Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 10 - Chapter Pr

PROLOGUE 
The clock’s hands were already showing two in the morning. It was a time that any respectable student would likely spend asleep, but Chiho Sasaki had marched straight from Ueno-Onshi Park to Room 202 of the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartment building undeterred. Suzuno Kamazuki, the room’s usual tenant, was gone. 
“What’s up? This ain’t exactly my place, but c’mon in.” 
Tossing the schoolbag she had filled with her things toward a corner, she took a moment to look around the apartment. It felt like it’d been a while since her last visit, and current events were all just too weird to think about—that the tenant here was out traveling with the man she loved. Not in Japan, not even on Earth. All so they could find—and rescue—two other people Chiho held dearly. 
Watching over Room 202 was Amane Ohguro, her outfit exposing ample amounts of her tanned skin and her long, black hair casually tied back. She was Chiho’s former boss, more or less—they had signed a contract along those lines and everything, back when she helped out at the Ohguro-ya beachside snack bar in Choshi for a bit. But there was one important difference between Amane and Mayumi Kisaki, manager at the MgRonald location that Chiho normally worked at: 
She wasn’t exactly…normal. 
If Amane was to be believed, she had regular physicals and always received a clean bill of health from them. Biologically, she was Homo sapiens, pretty much. But… 
“Eesh, today was a hot one, wasn’t it? You want some barley tea, maybe? Suzuno said it was okay to use whatever she’s got in the fridge.” 
“Oh, okay. I’ll go get some.” 
Instead of sitting down, Chiho headed to the large, state-of-the-art refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of tea, a couple of glasses from underneath the sink, and an ice tray from the pull-out freezer drawer. Before long, two glasses of iced tea were on a tray in the low table in the center of the room. 
“Ooh, all prim and proper, eh?” marveled Amane as she sized up Chiho’s clear familiarity with Suzuno’s kitchen. 
“Yeah,” Chiho listlessly replied as she sat across from her, “I’ve been using her kitchen for a while now, so…” 
“Here? What for?” 
Chiho replied with a simple smile, sizing up Amane’s expression. 
“Mm? What is it?” Amane asked. 
“Sorry. I was just thinking that, y’know, I was cooking here more often before we all went to Choshi. Just before we started working for you.” 
“Yeah?” 
It had begun with Alas Ramus (the supposed “daughter” of the Hero and the Devil King) appearing at Villa Rosa Sasazuka, and had ended with the archangel Gabriel traveling to Japan to take the girl away. Alas’s “parents” had stepped up to prevent that abduction, but subsequently, the wall of Room 201 had sported a gigantic hole that made it a bit difficult to inhabit the space effectively. Following that series of events, Alas Ramus fused with Emi’s holy sword, thus saving her hide, but thanks to that, Emi was forced to visit Villa Rosa even more frequently so that Alas Ramus could see Maou. 
Ashiya, who usually handled all domestic responsibilities in Devil’s Castle (aka Room 201), then began regularly borrowing the kitchen in Room 202 to do the cooking, the hole in their own space proving too enormous to work around. And with Chiho never failing to supply them with extra provisions during this ordeal, she naturally wound up in Suzuno’s kitchen a fair bit of the time. It wasn’t anything that anyone strove for, but somewhere along the line the entire group found itself regularly sitting around the same dinner table, and nobody even thought to question it. 
After that, when the landlord asked them to vacate the premises so she could fix the hole, it was Amane and the Ohguro-ya shop she ran who saved the day. And, looking back, it seemed like between Maou and Emi, the seven of them had started to do quite a few things together beyond their regular meals. 
The Ohguro-ya gig didn’t last long, but by the time the repairs were done and everyone was back in Sasazuka, regularly sharing the evening meal together was just the new normal. The Devil King and the Hero, archenemies; one an alien from another planet, the other an alien from another plane of existence. Just a scant year or so ago, none of them would have dreamed of eating in the same room, but now…well, it wasn’t exactly all smiles, but they were bickering, carrying on, and (most importantly) spending time with one another. 
Now that impossible kind of “peace” was disturbed. Now, around this building, there was no one left but Chiho, Amane, and Hanzou Urushihara, Room 201’s sole remaining resident. 
“You know, though, Amane…” 
“Hmm?” 
