THE DEVIL APPRECIATES THE VALUE OF MAINTENANCE
Nord, as expected, took it hard.
“Wh-what happened to you?! How could this…?!”
By the time Emi and Laila made it back to Villa Rosa Sasazuka—in taxis, with Amane and Emeralda helping them along—they were both thoroughly exhausted and haggard. That, and Laila had just gotten a new hair color.
“Emilia! Are you all right?!”
“…”
Her eyes were too hollow to give a reply.
“What has happened to them?” Nord asked Chiho and Emeralda. The former didn’t know where to begin, but before she could, Amane—still propping Laila up on her feet—spoke.
“It’s gonna be a long story. Not the sort we’d wanna give outside, either.”
She motioned to him to open up Room 101 for the group. “I’ll take care of Yusa, so can you help your lady out here?”
“A-ah… Yes… But Laila, too, my goodness…”
The purple hair didn’t seem a major concern of his, thankfully, as he took Laila into his arms. Watching them, Emeralda realized that they had all, at that moment, just dodged a bullet. Emi was the first out of the taxi by chance, so Nord naturally turned his attention to her first. If he had given more priority to Laila just now, there was no telling how the Hero might react.
This was an Emi who kept muttering about Laila the whole taxi ride, barely able to keep her eyes in focus. “Why? Why does she try to make my life miserable? Why does she hurt everyone around me? What right does she have?”
“What of the Devil King, Emeralda?” asked Suzuno, freshly relieved from Nord guard duty. Emeralda didn’t immediately answer her, taking the time to give the neighborhood of Sasazuka around her a distressed look.
“Ummm… He had to abandon his restauraaant duties to come to us, sooo…”
“Ah. And he has returned to them?”
“Y-yesss.”
It flummoxed Emeralda—the idea of this Devil King whirling in to save the day, save an angel’s life, then return to his shift without even wrapping anything up—but this was apparently nothing surprising to Suzuno. Suzuno, perhaps out of politeness, did not bring this up with her.
“Indeed, he said their delivery operations would begin shortly. Ms. Kisaki has been out of the office quite a bit, leaving Maou as the shift manager, so to him, it was the only choice to be made.”
“Waaas it?”
“Yes. Ask Alciel or Lucifer if you need confirmation. I imagine they will tell you the same. I doubt Chiho found it unusual, either, no? And Amane was more than capable of ferrying them back here by herself, as you saw.”
“C-cerrrtainly,” Emeralda murmured, wide-eyed at how accurately Suzuno painted the picture despite her absence.
“Interact with your neighbors as much as I have, and you learn quickly.”
“Ahh…”
“But regardless. You had best rest up for now, Emeralda, and let me know if anything happens. It must have been a dreadful battle. I could feel Emilia’s force all the way from here.”
“I wasn’t there for the whole show myselllf,” Emeralda mused as she crossed her arms. “I’m not sure it’s fair to even call it a baaattle. And Emilia herself, well…”
“…Yes.” Suzuno nodded, looking at Emi as she beckoned them to join her in Room 101. “Something terrible must have happened.”
“She was griping about Laila the whole taxi ride hooome. In this real low, scaaary voice.”
“Not an encouraging trend, no.”
Suzuno wasn’t aware that Emi had abandoned her apartment for three days, but she knew Emi had been trying to banish Laila from her mind as of late, a move she respected a great deal. The results, however, had proven less than favorable.
The moment they opened the door to Room 101, Emi froze, looked up, and practically leaped backward, almost bowling over Nord and Chiho.
“Emilia?!”
“Yusa?”
“I’m not going in.”
“Huh?”
“I can’t be in the same room as that woman.”
“Quit your worrying,” a bewildered Amane said. “You already got a Devil King in this joint. What could be worse?”
Emi turned her hollow, exhausted eyes upward. “I’ll wait upstairs.”
“Upstairs?”
“In his room!!” she shouted half-hysterically, dragging Chiho by the arm as she walked off. “I don’t want to listen to Laila! I don’t care what’s happening wherever! I usually wait upstairs with Alas Ramus! For the Devil King and Chiho to come back! And I’m gonna do that now, too! You all just do whatever you want!!”
“Y-Yusa, um, um, agh,” Chiho said as Emi almost lifted her by the arm to the second floor.
“Alciel! Lucifer! I’m coming in!!”
“You may, if you wish, but if you are shameless enough to ask for dinner as well, help me prepare the peas. Feel free to sit down, Ms. Sasaki; I am sure you are tired.”
“Dude, you could at least act like you’re sorry for bothering us.”
Ashiya and Urushihara were enough used to Emi’s sudden intrusions that they offered no further objection. In another moment, the front door to Room 201 was slammed shut, so forcefully that Ashiya feared she would smash it to pieces.
“……” Nord watched all this unfold, unable to speak. Amane just shrugged. “Boy, she sure hates her, huh? What a drag,” she said, not looking at all concerned.
Emeralda, meanwhile, drooped her shoulders down like an abandoned puppy.
“Emiliaaa…”
“I apologize, Emeralda,” Suzuno said, patting the dejected sorceress on the shoulder, “but would you mind waiting in my apartment? Given that you were there to witness this evening’s events, you going inside to see Laila might be too much for Emilia to bear.”
“…Yesss, all right.”
“Understand, I am sure you still have Emilia’s trust, Emeralda.”
“Oh, I knowww, it’s just… Well, it’s too late to do much about nowww, I suppose. You can take me out of Ente Isla, but you can’t take Ente Isla out of meee, you could say. My presence must push all her ‘Heeero’ buttons, mmm?”
She looked up the stairs leading to Villa Rosa Sasazuka’s second floor, eyes saddened but not wet with tears.
“Right nowww, she’s ‘Emi Yusa,’ isn’t sheee? And Emi Yusa’s problems need to be solved heeere, with all her friends in Japaaan. I’m here to supporrrt her, no matter whaaat decision she maaakes.”
“Indeed, Japan is a rather…more comfortable place to be than I expected. Perhaps you should consider an extended stay as well, Emeralda.”
“I doubt my government post would allowww that. And no matter how easy it is in Japan, how nice the food is, I still feel more at hooome in Saint Aile.”
“Do you?”
