is not for me to know,” the demon replied. “It is Lord Alciel’s order, and so shall it be. There is only one in this world allowed to go past this room. If anyone else dares to attempt it…” 
Libicocco took his eyes off the stunned Suzuno. It took her a few moments to understand why. 
“Wh-whoa!!” 
Ignoring Albert’s plea, Suzuno summoned her Light of Iron and bore down on Libicocco with her gigantic warhammer. 
“Okay, time out, folks…” 
She was an instant too late. 
“Ngh…?!” 
Several instants, actually. Because her hammer was now stopped cold against a single bare palm—and not Libicocco’s. 
“My, my—good work, good work, team. I don’t know how you got all the way in here without anyone noticing, but you definitely have come a long way. And without any bullet trains or anything, even.” 
“Wh-who the hell are you?!” Albert shouted. Before the person himself could answer, Suzuno revealed the detestable truth. 
“Gabriel…?!” 
The archangel, looking just as arrogant as ever, looked more astonished to see Albert in the room than Suzuno. 
“Hmm? You’re someone from here, aren’t you? One of Emilia’s allies? What happened to the Devil King?” 
“We have nothing to say to you!” 
“Now, now. Not that I can blame you, but that’s awfully mean. But, still, you should be glad it’s me who popped up here. You’re, uh, Libicocco, right? I saw you sent an Idea Link straight in my direction—did you get word from Alciel or something?” 
“…” 
“Ngh…?!” 
The demon must have taken his eyes off of Suzuno to focus on casting some dark magic. But it made little sense to her; why would Libicocco, who knew all along he was being deceived by the angels, be told by Alciel to tell Gabriel, of all people, all about Suzuno’s presence? The doubt must have been written clearly on her face, because Gabriel grinned widely at her. 
“Now, I’m sure you all have pleeenty of your own questions, but if you do, d’you mind asking Alciel about them once we’re all done here? Assuming you’re in any position to reach him, of course.” 
“Wh-what?! Mngh!!” 
“Gah! Wh-wha…?!” 
All Gabriel did was move one of his fingers a little. That was all it took to freeze both of them on the spot—Suzuno still holding her hammer, Albert’s fists still ready to strike. 
“In any event, I would really appreciate it if you all didn’t meddle; we’re just getting to the good stuff. If we’re gonna do this right, we need everyone here at just the right moment, y’know?” 
“What…are you…?!” 
“Hrrrnnngh…!” 
Struggle as they did, neither Suzuno nor Albert could even twitch. 
“You guys can come on back once the gang’s all here. After that, you can do whatever you want with the old emperor livin’ high on the hog upstairs. That, and Emilia’s father, sleeping over there.” 
“Ah…?!” 
Neither of them could turn their heads. They strained their eyes to the far corners of their sockets, training them on the bed across the room. 
“Well, I’m out. Dunno when we’ll meet again, but keep it real, mm-kay?” 
And that was all the time Gabriel provided them. Suddenly, the scene began to vastly change. The endlessly irritating archangel, the Malebranche chieftain rubbing his head in frustration, the Cloud Retreat, the man on the bed, and everything else in their sight spun like a revolving kaleidoscope as Suzuno and Albert were thrust into another dimension. 
“Wh-what are we…?!” 
“Dammit, it’s a Gate!” 
It was. And it swallowed them the next instant. Suzuno attempted to right herself, but the aftereffects of the petrifying spell made it a slog. The torrential speed at which Gabriel’s Gate was propelling them made it impossible to resist the flow in any useful manner. 
“God…damn it…!!” Suzuno shouted out in frustration. What a state of affairs, she thought. Now she was here, her body being jostled and jarred by a power she was helpless to defy. 
“Look out! Here comes the exit!!” 
“…! What?!” 
Suzuno wiped the outer corners of her eyes and turned her head toward Albert. 
This was too fast. It hadn’t even been a minute since they were thrown in. So they weren’t going to Earth, or another world? 
“I don’t know where we’re landing! Watch out!” 
Suzuno didn’t need to be told twice. She balled herself up, preparing for whatever awaited her. Soon, she saw light pour out from the other side of the exit: 

 

“…A city?” 
“We’re coming out!!” 
The world suddenly regained its color. Air filled the space around them, and instead of the unstoppable torrent of the Gate, the warm sun greeted them. They had been tossed into the air, but they were still low enough that they could clearly see the people below them. 
It looked like a pretty large town. The Gate exit’s opening and closing must have disturbed the air around them, because an approaching flock of pigeons suddenly changed their flight pattern to dodge Suzuno. 
The sound of a bell filled her ears. 
Something was wrong. She had left Maou alone just a few hours ago. Efzahan was supposed to be dark right now! 
From the corner of her eye, Suzuno checked the position of the sun. It made her gasp. This couldn’t be… 
“Hey! Can you fly?!” Albert, not noticing Suzuno’s confusion, pointed downward. “There’s a big building over there with a flat roof! I’m gonna land on it!” 
The sight of the building, along with the town around it, confirmed Suzuno’s worst suspicions. 
““—!”” 
The two of them summoned their holy energy to glide gently downward. Albert had spotted the building quickly enough to make landing on it a fairly simple task. But Suzuno was still clearly flustered—and when Albert dusted himself off and looked around, he quickly had the same questions Suzuno did. 
“Is this…” 
Albert fell silent as he surveyed the city below him. When he spoke again, as he eyed an even larger building far away, his voice was shaking. 
