Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 2 - Chapter 3

THE DEVIL AND THE HERO RISK THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR WORK RESPONSIBILITIES 
Being on top has its advantages. That was no doubt why the council decided to place full judgment responsibilities upon her for the crisis one of their own had triggered. 
Her, former inquisitor and current Reconciliation Panel investigator. 
It was true that she was on good terms with Olba Meiyer, Church archbishop and director of diplomatic and missionary operations. 
A worker calling the directorial responsibilities of his manager into question was one thing, but in an organization like the Church—one reliant upon the faith of the people in order to establish its truthfulness and righteousness—having the highest of officials force responsibility for the failures of one of their closest confidants upon a subordinate and otherwise attempt to cover up their own faults was simply unthinkable. 
Archbishop Robertio, after recovering from his fainting spell, had given her the order: 
“Within your rights as a member of the Reconciliation Panel, I command you to find a way to deliver judgment upon him while damaging the authority of the Church as little as possible.” 
It was always like this. 
They always treated themselves with kid gloves, in fear of their own reputations being damaged. They were unwilling to dirty their own hands, basking in the peace they themselves made no effort to attain, and took all the credit afterward. 
When Lucifer’s forces threatened to storm across the Western Island once upon a time, it proved frustratingly impossible for the Church forces there to build a unified front. 
The knights of the Church Guard squabbled with those affiliated with the Unified Kingdom Guard over who should take the initiative in the upcoming battle. 
The kingdoms that dotted the Western Island saw the invasion as an opportunity to unshackle themselves from Church influence, a chance the Church was eager to deny them. 
Despite the overwhelmingly poor odds against them, it was not uncommon for mankind to fight among themselves for the crumbs they managed to win back against the demonic hordes. Lucifer was all too quick to seize on this weakness. As a result, the Western Island found itself all but handing over half its landmass to Lucifer’s army, unable to even put up a coordinated resistance. 
Even as they faced the specter of total annihilation, the political infighting among the power brokers of the Western Island only served to further decimate the population. 
She was already a full-fledged member of the Council of Inquisitors by that point. Following the orders of Olba, her direct supervisor, she orchestrated a purge in the form of an inquisition. 
In a place like the Western Island, where the teachings of the Church held great influence with the people, being branded as a “heretic” essentially meant one’s departure from society. 
Exercising the extensive knowledge of divinity and common law that was drummed into her in the Diplomacy and Missionary Department, she ruthlessly pursued the leaders that waged political battles, lowered the morale of the troops on the front lines, and thrust their own armies into chaos. 
Until Emilia the Hero arrived to dispatch Lucifer once and for all, she and the inquisitors who worked for her went hardly a day without seeing bloodshed. 
Flare-ups between the owners of holy Church lands and the neighboring kingdoms were as bloody as they were frequent. No matter how long she kept hunting them, whether holy or secular, the foolish leaders who failed to understand the crisis facing mankind continued to well up like a gushing spring. 
She was as human as they, but she was hunting them down for the sake of justice. The cross of the Church was their eternal weapon, and it allowed them to even perform above-the-law assassinations. 
She herself carried out much of this dirty work, using her Light of Iron as she did. That holy magic gave her the ability to transform anything shaped like a cross into a weapon. 
It was all part of her job in the Council of Inquisitors, a job driven by the holy desire to spread peace and prosperity worldwide. 
Things began to change when the empire of Saint Aile, the kingdom that boasted the largest territory on the Western Island, fell to the demonic forces, its top leaders captured by Lucifer’s demon hordes. 
Losing the most powerful kingdom on the Western Island meant that the Church was the only organization of any great size that could muster a front. The remaining kingdoms, fearing more Church inquisitions, soon fell over themselves to form a unified force, one under the ultimate guidance of the Church itself. 
And with Emilia taking command of this force, the inquisitors quickly found themselves with very little of the “work of the gods” left to handle. 
Thanks to Emilia and her companions advancing seemingly unopposed against the Devil King’s forces, it was no longer difficult to instill a firm sense of unity that rang true across the entire human army. That, and the leaders who once squabbled and lashed at each other with impunity were now fully cowed into submission, falling into line underneath the flag of the Hero. 
Mankind could hold its own against the demons after all. It was a simple hope, but one that only Emilia had the power to instill in the people. 
But once word that Emilia had lost her life defeating the Devil King spread like wildfire, the world that once was so united under the Hero fell to pieces in the blink of an eye. 