Suzuno nodded and smiled before giving Emeralda the key to her front door. “If you wouldn’t mind staying there while I run a quick errand? If you need a drink, help yourself to anything in the refrigerator.”
“…Well, come back sooon,” Emeralda said as she accepted it. “I always feel awwwkward about puttering around in someone else’s paaantry.”
“I will.” Suzuno gave Emeralda a light hug, along with a few affectionate pats on the back. “Amane, if you wouldn’t mind…”
“You want me to guard? Sure, sure,” came the listless reply. “Guess we got Ashiya and Urushihara upstairs, not to mention Emeralda. Not like things’ll break bad that fast if someone shows up.”
Suzuno nodded at this, then briskly took her leave, walking away from the apartment. The phone told her it was just before eight.
“A little junk food for dinner now and then is hardly a bad thing,” she whispered as she strode off toward the center of Sasazuka.
“Hmm?”
The moment the front doors at the MgRonald by Hatagaya station whirred open, Suzuno spotted two familiar faces in the corner of her eye. She turned toward them. They gave her a little wave.
“Rika?”
“Hey,” Rika Suzuki said from the sofa-style seating lining the wall.
“And…Acieth?”
Across from her was Acieth Alla, looking supremely satisfied with the small mountain of paper wrappings on the table. Despite appearing roughly the age of a middle schooler, she was Alas Ramus’s younger sister, another personification of a Yesod fragment—what was she doing hanging in MgRonald, with Rika?
“Ooh! Suzuno! I am the very, very full!”
“I imagine so. And I do hope you did not force Rika here to pay for an order of this magnitude.”
To someone like Suzuno, who didn’t partake in fast food all that often, the number of burger wrappings in front of Acieth—not to mention the four paper cups surrounding them—seemed utterly bizarre.
She seemed unlikely to have enough to pay for this herself. Suzuno feared for the hapless Rika, forced to shell out just because they happened to know each other.
“Well, funny thing about that,” Rika said, a twinge of resignation in her voice as she grinned and picked up one of the wrappings. “She said that this lady, Ms. Shiba, will repay me if I give her the receipt.”
This made Suzuno bring a hand to her face. She looked upward, seeking divine guidance for this wild child before her. “If Maou was not on duty,” she remarked, “I rather believe he would sock you on the head again.”
“Aww, so mean! Maou, he is so quick with the violence to me! It is big drag!”
“But that is not the point. The point is that it’s disgraceful to be so reliant on other people’s money like that. I would expect that from Lucifer, but not you.”
“Heh. I feel kinda bad about Urushihara getting scapegoated like that.” Rika, well versed in the affairs of Maou and his kin, already knew Urushihara’s real name. “But ah, well. It’s all right, Suzuno. Ms. Shiba’s the landlord at your apartment, right? If she sees Emi and Maou a lot, I’m bound to run into her, so I’ll bring it up then.”
“…My apologies, Rika. I will be sure to give Shiba a piece of my mind about it.”
It was nothing for Suzuno to apologize about, but Shiba did tend to oddly spoil her acquaintances. It was generous of her, one could say, but Suzuno was starting to think she just had very poor spending habits.
“But what brings you two here tonight?”
“Probably the same reason you’re here, Suzuno.”
Rika showed her a news site on her phone. It had all the latest info on the mystery accident that took place in the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line a bit ago.
“One of the newer staffers at Dokodemo lives off the Fukutoshin Line,” she explained, scowling a bit as she put her phone away. “In Zoshigaya. Her name’s Maki, and like, she’s totally crazy for Emi, you know? And she was like, ‘Oh, I’m so worried, I’m so worried,’ so I figured I’d come here just to make sure it’s nothing too hairy. If it’s Ente Isla stuff, Maou’s bound to get involved anyway, so. And if it’s nothing, then—hey—I’ll just have a little ‘cheat’ dinner here. But on the way here, I tried contacting Emi, and she didn’t answer my phone calls or texts.”
Judging by the shape Emi was in, Suzuno surmised it would be a while before she cared about her phone.
“So,” Rika continued, voice growing quieter, “by sheer coincidence, I ran into Maou and Acieth in front of the MgRonald here.”
“Not that I wants to come,” Acieth mumbled, eyebrows down. “Maou, he had to go out of Hatagaya, so I forced to fuse with him. And we go to subway, and ohh, so angry, so angry! Nothing I can poke the fun at.”
This suggested that Acieth’s typically bubbleheaded observations were a deliberate act, to some extent, but that didn’t matter right now.
“So you saw what happened in Shinjuku, Acieth?”
“Yes, starting in middle. Uhhhrrp!”
The titanic belch that emanated from the Yesod fragment personification, a girl in the blooming stages of her life, was followed by her nodding and rubbing her belly.
“Amane and Chiho, they are home?”
“Yes, just a moment ago.”
“And Emi and Eme together?”
Rika sat up at the question, looking at Suzuno.
“Yes, they are all at Villa Rosa Sasazuka at the moment…” Suzuno hedged.
…Though it is a difficult situation to explain.
“…But Emilia is even more repulsed by the presence of Laila than she was before,” she finished. “She may not even be willing to reason with Emeralda right now.”
Rika winced. “Ooh, did something bad happen to her again?”
“I have no details yet. She and Emeralda both looked shocked and exhausted to me, and I need Amane to keep an eye on Laila and guard the apartment for us. Thus, I thought I would discuss matters with the Devil King once I had a spare moment…”
She looked around the dining space.
“…But he is not here. Is he upstairs, or in the back?”
“He went somewhere with that pretty manager after he wrapped up Acieth’s order.”
“Hmm. Hopefully he is not being rebuked for leaving to help Emilia. But I cannot loiter in here without ordering anything. Would you mind if I sat with you?”
“Ooh! Is okay for round two?!”
“Acieth, are you listening to us? I thought you said you were full just now.”
Leaving her goldfish-print tote bag with the exasperated Rika, Suzuno took out her wallet and walked up to the counter, currently manned by a burly gentleman.
“Hello! Let me know when you’re ready to order!”
“Umm…” She looked at the menu. It was a daunting task. “If I could order this Full-Moon Burger meal…er, medium size?”