“S-Saint Aile…?” 
“It has to be.” 
Suzuno gritted her teeth. Here, of all places. 
Right in front of them loomed Castle Ereniem, the massive fortress that served as the Empire of Saint Aile’s center of government. 
In a way, this was far worse news than being sent to some alien world. They were now on the opposite side of the planet from Heavensky. Suzuno couldn’t open a Gate without a suitable amplifier; if she wanted to return to Heavensky, her only choice was to use the so-called Stairs to Heaven—the nearest of which was in a prelate site on the far western edge of Saint Aile’s capital. That was a good two days on horseback from Ereniem, and Suzuno and Albert didn’t have days to waste on travel any longer. 
They were at the end of their rope, and Suzuno knew it. She fell to her knees there, on the roof of the Church temple upon which they had landed, and used a shaky hand to remove a cell phone from her robe. The only thing she had the power to do now was call up Maou and explain this sorry state of affairs to him—but he was useless at the moment, and she would essentially have to ask him to deal with three angels at the same time. 
“My god…” 
She balled her fists like a frustrated child, helplessly pounding one of them against the temple roof. 
“Whoa, wait a minute! Wait a minute. This might be better for us than we thought.” 
“…What?” 
“If that’s Castle Ereniem over there, that means we’re in the Oreus District right now. Which means… Yeah, there it is! The Holy Magic Administrative Institute.” 
“The Holy… You mean where Lady Emeralda is? W-wait, Oreus? In that case, we have to be standing on…” 
Suzuno looked down at the roof she’d been beating her fist against a moment ago. Her eyes opened wide. 
“Right,” Albert said. “And if my memory ain’t failing me, we’re on the Cathedral of Oreus in Saint Aile’s main diocese, where the trials were held.” 
The cleric could feel the strength return to her legs. There was still hope. If they could pull this off, they might be back in Heavensky very, very soon. 
Albert, looking back at her, nodded deeply. 
“Eme’s right under our feet at the moment.” 
 
A howling wind began to blow as dark clouds encircled the air above Heavensky. Gabriel watched them from his post atop a wall extending out from the keep. The sight of the moon, peeking out between the ominous clouds, made him smile. 
“Well, that settles it. Whether they were lookin’ out for it or not, nothing that’s about to happen to this city right now will be seen by anyone.” 
The words dashed themselves against the wind, escaping the notice of anyone else. 
“It’s the Hero Emilia versus Alciel, general of the New Devil King’s Army. The entire cast of characters, right here onstage! That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Well, sucks to be you, mm-kay? Just sit back and enjoy one hell of an unscripted drama.” 
Gabriel gave a self-satisfied nod as he looked over the northern outer reaches of Heavensky. 
“If life’s too easy for these humans, they just kind of fall apart, ya know? You gotta keep ’em frantic, or it’s no good. After all, we’re living, breathing beings, too.” 
 
“What…could this be?” The Phaigan Volunteer Force general taking the lead stiffened his voice. “Has Alciel set a trap for us?” 
His trepidation was understandable. The central district of Heavensky, one of the most beautiful and well-known spots in all of Efzahan, was eerily quiet. 
The reports from the scouts—up until yesterday, anyway—indicated great unrest across the entirety of the capital, as its people anticipated a violent clash between vast human and demon armies. Alciel might have declared martial law across the city in anticipation of this. But the sight before the Phaigan force right now wasn’t a city under martial law so much as an abandoned ruin. 
Here, in the very center of this vast capital, not a single soul could be found. Along the wide road that led to Heavensky Keep, all that greeted them were the holy-magic lampposts lining the street and the moonlight that occasionally made its way between the clouds. That, and the dark, heavy wind. 
“Quite ominous,” the lead general muttered as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “I almost feel the breath being taken from me.” 
“You can follow after me.” 
The general, surprised, turned toward a mounted figure that had silently approached him. 
“L-Lady Emilia?” 
“But you may do so only if you are ready to fight. This will be nothing like the towns we’ve captured before. If you cannot keep up with Olba and me, you will be surrounded by them and you will die.” 
“…” 
As if summoned by her words, Olba guided his own horse behind her. His face was twisted in a frustrated sneer for some reason, the easy self-confidence of the past far gone. Emi flashed him a look. 
“I trust you don’t mind me leading the advance guard?” she sharply asked. 
“…So be it.” 
The reply came languidly, listlessly, and even to the oblivious general, the mortification in Olba’s voice—the realization there was no other reply he could give—was obvious. Emi gave it a satisfied nod and dismounted. 
“Sorry I’ve been so gloomy around you,” she said as she caressed her strikingly handsome horse’s mane. Then she took a deep breath and raised her voice. 
“Manifest yourself, my power, and vanquish those with evil in their hearts!” 
A powerful whirlwind, centered around the shouting Emi, made itself known. The torrent of holy force she unleashed—a pillar of light in an otherwise dim evening—was brighter and denser than anything that had so enveloped her in Japan. The Better Half she created from a beam of light in her hand, for that matter, was longer, wider—more of a blunt weapon, almost—than anything that had come before it. 
The holy force around her began to take human form, creating a silvery light that surged across her body—the Holy Silver within her, manifesting the Cloth of the Dispeller, the set of armor that could only be described as divine. The round shield borne from her left hand was a new element, one given physical form by Alas Ramus, the Yesod fragment this Hero was bonded with. Emi’s long hair turned into silken strands of bluish silver, as if purified by the holy force within her, and her eyes became a brilliant shade of scarlet—a color that had struck fear into many a demon’s heart before, and would soon again. 