After the Devil King’s defeat, the kingdoms of the Western Island began to hold criminal hearings against the inquisitors that demonstrated particular zeal in judging heretics during the war. 
Seeking to avoid this, the Church dissolved the Council of Inquisitors, establishing the Reconciliation Panel in its place in a move to hold “more open” proceedings against those who defied the way of holiness. 
It was a farce, one she found hard to stand for. 
If the people of the Western Island had united against the Devil King’s forces when they still had the chance to, there was no telling how many senseless deaths could have been averted, how many needless judgments could have gone unexamined. 
Without the Council of Inquisitors, the Western Island would have been burned to the ground long before Emilia appeared. 
“We did not execute people because we enjoyed the task!” 
Her voice went unheeded. 
The concession to the united kingdoms helped retain political equilibrium, but to the former inquisitors, it made them feel that their pride, their faith, everything had been stripped away from them. 
And now, with the world dazzled by the light of a new myth, a Hero who sacrificed her life to bring peace to the land, the Church and the kingdoms simply turned their back to the past, unable or unwilling to admit any of their faults. 
The world was in the process of returning to what it was before the Devil King’s advent. 
Was this the kind of world Emilia staked her own life to protect? 
It couldn’t be. 
The peace that so many had sacrificed their lives to gain hold of couldn’t be a simple extension of the corrupt, stagnant world from before. 
Thanks to her extensive behind-the-scenes work for the Church, she had been granted a position heading the new Reconciliation Panel. A panel meant to reconcile the world with its past. 
Then let it be done. 
Instead of a peace roiled by the hideous machinations of a handful of old men, let us find a peace where the flickering light of life can burn brightly with hope once more. 
“Reconcile…the world.” 
She opened the gate and let her body slide into another world. 
Crestia Bell. 
That was the name of the engineer of purges, the hunter of countless heretics in her tribunals, the executioner feared as the “Scythe of Death,” and a woman of the cloth who thirsted for peace over anything else. 
 
“Well, I’m off.” 
The clock struck nine PM. Chiho, already changed out of her uniform, nodded at Maou from beyond the counter. 
“Sure thing. Great job today. Thanks for the bento meal, too. I’ll wash the box and get it back to you tomorrow.” 
“M-Maou, you’re being too loud!” 
Chiho was even louder as she tried to stop him, but the rest of the employees did not seem to notice the conversation. 
“Boy, tonight sure was a relief, though, huh? I’m sure glad we saw a steady stream of customers through the dinner hours. Hopefully that was enough to prop the final numbers back up to what they should be.” 
Maou and Chiho shivered as if on cue, the image of Kisaki and her Arctic-blizzard smile flashing across their minds. 
“Yeah. Sure wouldn’t want to get deported to Greenland before I graduate from high school.” 
“It’s kind of hard to tell when Kisaki’s joking and when she isn’t, huh?” 
The pair exchanged dry, cracked smiles with each other. 
“Well, be careful on the way home.” 
“Yep! And, uh, sorry I took your bike this morning.” 
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Oh, hey, Emi!” 
Removing his gaze from Chiho, Maou noticed that Emi and Suzuno were behind him, a distance away. 
“You guys are free, aren’t you? You sitting at that table all night messed up our turnover ratio, so you could at least repay me by walking home with Chi, okay?” 
He was hardly in a position to boss them around. He did anyway. 
“Well, fine, but we did place orders, you know. I don’t think you have the right to scold us like that.” 
Emi was just as sulky in her response. 
Ashiya may have been long gone, but Emi, at all costs, wanted to avoid owing any kind of debt to demons. Two women spending upward of two thousand yen at MgRonald had to go a long way toward that goal. 
“Watching Maou really puts my mind at ease.” 
Those were the words Rika left as she departed, just before the peak dinner hours began. She was the one who sparked all of this in the first place, but at least Emi was reassured that she didn’t have to erase any of her memories in the end. 
She hoped to leave with Rika, but Suzuno intervened. 
“If possible, I would like to inspect you on the job for a little while longer, Sadao.” 
Maou, brightened by his apparent newfound success as assistant manager, readily accepted. 
Emi didn’t know what drove Suzuno to make the request, but Emi was in no mood to leave her alone. There was still no telling what kind of disquieting things Suzuno might attempt. 
That was why she stayed so late in the dining area. It wasn’t until Chiho hung up her apron for the day that Suzuno finally got the picture and stood up. 