“Certainly,” the man replied, bringing his hand to the drink menu to aid the clearly confused Suzuno. “What kind of drink would you like? The selections in red cost an extra hundred yen.”
“Errr, hot coffee, please.”
“Would you like milk and sugar with that?”
“No sugar. Just the milk.”
“All right. So just to confirm your order…”
This order-taking business was making sweat form around her forehead. This was, she realized, the first time she had ever gone into a MgRonald and ordered by herself. She usually visited with Emi, and if not, then either Maou or Chiho were usually behind the counter, so there normally wasn’t much to be nervous about. She was at least acquainted with Kisaki, the manager, as well—but ordering with a stranger like this made her muse about just how unused to MgRonald she really was. She only ordered the Full-Moon Burger because it was at the top of the menu, a limited-time item, and because it had an unusual name. She knew nothing about it.
“I see there is much for me to learn, still…”
And this was how she acted as a customer. If she were an employee? No, there was no way she could handle this dizzying array of food items. It made her sigh a little as she took out a thousand-yen bill, before realizing that, as she received her change, the cashier was looking right into her eyes.
“Um…?”
“Oh, er, sorry. You know Marko…I mean, Maou, don’t you?”
“I do,” the bemused Suzuno replied, “but how did you know?” She took another look at the employee. His face didn’t ring a bell.
“How, well…” The large man scratched the side of his head. “I just remembered that I’ve seen you in here with Maou a few times. That, and with Yusa before she got hired. And you know, seeing a young woman in a kimono when it’s not during a festival or something made you kind of stand out in my mind, so… Sorry if I’m being weird.”
“Oh, not at all, but…hmm. Perhaps I should expand my wardrobe a tad.”
She had been semi-forced into more modern clothing for Emi’s birthday party, but Suzuno liked what she liked, and that outfit was now stuffed deep into a closet. Taking a look at the man’s name tag, it said KAWATA in capital letters.
“Maou’s in the back office for the time being, but I think he’ll return in a bit. I’ll tell him to stop by your seat when he does. Here’s your Full-Moon Burger and coffee set.”
“Ah, thank you,” Suzuno said, regaining her composure. “Hmmm…”
She couldn’t help but feel a little out of sorts as she turned around and headed for Rika’s table, gaze pointed at her feet.
“What’s up?” Rika asked.
“Oh, er, I was just thinking about how my choice of clothing might be a tad too conspicuous.”
“Uh, duh?” Rika giggled. “I mean, I’ve known you long enough that I couldn’t imagine you in anything else, but…”
“You think so? Hmmm… I do have some more sensible long-sleeved wear for the winter, but perhaps I should consider a more varied Western wardrobe… Ah, but look at me.” She shook her head, attempting to banish the subject from her mind. “Enough about my clothing. What about Emilia? Acieth, what happened to… Um. Hello?”
Her face stiffened before she could finish the question.
“Yeah, uh, she’s been that way ever since you stood up to place that order.”
“Nnggggguuuuhhhh…”
Acieth, fresh from gorging herself on someone else’s tab, was now slumped back on one of the plastic chairs bolted to the table, snoring loudly as she enjoyed her post-meal siesta.
“Ugh, has she no sense of urgency at all?!”
She had just been witness, in sword form, to epoch-making events—events that thoroughly thrashed Emi and Emeralda and didn’t even leave Amane unscathed. Yet, here she was. Everyone knew she wasn’t the type to think too deeply about matters as a rule, but this was just too much.
“Acieth! Wake up! No sleeping allowed in the dining hall!”
“Mngh…”
Suzuno grabbed her arms and began shaking. She didn’t open her eyes.
“Nuu…ahm…I—I can eat still…”
“I was not asking you that!”
“Boy, looking at that, it makes you wonder if anything serious happened after all, huh? I almost feel silly worrying about it.”
“Do not let her deceive you, Rika! This is just Acieth’s personality at work—it must be more serious than this! Come on, Acieth!”
“Urh…nnffffuuu…”
“Maybe we oughtta let her be until Maou comes back?”
“Alas Ramus cares so much about her parents! Why must you be so different from her?!”
“Maybe it was just her environment, or upbringing or something? I mean, Alas Ramus is just the cutest li’l angel right now, but maybe she’ll wind up more like this eventually?”
“I refuse to let that happen! Acieth! Acieth, get up!”
She couldn’t be too loud, not wanting to alarm the other diners in the room. But right now, Suzuno’s top priority in life was to get this glutton back into the realm of the conscious.
Maou chose that moment to return from the staff room.
“Whewwww… Man, I thought she was gonna ream me out.”
He had zoomed right back to MgRonald after healing Laila and leaving her in Amane’s hands. When he did, Rika was waiting out front—and Kisaki was waiting inside. He had expected his manager to be working at the regional office all day, so the mere sight of her was enough to make Maou shrink back in terror. Luckily, Kisaki didn’t bring up his absence at all; she just wanted to go over the things that needed to be done on tomorrow’s shift.
“You owe us one for that,” Kawata commented, deliberately looking as annoyed as possible at him. “I mean, deciding to take off for half an hour while we’re getting slammed? What was up with that?”
“Sorry, Kawatchi. I’ll make up for it, okay? What’d you say to Ms. Kisaki?”
“Well, you said you’d be back in half an hour, yeah? Ms. Kisaki showed up five minutes before you did, Marko, so I took your word for it and told her you ran out to deliver a forgotten item back to a customer. But, man, was I spooked! Next time, tell me what you’re out doing, at least!”
“Sure thing,” Maou said as he put his hands together and gave Kawata an apologetic bow.
“No worries. But what were you talking about back there? Why the big meeting just to talk about tomorrow?”
“Oh, well, we’re gonna take delivery tomorrow on our fleet of scooters, but it’s kind of dicey whether Ms. Kisaki’s gonna be here on time for the drop-off, so she wanted to brief me on the procedure just in case.”
“Oh, that! It’s almost time, huh? Makes me a little nervous.”
It had been just over two months since the MagCafé space opened upstairs, and now the franchise was diving headlong into their delivery program. The period between now and when Kisaki made the first announcement was, to say the least, a packed time in Maou’s life. It felt far longer than just two months in his mind, what with the arrival of Acieth and Nord, his journey to Ente Isla, and—most daunting of all—Emi both joining the Mag’s crew and dealing with mommy drama.