The full and complete form of Emilia Justina, the Hero who saved the entirety of Ente Isla from oblivion, was now here, in a Heavensky once again ruled over by demons. 
The volunteer forces witnessing this transformation, almost like the creation of a new moon right here on the ground, were so moved by her sheer majesty that, as one, they let out a mighty battle cry. Now they were sure of their upcoming victory. This time, for sure, the Hero of the Holy Sword would lead them against the darkness that threatened to overcome Ente Isla, and they would emerge victorious. There was no longer any doubt in their minds. 
Listening to the cheers behind her, Emilia, still enveloped in the light, allowed a self-effacing smile to reach her lips. Some Hero she was. She was in her complete form, far more powerful than even when she confronted Satan in his Devil’s Castle, and right now she was nothing more than the opening act. 
“Right,” she whispered within the torrent, too soft for even the adjacent Olba to hear. “Let’s see what kind of theater props Alciel has in mind for this.” 
Now her smile was fearless, intrepid. It was the broadest one she had made in quite some time, as she soundlessly ascended into the air. She was the very picture of a heavenly warrior, and it earned another hearty cheer from the assembled forces. 
“…We’re off, Olba.” 
“Very well, but… I tell you, if you try anything strange here…” 
“Oh, I’m perfectly aware of that. I’m putting everything on the table against Alciel. That’s what you want, right?” 

“…Mmh.” 
Olba gritted his teeth. But he knew Emilia hadn’t given up her wheat fields yet, which offered him some solace as he lifted himself up into the air from the saddle. 
“We seek the head of Alciel, the Great Demon General of Heavensky Keep! All of you, follow me!” 
“Raaaahhhhh!!” 
The excited roar of the volunteer troops echoed across the empty city. 
“Don’t fall behind, Olba! Heavenly Fleet Feet!” 
Like a bolt of moonlight penetrating the darkness, Emilia stormed across the capital streets. Olba flew on behind her, and soon after came the hoofbeats of several thousand Eight Scarves knights affiliated with the Phaigan Volunteer Force. 
“Demons to the right!” Emilia sharply pointed out to Olba, not slowing down for a moment. “They’re here!!” 
“Ngh!!” 
Before even bothering to turn in that direction, Olba released a torrent of wind blades toward his right. Hot on their heels was a large horde of Malebranche, and now more than a few of them had fallen down upon the roofs of nearby residences, taken down by the blades. But these were seasoned fighters, and it would take more than that to stop them. 
“Run!! Don’t worry about their minions!! We seek none but Alciel!!” 
Emilia’s order made the forces running for the central district push themselves even faster. She gave neither Olba nor the rest of the troops any time to strike lethal blows against the Malebranche. The platoons of demons that flitted around them like flies clearly numbered too few to effectively defend the city, and their formations were set up in such a way that, to Emilia, they were simply lining up to be slain. They must have been aware of this, because their attacks involved either flinging bolts of demonic force from a safe distance, or taking a slash-and-move approach with their swords and claws. 
It made little sense to her. There were supposed to be Eight Scarves soldiers in the central district—where were they? If Alciel wanted a full-frontal battle with Emilia and her forces, it was unthinkable that he wouldn’t set a single trap along the wide roads to block their forward progress. The Malebranche should be using the forces that remained to defend the city, but all she was seeing here were private-class demons trying their best to hide how outnumbered they were. 
But neither Olba nor the rest of the soldiers stopped to ponder this odd state of affairs. Emilia didn’t let them; as long as she could keep showing off her dazzling powers, those who followed her would believe that she’d save them in the end, no matter what. She knew that from experience. And Olba, a human and friend of the Hero—more of a sidekick to her, the way she was handling him—was helpless to do anything against her might. Not as long as Emilia was sticking to the script. 
So the volunteer force, led by Emilia and rushing down the wholly unblocked streets of the capital at top speed, arrived before the gates of Heavensky Keep in the blink of an eye. Once there, they lined up in front of the keep’s large western gate, which was closed. Some of the rear-guard forces were caught in isolated pockets of combat with the Malebranche, but the momentum was still clearly on Emilia’s side. 
“Right…” 
“…” 
Keeping a close eye on their surroundings, Emilia and Olba looked up at the keep. 
“I am Emilia, the Hero! I ride with the Phaigan Volunteer Force, and we have come here to free the capital of Heavensky! Show yourself, Great Demon General Alciel!” 
“Mmm…?” 
The force of strength behind Emilia’s voice made it hard for Olba to hide his anxiety. All this time, the Hero’s attitude toward this campaign could be described as unmotivated at best, outright hostile at worst. But now the will she was showing in the midst of this battle was just as strong as it was during her first fight with the Devil King’s Army. Even stronger, in fact. 
“…This ‘cold tofu’… This ‘ginger’… What could it be?” 
His pawn’s entire attitude had changed the moment she’d read the demon general’s letter. Olba had no reason to doubt Emilia’s words, but still, the performance worsened his anxiety. 
“Ahh! Look at that!!” 
Suddenly, shouts of fear began to emanate from the volunteer forces, so emboldened by Emilia’s strength a moment ago. 
“Could it be…?” 
“H-here he comes!!” 