“How much do you really know about Maou and everyone, anyway?” 
“Oh…” Amane looked up at the ceiling, finger on her chin. “Well, not that much. Just, like, Maou’s not really from Earth, or all that human, either. Something corrupted…or, well, judging by the dark force he’s got, I assume he’s a demon or monster or something. And based on what Ashiya and Yusa and that black chicken told me, he used to have a whole wagonload of power, but something… Like, people like Yusa wielded this more purified type of power against him and forced him to flee into this world. And the power streaming around this world is all set up so it’s neither ‘positive’ nor ‘negative,’ so he can’t get any more demonic force from it, so he got a Joe-Shmoe job so he can feed himself. That’s about what I can surmise, anyway.” 
“…That’s… That’s a lot to surmise…” 
This was almost everything anyone needed to know about Maou’s origins, in a neat little package. 
“But who’d you hear all that from? The landlord? I’ve never met her, but…” 
“Oh, Aunt Mikitty? You haven’t, Chiho?” 
“I saw her belly dancing in a video once.” 
“Huh?” 
“Uhhm…” 
“I didn’t really ‘hear’ it from anyone. Just surmised it based on what I’ve seen, is all. Was I right?” 
“Um, yeah, there’s pretty much nothing to add to that…” 
“Ah-ha-ha! You look disappointed.” Amane let out a small sigh at Chiho’s mixed signals. “But, you know, even I was able to come up with that much. Someone like Aunt Mikitty or my dad, they’d probably guess his age and blood type, too.” 
“I, uh, I don’t get how they could do that, but… So then, um…” 
“Hmm? Oh, right. You wanted to ask me about something else, didn’t you?” 
Chiho, the wind fully absent from her sails, still leaned her body forward. Amane reacted by flashing a world-beating smile and taking a hefty swig of barley tea. Then she winced. 
“…Ooh, I think I got brain freeze…arg…” 
“Um…” Chiho stared at her blankly. 
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Sorry, sorry… But, you know. People are weird that way. I can whip a horde of slavering demons with one hand tied behind my back, but whenever I belt down something too cold, boom! Instant headache, right around my temples. Although…” 
Suddenly, Amane stood up, leaving her glass on the low table. She closed the window they had open for ventilation and leaned a hand against the wall separating them from Room 201. 
“Amane?” 
“Well, I’ll tell you, Chiho, like I said I would. Just to you, though… Hmm…” 
Chiho could spot Amane applying a bit more pressure with her index finger to the wall. She couldn’t tell what was happening on the other side, but the vibration that ran across the floor—like something had just been slammed against it repeatedly—told her what she needed to know. 
“Just in case, I’ll take some measures to make sure nobody can eavesdrop on us. This is a pretty old apartment, and we wouldn’t want Urushihara picking up on anything, would we?” 
“…I guess not,” Chiho said, face stiffened as she nodded. She hadn’t gone out and said it, but the reason she suggested that Urushihara hole up in his apartment (and its wafer-thin walls) once he got back was precisely so that he could hear whatever Amane told her. She figured he’d get the hint—he had an instinct for that kind of thing, somehow—but the thoughtless gesture had been rewarded with what sounded like some rather painful “measures.” Her eyes indicated to Chiho that, while she was willing to keep her promise to the letter of the word, she knew full well what the girl was scheming. 
“…So let me ask you again,” Chiho began, not commenting on it. She’d have to apologize to Urushihara later, but if Amane wasn’t being too forthcoming, she had to stay on the offensive if she wanted anything at all out of her. 
“Wow, you’re gonna take notes? You’re that serious?” 
Chiho gave her a heavy nod, hands full with the three-color pen and notebook she’d taken from her bag, tools she normally used at work. “I always write things down when I hear them for the first time,” she explained. “I got in the habit back when I had to memorize a bunch of stuff for work, like…right when I started sharing shifts with Maou.” 
Whenever you’re plunged into a world you don’t understand, the first order of business is to comprehend—to learn. That was something that someone important to Chiho had taught her long ago. 
“Yeah?” Amane said as she sat back down and locked gazes with Chiho. “Well, whaddaya wanna know?” 