For the Lord of All Demons, these were quite literally world-altering events, all stuffed into a scant few weeks. But it didn’t mean great changes in the life of Maou himself. He had his demonic force back, and being fused with Acieth gave him the power to explore the Sephirah’s secrets in depth, but it didn’t alter his goals at all. Even having Emi closer to him than ever was something he found easy enough to sidestep—her less-than-rosy opinion of him was no surprise by now.
Over in his native realm, and over on Ente Isla as well, things had stabilized a fair bit. The heavens had shut itself out from the rest of the universe. There shouldn’t have been anything happening to cause Maou any trouble. But then today came along—which meant there was a troublemaker in their midst, or at least a new risk they had been overlooking up to now.
Even if they had overlooked it, though, it seemed to be mostly Emi’s problem in his mind. Nothing much, Maou thought, that had to do with him, really. Hence, he saw no reason to go out of his way to seek out new risks. It was just a waste of time, and it wouldn’t bring anything good. Right now, the most important thing was to work with the crew he trusted to get this new delivery program off on the right foot.
“Oh, by the way, Marko…”
“Hmm? …Hey, what are you looking at me like that for?”
The weirdly sharp eyes of Kawata daunted him.
“You got some friends here.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah. That girl in the kimono who’s always here with Yusa or Chi. Table thirty-one.”
His gaze darted toward the table. There he saw the backs of Rika’s and Suzuno’s heads as they sat primly on the sofa seat, Acieth sprawled out in an uncomfortable-looking position across from them.
“Oh, yeah, Suzuno. Boy, I hope she ain’t gonna interrogate me the way Rika Suzuki did.”
Emi and the others were likely back at Villa Rosa Sasazuka by now. Suzuno must be here to grill Maou on today’s events.
“Man, Maou. I mean, like, really? You already got Chi, and now look at all the chicks you’re haulin’ in here. That one girl isn’t even from Japan, is she? And what about that lady in the office outfit?”
“Q-quit making it weird, Kawata. It’s nothing that fancy. Suzuno’s just my neighbor, Acieth’s kind of a distant relative, and that other lady’s friends with Emi and Chi, mostly. And quit name-checking Chi like that, too. I swear, it’s nothing yet!”
“Yet. Yet. Plus, you gotta be kidding me; what’s a proper-looking girl like that kimono chick doing living in the same crappy apartment as a single guy like you? That has to be, like, an urban legend.”
“Oh, thanks for reviewing my apartment for me, Kawatchi. Plus, I’m not single. I told you, I’m sharing the place with two of my friends.”
“Male friends? You? Yeah, right.”
“Eesh.”
Kawata was likely just picking on him, he knew. But then his coworker took another look at Suzuno at table thirty-one, eyes resolute.
“I dunno, though; that lady looks pretty worked up about something. I’ve never seen her come in by herself to see you before. Something bad didn’t happen to Chi or Yusa or something, did it?”
“…”
Maou was stricken by the paranoid delusion that Kawata actually knew everything about him and Ente Isla. That was exactly what Suzuno was here for—but it couldn’t have been so easily deducible by Kawata, not unless he knew about Emi’s plans the way Rika did. In the mere ten or so minutes Maou was with Kisaki in the back, Kawata had observed Suzuno, a woman he knew nothing about, and stumbled upon the correct conclusion.
“Y’know,” Maou suggested, “you should really reconsider your career path, man. Your parents can run that restaurant for a little while longer, can’t they? If you don’t wanna be a therapist, then think about being a teacher or something—but either way, Kawatchi, you really oughtta find a job where you’re dealing with people more.”
“You deal with people all the time at a restaurant,” Kawata countered, and the conversation ended there. Kawata had his duties, and Maou was due to be manning the café’s cash register.
“Oof,” he muttered, noticing the guests at table thirty-one looking at him and trying to ignore it. “If you’re waiting for me, do it at home.” Then he tried going upstairs. He tried, but he didn’t make it.
“Uggghhhh…”
Turning around, he headed for table thirty-one.
“…Um, madam, could you please refrain from sleeping here?”
“Ooo…I’m…hungry.”
Acieth was bent backward on her seat, sleeping peacefully, her stomach area very clearly bulging out a little. It must’ve been quite a dream she was having.
“Hey, Rika, did this girl really just eat forty burgers by herself?”
“She kinda hit a wall at thirty-five,” Rika commented. “She wants to take the rest home, though.”
“If she can eat that much, she really oughtta go all the way, man.” Maou shrugged. “I’m on closing duty today, and I can’t get out early from that. You should head on home once you’re done eating; you’re gonna miss the last train.”
“Rika,” Suzuno said, “you can stay in my apartment if you like. It is not very spacious, but I do have all the toiletries and such you would need.”
“Are you listening to me?” Maou stammered, lips trembling. “It’s not like anything that major happened. This weird dude attacked the subway train Emi and Chi were riding on; Amane and Laila swung in to help; Laila got hurt; and then I healed her. That’s all.”
Rika’s eyebrows twitched as she checked out the news on her phone. The reports stated that the cause of the stoppage and subsequent bizarre events were a complete unknown so far. Nobody was injured, but three out of the subway’s ten cars were derailed, two of them showing evidence of their doors being pried open by force. The connection between the conductor’s “person on the tracks” and the emergency-stop button being activated in Shinjuku-sanchome Station was still unclear, and since it had only been a couple hours since the incident, the Fukutoshin Line still wasn’t running trains at all. The assorted privately owned rail lines that piggybacked onto that line were now a total mess.
“Laila was already hurt by the time I received Chi’s Idea Link and ran over. I sealed off the area around Shinjuku-sanchome with a barrier just because I figured it could’ve been a pretty crappy situation. And my demonic healing changed Laila’s hair color, I guess, but it sure as hell beats havin’ her die on my watch, doesn’t it? And really, that’s just about all I can tell you. So finish up your dinner, relax as long as you want, and then get outta here, all right?”
The fact Maou didn’t tell them to leave right this moment struck Suzuno and Rika as a token attempt at politeness. But neither was particularly satisfied.