“!” 
From high above their heads, Emilia could see a figure standing on a Heavensky Keep balcony. 
“How nice of you to appear—Emilia the Hero, and the filthy army of human rebels latched on to her!” 
The volume of the voice was all it took to overwhelm the volunteers. A voice infused with demonic power, one that seemed to toll the bell of death with every syllable, instantly drained the will among the weaker-minded troops. 
The man who now appeared high aloft in Heavensky was not Shirou Ashiya, the Sasazuka resident in the stretched-out shirt and worn-out pants fretting over every little change to his bank account. This was Alciel, the Great Demon General with the authority to direct masses of demon troops, the former conqueror of Ente Isla’s Eastern Island. One look was all it took to see that the armor covering his torso and the cape blowing in the wind were all of first-class make—perfectly suited for a Demon General, and only serving to amplify the ominousness and doom that oozed from his every pore. The glares he exchanged with Emilia across the night sky seemed to make the very air between them twist and warp. 
“How truly pathetic of you, Emilia the Hero!” Alciel’s voice rang out in its full demonic splendor. “You are aware of the great force behind my ‘cold tofu’ and ‘ginger,’ and still you dare to resist me?!” 
“Y-you truly mean that?!” Olba shouted in surprise. “What are these horrid things?!” 
Emilia gauged his reply from the corner of her eye, trying to restrain a laugh. She had to stay strong here. She had to give the signal. The signal that she heard Alciel’s message loud and clear. 
“You are the pathetic worm here, Alciel! Your ‘ginger’ is as good as useless in the face of the ‘cold tofu’ of myself, and my holy sword! Wait as long as you like; that will never change in either of our lives!” 
“…Hmph. Very well.” 
Emilia could see the grin on one side of Alciel’s face as he stared down at her from high, high above. 
“If that’s how it shall be, then it is time to muster my forces and make you face cruel reality! Emilia the Hero! Our previous clash may have ended in a draw, but now I challenge you to a one-on-one duel!” 
“I accept that challenge!!” 
“W-wait, Emilia, that could be… Huh?!” 
To an uninformed observer, Olba was hurriedly attempting to keep Emilia from walking into a trap Alciel was undoubtedly ready to set upon her. But Emilia was already ascending into the air—and two figures had come between her and Olba. 
“I would hope you are not the kind to interfere in this duel. Your, and my, people’s pride are at stake.” 
“I have things I would like to ask you myself. If you insist in meddling, we will step up to stop you!” 
It was Farfarello, the young Malebranche chieftain, and Barbariccia, the head warrior who once attempted to lead the entire New Devil King’s Army. 
“I know not what sort of tricks you and the angels have been up to,” a clearly anguished and regretful Barbariccia continued, “but know that Lord Alciel is hardly as foolish as we were. Once this is over, I will gladly accept whatever punishment is handed down to me. But when the ax falls, know that I will be taking you along with me.” 
“Ngh…” 
Olba winced. Even he would face difficulty emerging victorious against two chieftains at once. And even if he pulled off the feat, he would be in no shape afterward to involve himself in Emilia and Alciel’s confrontation. 
Now he was sure of it: This plan was starting to jump the tracks. Emilia had enough power, he was sure, to vaporize Alciel and these two captains in an instant. That was supposed to be how he and his “friends” wanted this operation to end. Didn’t any of them see anything odd about this? 
Emilia, meanwhile, paid the panicking Olba no mind. She and Alciel were now higher than the heights of Heavensky Keep itself, facing down each other in the stratosphere. Silver holy light and demonic black light dominated the skies, but otherwise the scene was one of terrifying tranquility. 
Alciel spoke first. 
“…It has been a while.” 
“…It has.” 
“You had just as many Eight Scarves with you the last time you stormed this castle, if I recall.” 
“And you had a lot more demons.” 
“I was not lying, you realize. I did not consider that at all a defeat.” 
“Yeah, yeah, ‘strategic withdrawal,’ I know.” 
Then Emi flitted even higher into the air, turning her face in the direction of the heavy stormclouds. 
“I remember…the Devil King appeared from the sky back then, too.” 
The two of them recalled the events of some two years ago. Emilia’s forces had freed every district of Heavensky, thus quelling demon rule across the entirety of the Eastern Island. All that stood before the Hero at that point was Alciel. The battle nonetheless extended several hours, before it became clear that Emilia’s overwhelming strength gave Alciel no chance to win. 
It was at that exact moment when, as Alciel risked his life lunging at Emilia, a voice had rung out behind him. The voice of the one enemy Emilia had wanted to confront more than anyone else—confront, and then kill. The voice of Satan, the Devil King. Even with Alciel and the other Great Demon Generals pinned to the wall, even with most of the world back in human hands, that voice…that figure…that sheer demonic force…filled Emi with a potent mixture of hatred and fear. 
The very one who had destroyed everything in her life was before her eyes, and when she first felt the full brunt of his strength, it only served to stir up more hatred within her, more overwhelming terror. If she lost to this force, the world, her father’s soul, her home village—it would all end, without any hope of salvation. Even now, she had never forgotten the dark, heavy, painful place her emotions brought her to at that moment. 
There, before her eyes, the Devil King had remonstrated Alciel for throwing away his life in an attempt to seize victory from the jaws of defeat. He had come simply to order his general to retreat—and there, he and Emilia exchanged their first words with each other. 
The Hero and the enemy of the world. 