Chiho took a deep breath. She tried to put everything together in her mind—what she’d seen, what had happened, what she needed to talk about—and the first question she had to ask suddenly seemed obvious. 
“If the Earth has a Sephirot Tree of Life and Sephirah jewels coming from it, where is it right now? What kind of situation is it in?” 
“Er…” Amane had seemed perfectly calm and composed before. But now, with Chiho’s question, she looked caught off guard. 
“Um, Chiho?” 
“Yes?” 
“Ah…I’m sorry, but that’s just…a little beyond what I was expecting. I mean… Like, what kind of thought process led you to that question? ’Cause…you know, I was kind of expecting you to ask about who me or Aunt Mikitty really are, or what demon power is, or what happened on the beach in Choshi, or… I don’t know. Something else!” 

“Well, of course I’m wondering about that, too,” Chiho quietly replied. “I just figured if I could get to the core of this first, we’d probably visit all those other things, too, so…” 
“Aw, man… Really?” 
“Maybe I shouldn’t put it this way, but…if I had to guess, Amane, you’re probably not that major a part of it all.” 
“No, but… I’m sorry; I probably shouldn’t act all shocked like this. I’ll tell you, okay? I’m just impressed you made it that far all by yourself, is all. Did you talk to Maou or someone along those lines?” 
“No, not really in particular…but I wasn’t alone in it, either.” Chiho steadied her grip on her pen and notebook. “I mean, all this time I’ve spent with Maou and Yusa, I’ve been exposed to all these things, little by little. I try not to let any snippets of information escape me; I try to remember it all… So these aren’t questions I came up with entirely by myself. It was Maou, it was Yusa, it was Urushihara, Suzuno, Alas Ramus, Erone… You too, of course, and Camio and the Malebranche guys, and Sariel and Gabriel, and…um…” 
Chiho pointed at her own right hand. 
“The memories of the woman who gave me this ring.” 
“So that purple one’s the ninth?” Amane looked at the ring on Chiho’s finger, the one with said purple jewel on it. Her face soured. “Boy, it looks like it’s been put through the wringer. The lady who gave that to you’s from Ente Isla or whatever, right?” 
“She didn’t explicitly say that, but I’m sure she is. I couldn’t really tell you if she’s human, though…” 
“Ahh, same difference. As long as you can talk to them all right.” 
“In any event, if I want to take everything I’ve heard and everything I’ve experienced and wrap it all into one question, that’s pretty much the one.” 
“All right. I gotcha. Not to be too persistent, but can I do something before I tell you?” 
“Sure, but…? Agh!” 
Without waiting for a reply, Amane placed a hand upon Chiho’s forehead. Whatever she was searching for, she didn’t find it. She shrugged and nodded. 
“Hmm… No, I guess you’re not connected to anything.” 
“Wh-what was that?” 
“Sorry. I was just thinking the lady who gave you that was still secretly connected with you, but I guess she didn’t go that far, huh? You said she put some memories into you, so if she’s still peeking at your mind, then I just wasted my time teaching Urushihara a lesson.” 
This proved, at the very least, that Urushihara had been taught “a lesson” for spying. Chiho swore to herself that she’d apologize for getting him involved. 
“Right. So you wanna know about Earth’s life-tree and the Sephirahs…” 
“So there is one? And with multiple Sephirahs?” 
“Man, mind like a steel trap, huh? You don’t have to keep double-checking everything. I’m not gonna lie to you.” 
“S-sorry.” Chiho took a breath, regretting the way she was leaning so heavily over the table, and tried to lend an earnest ear to Amane. Not that it fazed her, though—if she didn’t understand something, she intended to keep asking questions until she did. Maou had taught her that, too: If two repetitions aren’t enough, go for three. That was how valuable, how meaningful, Amane’s revelations would be. 
“I’ll start with the Sephirahs. Right now, they aren’t in the same place as Earth’s life-tree. They were scattered all over ages ago. And by ‘ages,’ I’m talking about the kinda times you’re probably learning about in history class.” 
“So kind of recently, then?” 
“Hmm?” 
“Well, I mean, if it’d be covered by history class, they got separated somewhere in a timeline I’d still be able to comprehend, right? ’Cause I was picturing, like, millions of years before there was life on Earth.” 