“And who,” Suzuno asked, “is this so-called weird dude who attacked? Whoever it was proved a worthy adversary for Amane, no less!”
“Amane?” Rika asked. “That’s the dark-haired lady who helped me a while back, isn’t it? I should’ve known she wasn’t, like, normal…”
“I told you guys, I don’t know! Emi was in too much of a panic to explain anything to me, and Emeralda said she only saw a coupla glimpses or whatever. We didn’t exactly have a lotta time to talk. So really, you’d learn a hell of a lot more from Chi and Amane than you would from me right now.”
“Um…how is Emi? After all, um…?”
“If that’s how you’re puttin’ it, I guess you heard about her, huh? It’s a total mess of a mother-daughter relationship. Her dad’s one thing, but Emi and her mom just do not get along, man. It’s nothing that anyone on the outside can do anything about. I gotta get back to work, okay? Have fun for now. Also, can you get Acieth out of her stupor for me? Thanks.”
“Wait, um…”
Ignoring Rika’s plea, Maou tromped upstairs without a second glance.
“Well, that was cold,” she wistfully groaned.
“…”
Suzuno simply began tackling her fries, opting against trying to force anything further out of Maou.
“What should we do, Suzuno? Wait ’til he gets off? ’Cause he totally sounds like he’s hiding something.”
“You saw that as well?”
“Huh? Um…I guess?” Rika cocked an eyebrow at Suzuno, grinning at her as she methodically picked up one fry at a time and elegantly nibbled upon it.
“The Devil King is providing us with needless detail while dancing around the crux of it all. This crux, however, is not directly related to current events, so I could not press him on it. If I did, he would be stubborn as a mule about it.”
“Oh? What d’you mean?”
“Hmm, hmm, hmm.” Suzuno took a sip of coffee and looked back at the stairs. “How long, exactly, did the Devil King leave the restaurant?”
“Hmm?”
“I heard him speaking with the gentleman behind the counter just now.”
“Y-you could hear that? Over there?” Rika looked toward the counter. It was located a healthy distance away from their table. The dining hall was maybe three-fifths full now, but even if Rika strained her ears, there was no way she could decipher the heavyset man at the register.
“A side effect of my work experience,” Suzuno explained. “Maou said he would be back in half an hour. It seems he followed through on that promise, but if he only took action after receiving Chiho’s SOS, that is a breathtakingly narrow window of time to work with. Plus…”
“Plus?”
“Forgive me for asking, Rika, but does your workplace allow you to carry your personal phone with you at the office?”
“Huh? You mean, can I use my phone at work? No, they kinda frown upon that.”
“Right. Personal phone use is prohibited while one is on duty. So when, exactly, do you think the Devil King noticed the Idea Link from Chiho?”
“Um, what was an Idea Link again? Like, some kind of ESP magic from your world, right?”
“Indeed. Chiho went through a, shall we say, accelerated program to learn how to use it.”
“Heh. Little after-school work, huh?”
Suzuno ignored this. “Chiho is not a sorceress. She is merely operating upon the powers that have been forcibly instilled into her; she cannot tap into such magic empty-handed. Thus, she uses her mobile phone as a tool to aid her in the spell.”
She gave a concise explanation of the phone’s role as an amplifier for the magic required to craft an Idea Link. Rika had first heard about this skill from Chiho herself, but receiving the full rundown from a native Ente Islan made her realize how exceptional Chiho was all over again.
“Boy, the way you’re explaining it, you make it sound like Chiho’s got these weird voices in her head all the time.”
“Yes, well, regardless, without her mobile phone handy, Chiho’s Idea Link signals will never reach their destination. When the attack took place, the Devil King was busily attending to the dinner rush here—and yet, he received the Idea Link and rushed to the scene. What do you think that means?”
“Hmm? Umm…” Rika racked her brain, not grasping Suzuno’s point at first. “Was he just on break? Probably not, huh? Not right in the middle of dinner. And I can’t really picture Maou hiding a phone on him during work—or anyone here, really. Umm… I give up. What is it?”
“Simple. The Devil King had already left the building before receiving Chiho’s signal.…This Full-Moon Burger is rather more difficult to eat than I expected.”
“Huh?”
Unwrapping the burger, Suzuno was clearly startled at the odd thickness to it. It was a lot for her small lips to wrap themselves around.
“Mm…ph… She ate thirty-five of those, you say? What is her stomach composed of, I wonder?”
She looked at Acieth, perplexed.
“But the holy force within Emilia is nothing like what a normal person holds. When paired with Alas Ramus, it is no exaggeration to say that she is the strongest human being in the universe, save for special cases like Shiba or Amane.”
“In the universe, huh?” Rika giggled.
“We cannot say what kind of enemy attacked us, but Emilia fought it off with her holy sword. Hearing the sounds of combat, Chiho realized there was no way of escaping this and used her Idea Link skills—and the Devil King immediately received it. Which means that the Devil King must’ve flown out of this restaurant when he detected Emilia’s holy magic in action. That is why he was there to pick up the Idea Link the moment it arrived.”
“…Okay, but so what, then? That doesn’t sound weird at all to me.”
It didn’t. Maou felt Emi engaged in combat, realized something urgent was going on, and took off. Nothing questionable about that.
“No, perhaps it would not be to you, Rika. But to us, this is a serious issue… Oof, even one of these is too much for me. I wish there were some vegetables to go with this, or at least some green tea.”
Given her normally healthy, austere eating habits, tucking into your typical MgRonald combo meal was, perhaps, going way too far toward the other end of the spectrum. She gave a quizzical look at the meal she had finished up in a scant few minutes.
“But Sadao Maou is the Devil King, and Emilia is the Hero. They remain enemies, just as much now as before. But when he detected Emilia’s fighting force in action, the Devil King ran out of this MgRonald even before Chiho’s SOS arrived. You do not see the enormity of this?”
“Meaning, he left here because he thought Emi was in danger?”
Suzuno firmly nodded. “To the Devil King of once upon a time, it would be unthinkable.”