“ ” 
“ ” 
And for some reason, Emilia—now back to reality—couldn’t quite remember what they had each said. But that was just a memory, and absolutely not one she needed to recall right now. She shook her head a little and focused her eyes back on Alciel. 
“Is he really coming?” 
“I promise you he will. When, exactly…I cannot say. But when he does, certain things may happen.” 
Alciel knew Maou was coming, but not even he could guess exactly how the demon lord’s presence would change things. But even if they didn’t go into detail right now, Emilia and Alciel were in agreement on one thing: Whatever he did, Maou would do nothing to destroy the time they had spent together in Japan. 
“So if that is clear, we have some business to handle now…” 
“Yep. If we can’t do anything, we have to keep dancing as long as we’re able to. Right?” 
“Precisely.” Alciel made a fist, stuck his chest out high, and watched as Emilia let the moonlight glint off her holy sword. 
“Before we begin,” she said, “I probably need to apologize. I was weak, and so I…I killed a lot of your people from the demon realms… I’m sorry.” 
“It… All it means is that you, and myself for that matter, lacked the power to dominate the scene to our liking. We can clean up once the war is over. More important than that…” Alciel sized up Emilia’s sword in its so-called “final form,” more majestic than ever before. “I suppose Alas Ramus is healthy?” 
“Oh, very. She’s a lot stronger than any of us, you know.” 
“Ah, how it gladdens me to hear!” Alciel exclaimed as he targeted Emilia with a lunging strike, fast enough to leave sound itself in the dust. Without a moment’s hesitation, Emilia used the shield on her left arm to block the brunt of it. The shock wave shook the wind itself, creating a clanging noise loud enough to be heard by the throngs of onlookers. 
“I was not going easy with that, you realize.” 
“I told you, Alas Ramus is stronger than us! Hyaaahh!!” 
With Alciel’s head thrown back by the impact, Emilia stiffened her body and unleashed a kick toward his unguarded chest, the Cloth of the Dispeller turning her legs into lethal weapons. Her foot struck home with a high-pitched thud. 
“…Oww!” 
The pain surging from her toes almost brought tears to Emilia’s eyes. They both fell back, as if the past two strikes were just a prearranged practice strike. 
“Guess your body’s just as stubborn as your head, huh?” 
“Indeed. It even sent Durandal flying. If you will not be serious about this, you’ll be unable to even scratch me.” 
“…This is gonna drag on a lot longer than I thought, huh?” 
“You need to fight with your full powers from time to time. Your battle senses will start to atrophy otherwise.” 
“Oh, that’s rich, hearing that from you! Don’t come crying to me once this is all over!” 
Emilia smiled defiantly. Her sword sparkled a bright white as she casually swung it forward. 
“Heavenly Storm Fang!!” 
“Nnnnngh?!” 
A storm of pure light, one that dwarfed what she had used to blow Maou away in Shinjuku, pummeled Alciel’s entire body. He tried to steel itself against its vicious force. It left him hopelessly unable to react to Emilia—who, even now, was flying faster than the wind itself at him. 
“Air Rush!!” 
“Grrhhn!!” 
It was a martial-arts move that Albert had taught her, and she unleashed it at whip-fast speed. It landed above Alciel’s midsection, sending him flipping through the air. Even the force of the wind it generated was enough to peel off a few roof tiles from Heavensky Keep, despite the holy magic that protected it. She watched them flutter to the ground far below. 
Alciel used his demonic force to stop his momentum, but Emilia was already close upon him. 
“Heavenly Flame Slash!!” 
“Not so fast!!!!” 
The Hero’s flames, which had singed the Great Demon General Lucifer in Sasazuka once upon a time, were smothered by Alciel’s sheer force of will. Her sword was down, and Alciel saw his opening. He twirled in the air, aiming for the tip of her shoulder, and smashed his leg down against it. 
“Enh…!!” 
The Cloth might have protected her, but taking a full-power strike from a Great Demon General on her sword-wielding arm made Emilia wince in pain. It also left her wide open. 
“Wh-what are…?!” 
The next thing she knew, Emilia’s entire body was immobilized. Wisps of telekinetic light extended themselves from Alciel’s hands, robbing the Hero of her freedom. 
“Hohhhhhh…” 
“Ah, ah, whoa, hang, hang on a…!!” 
The strands of force wrapped themselves around Emilia in a frenzy of undulating activity. 
“Ha-ha! Twirl on, my pretties!” 
“Wha, whoa, you, you don’t have to sound, like, like a villain…!!” 
She tried to resist, but now Alciel was in his element. Emilia was bound, unable to move the way she wanted. 
“Yaahhhh!” 
“You fool!!” 
The moment the centrifugal force acting upon him was at its strongest, Alciel spun Emilia straight down to the roof of Heavensky Keep. It would be enough to smash any regular person to bits, with nothing left to identify them, and Emilia took the blow face-first. The physical force of the strike made the roof explode into a million pieces, as if someone had set a series of time bombs on the other side. It resulted in Heavensky Keep, renowned as the most magnificent building in all of Eastern Island, being fully exposed to the elements, like a bald man whose toupee had just flown off. 
“…Get up, Emilia! I know you are not fragile enough to give up in the face of this alone!” 
“…Yeah. Yeah, I’m not. I know I have to go all in on this. I know, but…” 
Emilia, fresh from doing a convincing impression of a meteorite upon the keep, leaped to her feet among the rubble. 