“…Tell Ashiya that we’re even now, okay?” 
“Huh? Why should I care? That’s your fault for getting in a position where you owed him one.” 
Maou retorted snappily at Emi, making shooing motions as he did. 
“What’s past is past, all right? Just get out of my sight. And I want you to see Chi all the way home, got it?” 
Emi found it impossible to understand why Maou placed so much emphasis on “Chi.” 
“Of course. You don’t have to tell me. Come on, Chiho.” 
“Okay. See you next time, Maou.” 
Chiho, well familiar by now with the way Maou and Emi sniped at each other, paid the banter little mind as she walked after the departing Emi. 
Watching on from across the dining area, Suzuno remained where she was, not bothering to approach Maou at the counter. 
“…Excuse me.” 
Her voice was just barely audible as she bowed at Maou and left. 
“Thank you very much! Come again soon!” 
Maou replied with a warm smile and the standard workplace-video line. 
“So, where do you live, Chiho?” 
Chiho turned toward the direction of Sasazuka. 
“Um, it’s pretty much on the opposite side of Koshu-Kaido Road from Maou’s apartment, but are you sure you want to walk all the way over with me?” 
“No problem. I was planning to take the train from Sasazuka anyway, so it’s not that far of a detour from there. Not that I’m doing this to please him or anything, but it’s night and all, so…I wouldn’t want a girl to just go off by herself.” 
“Aw, you’re a girl, too, aren’t you, Yusa?” 
“Yeah. Just kind of a special one. But let’s get going.” 
Emi, Chiho, and Suzuno accompanied each other down Koshu-Kaido Road. Car traffic was still heavy this time of night, too early to be called “late night” but too late to be called “evening.” 
Not many other pedestrians were on the sidewalk. Most shops had their lights shut off, making the walkways notably darker than expected. 
With the Shuto Expressway towering above them the whole way, the effect was akin to walking down a tunnel that pierced through a mighty mountain of concrete and metal. 
They reached the intersection bordering Sasazuka, the Hatagaya Land Bridge spanning high above, when a red light stopped them. 
“Ah, but I’m still happy we got all those customers in.” 
Chiho stretched as she spoke, as if to herself. 
“Was it that bad since morning?” 
“I think it may have been the slowest day since I began working there.” 
It really was breathtaking. One minute, emptiness. The next, a tidal wave of customers descending upon MgRonald, filling the air with crackling excitement. 
Maou’s Star Festival make-a-wish drink giveaway was a massive success. By the time Chiho left, the bamboo plant was covered from tip to root with small tied-up pieces of paper. 
“Maybe that feng shui stuff isn’t as stupid as it sounds, huh? I don’t really believe in horoscopes and stuff like that, but you have to admit, that sort of thing makes you think a little.” 
The light turned green as Chiho spoke. She began to walk toward the curb. 
“…But was it truly a coincidence?” 
Suzuno’s low voice stopped her. 
“Huh?” 
Emi turned around as well. 
“Oh! That reminds me. What did you think of Maou’s work ethic and stuff, Suzuno?” 
Chiho cheerfully tried to change the subject. Suzuno ignored them both as she spoke to Emi…using a different name. 
“Did you not notice, Emilia?” 
“…Uh?” 
“Emilia…?” 
The green light began to flash, leaving the three of them flat-footed on the sidewalk. 
“Emilia’s…Yusa’s real…? Suzuno, don’t tell me you’re…” 
Chiho brought a surprised hand to her mouth. Suzuno glared at her before turning her attention to Emi. 
“I had had my suspicions, but Chiho is fully aware of the Devil King as well, is she not?” 
The sharp glint to her eyes pierced through Emi. 
“I know, Emilia, that you have your own motives. That you aim to defeat the Devil King on your own terms. But, watching ‘Sadao Maou’ handle his assigned tasks today, I have come to the conclusion that we must dispatch the Devil King as quickly as humanly possible.” 
“Wha?! Wha—Suzuno?!” 
Chiho, agitated, began to lean toward Suzuno before Emi stopped her. 
“What are you talking about? I don’t have any idea where this is coming from.” 
“Have either of you given a moment’s thought about why the Devil King is acting like a fine, sensible Japanese youth?” 
Suzuno spoke slowly, allowing the atmosphere to ooze between her words, like a priest reciting Holy Scripture to his flock. 
“Have you ever thought about what may happen if he continues being promoted, if he begins to wield influence within societal systems here? A Devil King with the full trust and acclaim of the people behind him?” 