The Maou of just a bit ago, freshly settled in Sasazuka, never would. Chiho and Suzuno could plead at him all they wanted; he would brush it all off. Emi’s problems are hers, not mine. I’m busy with work. She’s the Hero; let her work it out. That wasn’t necessarily the case if Chiho was also endangered, but Maou only knew about Chiho’s presence after he already decided to ditch work.
“This has been a trend as of late,” Suzuno observed as she neatly folded up the burger wrapper, “and it has been growing more striking by the day. He may gripe and groan about Emilia, but the Devil King truly thinks of her as a valued companion. He did once declare Emilia a Great Demon General, if more to talk his way out of a tight spot than anything, but I feel that is starting to take hold in his mind, in a very real way.”
“Hmm… Hmmmmm?”
Rika struggled to digest this roundabout argument.
“So you mean…”
Then the natural conclusion struck her.
“That…wait, that… Huh?”
“Quite a surprise, yes?” Suzuno clapped her hands, grateful that Rika now shared the same thought as she did. “Considering the nature of their relationship.”
“Well, yeah, it sure is! So it’s like…”
“Yes?”
“It’s like Emi’s a girl Maou feels like he’s got to protect now?!”
“…………………Er?”
Her smile froze at this unexpected development, eyebrows gradually wandering up her forehead.
“Well, um, no, I just mean, oh geez, it’s like, you know, that, isn’t it? Like, through all the antagonism, some kinda forbidden love rearing its head… Heeee! It’s just so steamy to think about!!”
“Sa…say again?”
“That’s what you mean, right? They’ve been enemies for so long, but now that they’re together, they’re starting to feel things besides hatred for each other, and now Maou’s become aware of it, right?”
“Mmmm?! Wait! Rika?! I—I do not feel that is correct! I do not!”
“Well, I sure do! They’re so bonded together now that he, like, reflexively worries about Emi at this point!”
“I do not…feel…that is correct, perhaps, but that is not the point here!”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Suzuno! It’s not like I’m tryin’ to pair them together or anything!”
“Then why are you grinning so ominously like that?!”
“Awww, you knowwwww!” Rika was now beaming, the furrowed brows a thing of the past. “It’s easier to make relationships simple like that, y’know? To keep things easy to understand!”
“Huh?”
“I mean, with Emi and Maou, we know she’s the human Hero and he’s the king of demons. But in between that, there were all those other elements, right? Like, ‘my sworn enemy,’ ‘murderer of my parents,’ ‘razer of my lands,’ and stuff?”
“I—I suppose, yes.”
“And those are all huge obstacles! Like, nothing you could ever overcome, usually, right? But y’know, from Maou’s perspective, he’s already cleared ’em all, hasn’t he? I mean, the moment he thought that maybe Emi was in danger, he might’ve been sprinting for the door right then ’n’ there, huh?”
Rika was correct, certainly. But this wasn’t exactly the conversation Suzuno intended to have. And there was something in her heart that was too eager to accept the concept for her tastes. She briskly shook her head.
“N-no, but… It may be that way to the Devil King, but I see no evidence that Emilia has taken any special steps toward him…”
“Whatcha getting worked up for, Suzuno?”
“Wh-what? I am not…‘worked up’ over…”
“Your face is all red, though.”
“Ah?!” She touched her cheek. It didn’t tell her what color it was. “N-no, I…”
“Hmm… Though it makes sense, maybe. You aren’t like Chiho—you’re from Ente Isla, so the idea of the Devil King gettin’ close with the Hero isn’t necessarily the happiest news in the world, huh?”
“N-no. It is not—not at…”
Or was it?
She immediately latched on to Rika’s hypothesis, but the moment the words flew out, the cold, reasoning part of her mind warned her that she didn’t think that one bit. She had to latch on to Rika—she had no other choice, given that she never thought otherwise up to now. But Rika, not noticing the emotions churning inside Suzuno, gave her a world-beating smile.
“Wow, though, huh? Imagine! The two of them, coming to terms!”
“Nh, um, well, yes, that may be the case, but…”
“Don’t you think that’s wonderful?”
“………………………………………Er?”
Rika rested her chin on both hands. “Like I said, I’m not expecting Emi and Maou to start dating or anything…”
“N-no…”
“But you know, it’s awkward to see two of your friends continually butt heads against each other, isn’t it? I think I’m starting to understand how Chiho feels a little. Like, how nice it’d be if people and demons can get by without having to kill one another.”
“Rika…”
She chuckled a bit, embarrassed at herself. “Plus, it’s like, ‘me too,’ so…”
“Hmm?”
“…I dunno, I just really feel I get Chiho now. Like, painfully so. And I get how Chiho can stand so firm while all this stuff happens around her. I’m kinda surprised to say this, but it doesn’t bother me at all that those guys are demons or whatever. It’s just…compared to Chiho, I don’t really think there’s anything, like, going on in that way, for me…”
Rika paused, then slumped over the table, next to the tray.
“I just don’t think we’re ever gonna go phone shopping.”
“Phone shopping?”
Suzuno tilted her head at this sudden swerve.
“It’s nothing,” Rika said, voice stonier than she expected as she got over herself and sat up. “Think I might as well head on home. At least I know what’s going on now. I’m just glad I heard about Emi—if she’s that worked up, I better not stick my head in quite yet, but… Huh?”
Now her head was turned to the seat across from her.
“Where’d Acieth go?”
“Hmm?!”
Suzuno, surprised, looked over herself. Acieth had been draped all over her chair just a moment ago, deep into ever-greedier dreams, and now she was gone.
“It is still warm,” she remarked upon touching the chair. “I don’t think she could be that far. The bathroom, perhaps?”
“No, I got a feeling this is something…bad…”
Rika stopped as she heard someone stomping down the MgRonald stairwell. She whipped around to look.
Sadao Maou was there, the smile lashed to his face only barely hiding a fearsome torrent of anger as he walked. Once down the stairs, he strode right up to Suzuno and Rika, still smiling as he spoke in a voice that welled up from the deepest pits of hell—a truly Satan-like performance.
“What have you guys been telling Acieth?”
“…Huh?”
“Me and Emi are what, exactly?”
“Gehh!”
“Nnnnh—!”