“But you hit me right on the bridge of my nose! That hurt!” 
She held her holy sword with both hands, rubble trailing behind her as she shot like a rocket into the sky, making a beeline toward Alciel. 
“Shaahhhhhh!!!!” 
“Whoooooaaaah!!” 
Like a shooting star of silver, the Better Half carved a beautiful arc into the sky. The path it took was traversed all too quickly, making Emilia look like a mere ball of silver to the crowd below. They could have never imagined that the tings and clangs that accompanied every swing indicated that Alciel was predicting, and blocking, every single one of these light-speed strikes. 
Alciel boasted the strongest body of the Devil King’s Army, but he had not grasped the sort of variety of magical attacks enjoyed by Lucifer and Malacoda. It was his sheer strength that explained why he held sway over so many powerful demon families, why he managed as general to keep the human race from victory for so long to the end. It let him defend against an Alas Ramus–enhanced Better Half in its final form with his bare hands—how could any normal human hurt him? 
Simply displaying this force to the elite soldiers of the Eight Scarves was enough to make them fall to their knees in fealty to the Great Demon General. That force was on completely equal footing with Emilia’s slashing strikes, and the back-and-forth seemed like it’d continue for some time to come. But: 
“Shock wave of Light!!” 
“Nh!” 
The moment the spell was completed, a light-borne shock wave, not a sword, expanded across Emilia’s body. Alciel, focused on dodging another slash, hesitated for a moment—just long enough to feel a glint of warmth on his fingertips. His vision was flooded by the light—the light that had made the Malebranche quiver over the ocean at Choshi—but it made Alciel feel no physical pain at all. 
It did, however, provide just enough light to blind Alciel for a moment. And that tenth of a second or two was all Emilia needed. Soon, her leg was between his arms, still outstretched from deflecting the previous strike. 
“Hrahh!” 
“Uurrr!” 
And then her heel smashed into his chest. 
There was no apparent wound on the surface. But the shock wave of the Hero’s full-power kick coursed through his body, turning him into yet another meteorite crashing into the keep. The results gouged a large hole into its topmost floor. The more Emilia and Alciel fought, the more Heavensky Keep was battered—roof bits flying, walls falling apart, terraces being crumbled. It wasn’t a pretty sight for architecture buffs. 
“Back at you, Alciel! Stand up! That’s not all you have!” 
Now it was Alciel who was slowly peeling himself from the wreckage. 
“…Hmph. Do not complain to me if you push yourself too far and run out of gas later.” 
“I could say exactly the same thing to you!” 
“Impudent nonsense,” Alciel grumbled to himself as he floated back upward. “But a word of caution. Try not to damage the keep too much. If you raze it down to its foundation, you will regret it later.” 
“What?” 
Alciel gave a carefree smile, like some demonic parent telling his child an important secret. 
“Nord Justina is being held in the Cloud Retreat,” he said. “He is under guard, but if we continue to wreck this castle and the damage reaches the retreat, there is no telling what might happen. He has made it this far—I would not want you to lose your father for the sake of this charade.” 
It would be difficult to express Emilia’s feelings at that exact moment. A sort of shocked surprise, one that riveted her in place so tightly that she could barely breathe, came first. Then tears welled in her eyes as her cheeks turned a shade of crimson. Part of the dream she had been chasing all this time was now almost within arm’s reach. 
“…Really?” she gasped. 
She had no way of knowing how Alciel had traveled from Japan to Ente Isla. But she now knew that Gabriel had been telling her the truth—that her father was alive in Japan. 
“My father…was really there? In Japan? Close to me?” 
“I could not say how close, exactly. His Demonic Highness discovered him first.” 
“…He did?” 
It was Maou who had found him? Emilia chewed over the words, evaluating each one before tucking them away in her heart. 
“But Nord cannot return to you like this. The power broker running this stage is watching over us in this battle. If you try anything untoward, Nord will be taken someplace where you will never reach him—in an instant.” 
“…Oh,” came the soft reply. 
“What is wrong? Lost your will to fight?” 
Alciel knew it was pointless to ask the question. The scarlet color of Emilia’s eyes told the story: They were eagerly brimming with spirit. 
“Thanks. I feel better now.” 
“You look like you are about to raze the entire world.” 
“Kind of a rude thing to say to a woman, isn’t it? But thanks. I’m ready to keep on dancing now…and to kick up a little dust when the dance is over, too.” 
“…Perfect!” 
Alciel twirled his cape back, his body pulsing in eerie light, and charged once more at Emilia. The holy energy coursed across her body as she readied her blade, bracing herself in midair to swing back. 
 
By the dim light of a candle stand, Sadao Maou was holding his LED lantern and whining to himself. 
“Yawwwn… Ooh, dark.” 
“Yeah, dark. No kidding. How’re you feeling?” 
He put the lantern down and looked at Acieth, who was sitting up in her bed. 
“Mm… The head hurts a little… My neck, too…” 
“I’ll bet, given that flight you took.” 
Propelling enough energy out from your forehead to rocket into the sky would be physically trying for anyone. Just thinking about the resulting stress on her neck muscles made Maou’s own back ache a bit. 
“What happened, I sort remember. But the why…?” 
“Like I’d have any idea,” Maou replied, dejected. After their splashdown in the lake, he had attempted to carry the unconscious Acieth back to the inn. But, as he should have expected, he was greeted by men from the Inlain Crimson Scarves, tipped off by the tavernkeeper from earlier. They had, to say the least, a few questions for him. 