“…You high schoolers can sure scale up time in your minds pretty fast these days, huh? If you actually lived that whole time, I’m sure you’d think it was a pretty darn long while, but…anyway. So if you don’t mind me cutting to the chase, I wasn’t born directly from a Sephirah the way Alas Ramus and Acieth were from theirs. You can kinda picture me as having one human parent, and one born from a Sephirah like those two. Sort of. I mean, even putting it that way is pretty weird, but—” 
“Um, hang on a second.” 
That sequence alone held a treasure trove of information. First, both Alas Ramus and Acieth were blessed with impossibly long lifespans. Second, they could have human partners and create offspring with them. Third, they could pass their powers as Sephirah children down to the next generation. That much was clear simply by Amane’s powers. 
“So,” Amane continued once Chiho was done jotting all this down, “it was my father who was born from a Sephirah. I guess his real name is Mumleed, born from the Sephirah Binah, but he goes by Tenji Ohguro these days.” 
“Mumleed… Does that mean anything special?” 
Suzuno had mentioned that both “Alas Ramus” and “Acieth Alla” meant things in an Ente Isla language. “Erone” had to be something, too, although Chiho hadn’t found out what yet. The same rule had to apply to Earth’s Sephirah. 
“Um… What was it? I think it meant, like, the ‘mother ship’ or something similar. Even though he’s a guy and all.” 
Amane grinned. 
“So to get back to your first question, Chiho—where the Earth’s life-tree was.” 
“Y-yeah?” 
Chiho swallowed nervously. These trees, and the Sephirah they bore, lay at the very core of the events surrounding her, Maou, and Emi. Between what Amane just said and what that woman implanted into her mind hinted at, there was no doubting the fact that Earth had its own tree of life. If she wanted to learn about Ente Isla’s tree, she had to know everything she could about Earth’s. And now that piece of info was dangling in front of her. The thought of being so close to the truth excited Chiho—enough that she didn’t quite notice the verb tense Amane chose to use. 
“It’s somewhere,” she began, “you can always see, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to reach it, Chiho.” 
“Somewhere I can always see?” 
“Yeah, pretty much every day. Not so much when it’s raining, though. Up there.” 
Amane raised her arm and pointed a finger toward the window. Chiho followed it, then gasped. There was the moon, shining brightly in the night sky. 
“On…the Moon?” 
The “tree of life” assigned to Earth was the Moon, its sole satellite. 
As that fact took hold, a storm began to flash through Chiho’s mind. And then, the moment all the information strewn about by this storm neatly organized itself in her mind, Chiho shuddered. 
“Sariel’s powers are stronger…the closer he is to the Moon… The most valuable thing in heaven… So heaven and the demon realm on Ente Isla is…” 
“What? Was it that surprising to you?” 
“N-n-no, I mean, yes, but, um, can you just keep going?” 
Chiho’s shaky hand sent her pen racing across the page as she tried to keep her thoughts from fluttering into thin air. 
“Oh? Well, you probably figured out since I call her my aunt all the time, but Aunt Mikitty’s the older sister of my father, which means Miki Shiba’s another Sephirah child. She’s a little different from the other Sephirahs, though, given her role in everything…” 
Chiho nodded as she kept on writing. She had no idea if any of this connected to her future, but all this material that helped her ponder that future was raining down upon her like precious jewels pouring out from a treasure chest of secrets. She felt oddly exhilarated as she scribbled away, bringing a light smile to her face. 
Suddenly: 
“Aghh!!!!” 
Amane’s voice was stopped by a scream. Chiho’s eyes darted around. The voice belonged to Urushihara. It sounded deeply pained—but if anything, Amane sounded worse. 
“Wait… What? Why?! Why can he hear me? I put up a full guard and everything…” 
Chiho didn’t much appreciate how Amane was more concerned about Urushihara snooping on them than what had just happened to him. But either way, this was an emergency. Now, of all times, didn’t seem right at all for a demon or angel to try attacking them, and Chiho was pretty sure Amane could handle either possibility with ease. But she stood up anyway, instinctively trying to figure out how to handle this. 
Then… 
““…!”” 
There was a knock on the front door. 
It was soft, but to Chiho’s ears, it sounded refined, elegant, like a brass door knocker rapped against the massive doors of a stately mansion.