Rika almost yelped out a groan as Suzuno slumped down, hand over her forehead. They were so caught up in conversation that they failed to notice, but Acieth was already awake by the time Rika’s theorizing reached its climax. Neither of them noticed her presence at all. Did Acieth do that on purpose? Whether she did or not, she must’ve zoomed right up those stairs and given Maou the full executive summary, in her own words.
“N-no, listen, Devil King, this was just a figure of speech…”
“Save your speeches for the leeches, you dumbass. Whether you’re joking or not, some things are better left unsaid, y’know.”
“B-but it’s a good thing, Maou! Like, helping out your enemies… You’re, like, the very model of a Devil King! It’s really cool of ya!”
“If you want to praise me, you could at least look me in the eye.”
“You-you’re really great, Devil King! Let’s give ’im a round of applause!”
“Suzuno, if you go that far out of character, you’re gonna regret it in a flash.”
“I will keep that in mind!” the cherry-red Suzuno replied in a panic. “I already rather regret it!!”
“Um, where’s Acieth?”
“Inside.” Maou pointed at his head. “I swear, if I don’t put a leash around her neck, there’s seriously no telling what she’ll say or do. She’s a thousand times worse than Emi that way, that dolt.”
His face twisted in irritation the moment he said the word “dolt.” Acieth was no doubt shouting her objections to this doglike treatment.
“…You guys should be really happy Ms. Kisaki was here today. It’s thanks to her that I can bottle up all this anger. You done talking now?”
“Y-yes,” the docile Rika and Suzuno echoed.
“Let me take your tray for you. See you next time.”
They both detected more than a hint of the Lord of All Demons in the face of Sadao Maou, fast-food employee, as they hurried out.
“You would call that ‘coming to terms’?” remarked a depressed Suzuno as they approached Hatagaya station.
“I’m not so confident any longer, no…’
“It’s fine.”
The sentence only confused Maou further the second time he heard it. He didn’t know what was “fine,” exactly, but he detected no anger in her voice, so he understood that Emi wasn’t mad at him, at least.
He knew that, but as his mind cooled down and he impartially analyzed how he should view this, he could feel his blood pressure start to fall. No matter how you looked at this, anyone would interpret it to be Suzuno and Rika’s ridiculous ravings come to life. To Maou, the term paired together—distilled by Acieth from their MgRonald conversation—didn’t mean anything apart from physical contact. Physical contact, however, was the only way to describe this.
It made Maou realize that the only way out of this was to keep his cool. Getting agitated, in his mind or in his soul, could easily alarm Acieth. She didn’t need telepathy or an Idea Link for it; her fusion with him made it unavoidable. But if Acieth woke up right now, the way people would look at him tomorrow would be horrifying. It’d be worse than waking up in a parallel world, a whole other dimension of space.
“I…”
“Uh, yeah?”
He had no idea what she was thinking. But Emi’s voice was calm, composed. He knew she had a reason for this. It was best, he thought, to avoid prodding her too much, lest he make things worse. So he stayed frozen, figuring that listening to Emi was the most practical solution at hand.
“I never thought that I wanted someone to help me before. By the time I was grown up, I could take care of pretty much anything by myself.”
“O-oh, yeah? Well, you’re the strongest Hero the human race ever had.”
“And Eme, and Al, and even Olba way back when, they’d help me out when needed, without me having to say anything. We kinda knew what each of us was thinking, always. So even if setting off to kill you was tough, sometimes, I never thought about quitting. Not once.”
“……Really? Well, great.”
It was clearly not the right thing to say, but Maou nodded anyway.
“But back there, in Efzahan…”
“Oh, yeah, back there.”
He could only humor her, utterly lost as to where this was going. It made what came next even more powerful.
“I felt, for the first time…protected.”
“…Ah?”
Maou had two reasons for that questioning grunt of his. One, he simply didn’t understand the meaning of it. Two, Emi’s body had started to shake a little.
“…Why you?”
“Wh-what…?”
“Why did you protect me, after making such a complete mess of my life…?”
“…”
I’m not the only one protecting you, lady.
Maou thought it. But not even he was oblivious enough to say it. Emi was, in a word, venting. Emi hadn’t forgotten about the friendship and sacrifices Emeralda, Albert, Chiho, Rika, and Suzuno made for her. But her mind was exhausted, to the point that not even those memories could support her. The events in Efzahan had already damaged her enough—Laila’s appearance shook her even worse. It was best just to let her say whatever she wanted. To let it all out. And as far as Maou was concerned, he didn’t mind playing the punching bag if it meant he made it out alive.
“My father used to protect me all the time.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But that ended, thanks to you.”
“I’m not gonna make any excuses for that.”
“And after that, it was me who had to keep protecting people. Since…I was the strongest of them.”
“Right.”
“And I’m still stronger than anyone…so…” Emi’s shoulders twitched. “My father won’t protect me anymore.”
“…”
Maou could tell: In that statement was embedded a lifetime’s worth of dark memories. She had reunited with Nord, tasked with keeping him safe—but she still believed his presence would provide an emotional support for her. But in that hospital room, her father stepped up to protect her mother instead. Faced with the overwhelming strength of the daughter he once risked his life to save, Nord decided to risk it all not for Emi’s heart, but for his wife’s body. The moment Laila appeared there, there was no chance the family would ever rebuild itself peacefully.
“It’s just you.”
“Huh?”
“Right now, when I’m stronger than anybody else, only you protected me. Only you. The man who I thought ruined my life.”
“…Um, are you sure you’re thinking straight?”
“I am. And I’m not drunk, either.”
“I’d hope not. You’re underage.”
“No, I’m not. My ID lists me as twenty. The Japanese police don’t have anything on me.”
“Not a very Hero-like thing to say.”
“I’m not any kind of hero. It’s just that people keep calling me that. That career doesn’t even exist in this world.”
Now he could feel her smiling as she quivered. Smiling, while shedding tears. She held him a notch more tightly.
“Talk about the devil tempting me. You were the only one who gave me the words I wanted to hear. Even just now…”
Maou could feel his blood stiffen once more. Did Gabriel say all that because he knew Emi was here? There might have been no helping it, but Maou’s words did imply on multiple occasions that he saw Emi and Suzuno as “his” people. People he needed to protect.