“So…what did you say?” 
“I name-dropped Suzuno and the Church. Then I bribed the Inlain Crimson guys to shut them up.” 
“Oof.” 
It was, as far as Acieth could figure, the worst possible way Maou could have defused the situation. Nobody was injured, but the two of them had blown a hole in the middle of town, and that was just the start of their ridiculousness. In any normal situation, they should have been sitting in a cell by now. But thanks to Suzuno’s Church standing—and the presence of her signature in the inn’s ledger—Maou had turned the ruckus into an international incident beyond the hands of a mere Eight Scarves patrolman. He had every reason, however, to expect knights higher up on the food chain to come after him tomorrow, or the next day. 
“So, yeah, we’re gonna want to be out of this inn ASAP. If you’re feeling okay, I wanna get moving.” 
“Okay…” Acieth meekly watched Maou as he returned to the lantern. Squinting in the dim light, she could see Maou spinning something around in his hands as he held the lantern on its side. “Maou? What are you doing? Making the weird sounds.” 
“Suzuno and Albert still haven’t contacted me. It’s been eight hours since they left.” 
“Eight hours?! That long… Maou!” 
“Don’t bitch at me for not waking you up, okay? You weren’t all that well, either, and as long as we don’t know what’s going on with you, we can’t make any rash moves. That’s for your sake as much as mine.” 
His hand was pointed at Acieth’s forehead. She touched it. Even now, it was letting off a faint light. Maou wanted to carp at her about the pains he went through to keep that hidden from the patrolmen, but there was little point to it. 
She looked back at him. 
“What you are doing? Is that helping contact them?” 
“I’m keeping the phone charged, is what I’m doing. I’ve got no power, so I gotta make sure I’m as receptive to Idea Links as I can be. Ugh, it’s a miracle this thing didn’t break in the water.” 
He was turning the crank on his all-in-one LED lantern/radio/phone charger, a handy item to have on an alien planet. The phone was last charged up back when he exchanged digits with Albert, and even with how old and featureless it was, it was still running on empty. Whether it was an issue with his phone model or how he was using the thing, he couldn’t say, but as hard as he cranked, he couldn’t make the phone charge up as quickly as the instruction manual described. He had been at it for three hours now. Maybe getting immersed in water wasn’t so good for the hardware after all. 
“I think I’m gonna get tendinitis if I keep this up,” Maou said with a wry grin. “These human bodies are so damn weak. Not that it matters now, though…” 
He took another look at Acieth’s forehead. 
“But listen, Acieth, what do you think? You think Alas Ramus is fighting?” 
She shook her head. “…I don’t know,” she whispered. “But before, my chest, it was full of warm feeling. I could not hold it back.” 
“Yeah, that wasn’t all you couldn’t hold back there. As I’m sure you remember.” 
Maou was referring to something else that had been warm and kept inside her. Acieth nimbly ignored the jab. 
“But now,” she meekly continued as she pointed at a direction in the air, “I know. Over there. The Yesod has lots and lots of power. It is striking a dark, dark force.” 
“So…southeast of here? Toward the center of the capital?” 
Maou attempted to focus his mind on the direction, even though he knew he couldn’t sense anything in his current state. But if Acieth was talking about “lots and lots” of power, Emi must have been pushing out the sort of holy force she used against Gabriel once upon a time. If she was, there was no way Maou could miss that, even out here in the medieval exurbs. 
But he couldn’t detect it. 
“Damn it,” he muttered, making a fist at nothing in particular. “What is wrong with me?” 
He knew that stewing in his own juices wouldn’t solve anything. And things were only getting worse. Suzuno and Albert were supposed to be in the middle of Heavensky. Where were they? If Alas Ramus was unleashing her full strength, she had to be fighting either Ashiya or an angel. When did that get started? And whether Suzuno had succeeded or failed, shouldn’t she have at least called to report back once clashes started breaking out? 
“It sucks I can’t contact her on my end,” he muttered. His lack of demonic force made it impossible to point an Idea Link toward either Suzuno or Albert. 
“Hey, Maou? I know right now, it is hard for you. But please! Let’s go! My sister, she is near! I can’t stand it!” 
“…” 
Her eyes were pleading. Maou’s gaze lingered on her. 
In the little while since her stint as a rocket, he hadn’t experienced any of the physical illness that had crept up whenever he tried to use her powers. So even if he couldn’t harness them, perhaps Acieth could use that strength by herself. She had fought on an even keel with Camael back in Japan; he didn’t know how well she’d stack up in Ente Isla, what with all the other types of energy floating around, but at the very least, Acieth wasn’t nearly as useless as Maou was right now. 
“…Hmm?” 
Then Maou’s mind recalled the moment he had fused with Acieth. 
“Hey, Acieth?” 
“What?” 
“You were fused with Nord at first, right?” 
“Yes?” 
“So can you separate from me again?” 
“Huh? Ooh, I don’t know.” Acieth gave him a look of surprise. “I think I could with Pop, but I never tried the returning, so…” 
“You haven’t? ’Cause you seemed to merge with me pretty easily back at Sasahata North High. You made it sound like moving from Nord to me was a breeze.” 
“Yes. It was easy, because it was you, Maou. But, you see, I have the issues; perhaps we are not very compatible? And Suzuno and Albert, no way, that will never work.” 