Suzuno spread her arms wide. 
“Have you ever imagined what the moment might be like when he reveals his true intentions? When he finally betrays the world and makes it his own?” 
“Sorry, but no.” 
Emi sliced right through her speech. 
“No offense, but what is getting promoted at MgRonald’s gonna earn him? I mean, yeah, it’s a big company, but even if he goes insane and torches their headquarters or whatever, that’s really not gonna hurt the world much! Maybe it’ll make stock prices go down or shake up the fast-food industry, but it’s not gonna make the world flip upside down or…” 
“We reside, may I remind you, in a nation where people with nothing more than an elementary or technical school education have become prime ministers that sway the very direction of the world. Do you honestly believe that the Devil King’s bloodlust will be sated within the structure of MgRonald alone?” 
“Oh! You’re talking about Kakuei Tanaka, right?” 
Chiho’s interjection, like a student waving her hand excitedly and stammering Me me me me me! in class, was not enough to lighten the mood. 
“It would be much more logical, I think, to see it as a ruse to throw us off. This cruel tyrant who laid waste to so much of Ente Isla, now a cheerful, hardworking frontline employee. Demons have long lives to work with, Emilia. There is no telling what manner of intricate schemes he has unfolding in his mind. That is why we must strike now, while we can! This is no longer simply an Ente Isla crisis. The safety of Japan, and the Earth itself, is at stake.” 
“N-no! You can’t! Maou’s doing really great as a shift supervisor, too!” 
Chiho, finally realizing this apparent new visitor from Ente Isla was seriously contemplating Maou’s murder, hastily came to his defense. Suzuno glared at her over Emi’s shoulder. 
“And the fact she still retains her memories is another issue we have to tackle. If it becomes more widely known that the Devil King is alive, there is every chance of more visitors coming to Japan—visitors seeking the simple glory of defeating them, not the loftier callings that drive you and me. Do you think such people care at all about what happens to Japan and its people in the aftermath? They may even try to use Chiho and the people around her to hurt you or the Devil King. Before that happens, we must erase the memories of everyone who has interacted with the Devil King and strike the final blow to end all of this!” 
“No! You can’t! You just can’t do that!” 
The stoplight turned again, bathing Suzuno in bloodred light as it went through yet another cycle. 
“Chiho, do you know what the purpose of the Star Festival decorations are in Japanese culture?” 
“…Huh?” 
The sudden change of subject caught Chiho off guard. Emi’s face tightened. 
“The five colors that those paper strips people write their wishes upon represent the five elements that control the spirit in Chinese philosophy. The leaves of the sasa bamboo tree are fabled to house the souls of one’s ancestors, while its straightened twigs and branches contain the power to ward off evil. There is, of course, none of those forces at work in modern-day Star Festival decorations. But did you see it? The moment the Devil King installed that tree out front, MgRonald was immediately overrun with guests. What do you think that means…?” 
“…You’re saying his bamboo tree attracted people?” 
Suzuno replied with a heavy nod. 
“The sasa tree, long associated with the spirits of the earth and the power to cleanse it of evil, is infused with the souls of the people who look to them for seasonal décor. The Devil King unconsciously infused the tree with his demonic power as he decorated it. That is the most natural explanation.” 
“Considering how much of a shock a flat-screen TV was to you, you sure know a lot about Japanese customs.” 
“I would be a failure at my missionary work if I did not research the religious customs of the lands I travel.” 
Suzuno, completely ignoring Emi’s sass, took a step toward both her and Chiho. The two of them glared back, unable to move since walking backward would put them in a car lane. 
“So do I have your understanding here? This is no longer merely an Ente Isla issue. If we do not hurry, then Chiho, MgRonald, and soon this entire land will find itself awash in a whirlpool of chaos. Failure to take action, and quickly, will cost us dearly later.” 
She focused her sharpened gaze upon Emi. 
“And besides, you have already been attacked by an unknown third party. I must keep this world safe, but I must also bring you back to Ente Isla. I understand it may be a painful decision, but these are people you should never have met, in a world you should never have needed to visit. We must erase Chiho’s memories and eliminate all traces of Ente Isla that exist in Japan.” 
Emi glared back at Suzuno, the humid night forming sweat beads upon her brow. 
Suzuno’s stance was substantially persuasive. If it were a year ago, when Emilia the Hero was still a recent visitor to Earth, she would have eagerly agreed to Suzuno’s proposal. 