“Uh, how much did you hear?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“I was waiting for you all night,” she replied, chidingly. “With Alas Ramus. I could hear everything once you were here.”
“…This is awful,” he said, grinning as he repeated Gabriel’s conversation in his mind. “Could this even get any more awkward? Shit. This has to be some evil god screwing with me.”
“But isn’t it about time I have the right to live just for myself? I think so, but there’s something in my mind that tells me I can’t. I know Eme and Bell respect my wishes. Chiho does, too. But I can’t drive away that sense of pride I have—the idea that I need to use my powers to help my friends. It’s not that I don’t want to help keep Chiho and everybody safe. But when it’s all said and done, I can’t solve anything by myself. Why do people keep calling me the Hero? All this strength, and I can’t even keep myself intact, much less my friends. And now Laila, of all people, is helping me. I can’t carry any more of this burden. I can’t…!”
Her voice began to shake, her body expressing both her tears and her tormented heart. Maou didn’t respond by hugging her tighter. He just let it unfold. She was venting. Shoving cold reason in her face right now wouldn’t help anyone.
“There’s just nothing I can do, and people still call me a hero. They ask me to keep fighting, to keep throwing my strength around… I can’t even save myself; what else do these people want…?”
“Well, I want you to wrap up your training period already, so you can join the crew full-time.”
“…” Emi’s sobbing stopped. The statement caught her off guard. “…You never change, do you? I’m starting not to hate it so much.”
“Hey, if something’s on my mind, I say it.”
“But you’re always hiding something, too.”
“I don’t see why I have to show the entire world what kinda hand I’m playin’ with.” Maou sighed, and—for the first time—reached out to touch Emi’s shoulders. “Lemme be frank with you. I didn’t say all that stuff because I wanted to curry favor with you, you got that?”
“I know. That… That’s why I’m happy about it.”
“Huhh?”
“You meant everything you said, and that feels great. Maybe you won’t admit it, but as mean as you’ve been to me in the past, you’ve always protected me as a friend… Well, no, more like a neighbor.”
“Well, yeah, because I had to…”
“Whether you had to or not, there aren’t many people who can protect someone like me.”
“…Man, you’re a hot mess tonight.”
“Of course I am. Why would I be saying all this to the Devil King otherwise?”
Emi removed her face from Maou’s chest, her tearful face smiling as she looked at him. The corners of her eyes were red and irritated.
“Thank you, Devil King. I’m built pretty tough, so a little maintenance work and I’ll be right back to normal.”
“Is that why you’ve been acting so weird lately? People used ’n’ abused you so much that your brain crashed?”
“Yeah. It crashed hard today. I’m just not normal right now.”
She sighed softly, then took a step back from Maou.
“…Emi?”
She still held him by the hand. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“If… If I keep getting weaker like this…will you protect me?”
“Whoa, dang, I think your brain’s still crashing on you. What are you talking about?”
“I told you,” Emi replied as her face reddened, “I’m not normal yet.”
Looking down at the hand clasped around the young woman’s, Maou’s watch told him it was almost half past one.
“Well, look, no matter how much the world changes, the truth never does, right?”
“Huh?”
“You, the proud Hero, were there, too, right?”
“…Oh.”
Emi knew what Maou was referring to. That day in Sasazuka when they all came together, and Chiho found out the truth about Ente Isla.
“I never really saw it that way, but if I’m ‘protecting’ you, it’s just ’cause I’m lending you a hand since you’re so incapable of doing it yourself. With all that strength, no less. If you were weak, I wouldn’t even bother.”
“…Nice thing to say to someone whose brain was just fried.”
“I don’t care if you’re weak, or getting weaker,” Maou casually countered. “But I hate people who try to make their weakness a weapon. What I want from you is the girl who goes around bragging about how she’s the Hero and struggling hard for the sake of her friends. Everyone has a brain freeze sometimes, but there’s no room in the Devil King’s Army for habitual whiners. The title of Great Demon General is given only to people with superior hearts, minds, and bodies.”
“…Is it?” Emi nodded slightly, making something up in her mind, and finally removed her grasp on Maou’s hand. “Well, mind and body’s one thing, but I’m kind of annoyed at the idea that I lose out to Lucifer heart-wise.”
“Wow. Low blow.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Though I have to admit, all the Great Demon General stuff aside, you’d need to work pretty damn hard to be worse than Urushihara at keeping your act together.”
Emi gave a chuckle to that thought. It struck Maou as odd.
“I guess you’re always gonna be my archenemy after all, huh? I knew I shouldn’t have expected any kind words from you.”
“You definitely shouldn’t,” he replied. “In fact, it’s dumb to even utter it. But even if you weren’t my nemesis, you sure aren’t livin’ up to your good name right now.”
“No. I guess not. I don’t think so, either. It’s just…crazy how bad this day’s turned out.”
“You’re only human. I know things were discouraging for you. But at least try to make sure your actions don’t get misunderstood. You know how sensitive the people around you are to that.”
“Oh?” Emi smiled, her face still reddened. “I wonder what they’d think if they saw us embracing each other?”
“Don’t embellish it. It wasn’t ‘each other.’ You plowed into me the moment I saw you.”
“You don’t have to phrase it like a car accident.”
“It was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.”
Maou sincerely meant it. Oddly, the woman didn’t seem to mind.
“That hurts, you know.”
“Not as much as it hurt me, man. I’m going to bed. I got work tomorrow.”
He walked past Emi, down the walkway, and put his hand on Room 201’s door.
“All right. Thanks. Sorry to bother you this late.”
“…Sure,” he said, not turning around as he unlocked the door. He shut it behind him, never giving Emi another glance.
Moonlight was the only illumination inside. Ashiya was sleeping on the tatami-mat floor, as was Urushihara, unfairly robbed of the closet space he called home. Considering the Hero was lying in ambush for the Devil King’s return all evening, it demonstrated a worrisome lack of security. The rice cooker was turned off, and on the table were three balls of seasoned rice, covered in plastic wrap. They were all irregularly shaped, not the neat little balls Maou was used to seeing.
“What the hell…?” His voice was soft, whispering, so that Emi (presumably next door) wouldn’t hear him. “These look ridiculous,” he muttered, snorting as he grabbed up one of the misshapen blobs.
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