“Oh?” 
“Chiho, ooh, it could work. Amane, maybe, maybe not? Rika or Kisaki, no. Lucifer… We would not get along, no, but I think he is most compatible of all. That evil angel, no way, I don’t want to think of, I hope he die. Oh, and the Emi girl, if my sister is okay to her, I think I am, too.” 
“Um, what?” 
This was confusing to Maou. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to who would “work” with her and who wouldn’t, from Rika to Emi to the “evil angel” Maou assumed to be Sariel. Maou, Emi, Chiho, Urushihara, and Nord were on the “okay” list; Amane was a toss-up; and Suzuno, Sariel, Albert, Rika, and Kisaki were no good. The fact that Urushihara earned such high marks irked Maou a little. He was afraid to ask how Ashiya and Emeralda ranked. 
Then he looked back to their original fusion. He had forgotten about one aspect of it, but now he felt the need to get the facts straight. 
“So wait, Acieth, when you say ‘latent force,’ do you mean…?” 
That was what Acieth had called him just before the fusion took place. 
“Oh. Yeah. It means can work with me.” 
Maou appreciated the confirmation. But it led to another question. 
“Isn’t that weird, though?” 
“What is?” 
“You’re fusing with us, right? Kind of like grafting a new branch onto a tree? So why are we the ‘latent’ forces to you?” 
“Um?” Acieth gave him a blank stare. “It is not so weird, no?” 
“Oh?” 
“Everyone in this world with intelligence, they are all latent forces of Sephirot. Maou, you have the order upside down, I think.” 
“The order?” 
This only confused Maou further. Acieth didn’t give him time to ponder over it. 
“Come on, Maou! It doesn’t matter! My sister, she in the danger! Take me to her! If you not move, I not move, either!” 
“Uh, yeah…” 
“If we go, I think maybe, uh, perhaps, me and my sister, we go together and beat up all enemy! You can sit somewhere safe and watch. So please! Let’s go! Now!” 
“Oof. Now I really don’t wanna go.” 
The poor evaluation of his abilities rankled Maou, but if Alas Ramus was fighting, Emi had clearly kicked something off. He couldn’t know with who, exactly, but as mocking as Acieth could be at times, she had never lied to him. 
“Acieth.” 
“What?!” 
“Is Emi doing okay? Um, I mean, is Alas Ramus?” 
“Ooh, swell! To the moon!” 
The reply, if a bit abstract, helped reassure Maou a bit. 
“Acieth, do you think you can drive a scooter?” 
“Maou! You want to use the scooter?! I think so, yes, but too slow…” 
“No. We’ll use the scooters as long as Alas Ramus is okay. That’s final.” 
He had a hunch Acieth intended to fly over, like she did when she’d taken Maou from the driver license center in Fuchu to Chiho’s high school. He didn’t want that to happen. 
“Suzuno’s an open question, but we know Emi and Alas Ramus are okay. As long as we know that, flying can only hurt us. We have to do everything we can to keep Gabriel and Camael from spotting us. If they find us, they’ll take a Gate right over here, and I dunno if we’ll get the chance to reach Alas Ramus then. You wanna be sure you can see your sister, right? So chill out. If you start panicking, you’ll mess up things you’d be able to pull off otherwise.” 
“Oh… Okay. I watched you do the riding. And I helped Pop earn his license, too. Or try to. So I try! It will come fast, I’m sure.” 
“…Yeah.” 
He didn’t like her chances. That, and ugh, that stupid test. He needed to get back at her for that. 
“Once we get Emi back, I’m definitely gonna make her pay for that test I had to blow off.” 
He nodded and gave Acieth a pat on the head. 
“Let’s get packed up. Hey, Suzuno left the scooter keys in here, didn’t she?” 
“Maou, can we eat before we go?” 
Maou laughed, a little relieved to see Acieth back to normal. “After all that crap you put me through, you want to eat again? Crazy! I want to pick up a few things before we hit Heavensky. We’ll eat at the next town over, so just hang on ’til then!” 
Acieth gave an understanding smile in response. Then something caught her eye. 
“Maou, what about…?” 
It was the present Maou had bought for Chiho and Emi just before their rocket trip—a set of three wooden spoons. They were carved from the same tree by a master woodworker, and apparently they brought good luck to the receiver. Chiho’s was decorated with a flowery design, almost like cherry blossoms, while Emi’s and Alas Ramus’s were adorned with a pair of small birds. He had them wrapped up, but their little dip in the lake completely wrecked the box, so he was carrying them out in the open. 
“Oh, that? Hmm. Better find some cushioning for these. Don’t want to ruin the finish.” 
Maou looked around the room for something to package them in. Nothing immediately obvious was in sight. 
“And luggage of Suzuno and Albert, what about that?” 
“Yeah, better bring it along. I doubt we’ll be coming back. Takes up a lot of space, though… Maybe we could keep it here and have Albert fetch it later? Ooh, but they might confiscate it after everything we did…” 
“Um, Maou? The innkeeper, he said something about the water if we check out?” 
“Oh, yeah, the well usage fee and the water for the stables… Man, it sucks having to pay for water. It tasted all weird, too.” 
With his upcoming departure came a litany of problems. They knew they had to go, but Maou knew he couldn’t just leave all their possessions in the room. By the time he had them all packed and picked up his scooters from their hiding place in the stables, another thirty minutes had passed.