Internally, Emi had found herself supremely lost. And while she may not have intended it, Suzuno was helping Emi solve the question that bothered her the most—why, if she had access to her powers again, did she find it impossible to will herself into slaying the Devil King? 
But before Emi could fire back at Suzuno, a shakier voice made itself known. 
“…No.” 
It was Chiho. 
“No…you can’t. I, I don’t want to forget.” 
“Chiho…” 
“I don’t want to forget. About Maou, about you, about Ashiya, about Suzuno… Okay, and I guess Urushihara, too, but…” 
She tossed her head back and forth to emphasize the point. 
“We’re all friends, we’ve spent all this fun time together…and you want to make me forget all of it just because of stuff going on in another planet? That…that’s just mean!” 
“…I know there is no way to fully apologize for it. But…Chiho, this is for your own safety as well.” 
Suzuno averted her face, looking honestly conflicted. It wasn’t enough to convince Chiho. She continued, almost shouting as tears welled in her eyes. 
“I don’t want to forget about Maou! No matter what!!” 
But Suzuno, a touch of resolve painted on her serene face, returned fire with another punishing barrage. 
“Chiho, the Devil King Satan will use those feelings of yours to his own advantage. He must. And the fact that you are attracted to him may even be part of an elaborate plan he has concocted to make us hesitant, unwilling to combat the Devil King…” 
This, again, was something that the Emi of old would have enthusiastically agreed with. But…what could it be? The thought seemed impossible to her now. 
And if it didn’t move her, it certainly wasn’t going to move Chiho. 
“It is not! Maou isn’t that kind of person! Why do you have to say all those horrible things?! He’s working really hard, he’s so nice to everyone… Why are you saying all of that?!” 
The normally calm and composed Chiho was allowing her emotions to explode. 
“…He is the Devil King. He allowed his demonic hordes in Ente Isla to conduct untold atrocities. He made everyone on the world suffer. He is the leader of all demons!” 
The spite was becoming clear in Suzuno’s voice as she tried to wrangle with the unwavering Chiho. 
This was the pure, unvarnished truth, a matter of common sense to anyone from Ente Isla discussing the Devil King. 
But Chiho refused to blink. 
“Well, before he became Sadao Maou, did you ever even meet the Devil King Satan, Suzuno?!” 
Several silent moments passed. 
Both Emi and Suzuno had difficulty immediately understanding what Chiho had just asked. It was something nobody—especially not Emi, watching on from the side—had ever thought of before. 
“What do you mean…?” 
To them, Chiho was making so little sense that they couldn’t answer the question with anything but another question. 
Chiho’s teary eyes swiveled toward Suzuno. 
“All of you are going on about Maou like, ooh, he’s the Devil King, he’s the Devil King, but if he’s really a demon thinking all those bad things, why would he do stuff like fix up the destroyed Shuto Expressway and erase all those terrible memories of the scene from everyone’s minds?! When he got all of that massive power back, he could have mind-controlled the prime minister or the US president or whoever and taken over the whole world! Why didn’t he do that?!” 
Now it was Suzuno’s turn to hesitate. 
“I…I did not witness the battle Olba Meiyer perpetrated with my own eyes. But I am sure the Devil King had his reasons. Some deeper explanation only he would…” 
“Is there any other reason, except he’s a nice guy who wants to help people?! If you cause trouble for other people, then you’re supposed to apologize and make up for it! That’s common sense! And Maou was just doing the obvious thing!” 
“……” 
“I learned how to do my job from Maou. He went through all the steps with me. If I messed something up, he always brought me to task about it. He always had my back when I was still new and inexperienced. Whenever I need to talk about something, he’s always there. Even when he turned into the Devil King Satan, he kept his promises. He taught me how to clean the ice-cream machine. On the same day! If someone like that really wanted to summon his demon hordes or whatever and conquer the world, then how would you explain all of that?!” 
“So…so you are bidding us to simply let the past go and forgive him?!” 
Suzuno exploded as well. 
“How many innocent lives on Ente Isla do you think were snatched away by the demonic armies?! Do you think those people would accept it if they heard the Devil King has mended his ways?! You live in a nation at peace. One where you may never be exposed to mortal danger during your entire natural life. And I will not have someone like you question the will behind our quest to slay the Demon King!” 
Chiho remained steadfast. 
“What would you know?! You just fought those demon armies. You never even met the Devil King himself!” 
“…What?” 
Suzuno fixed her gaze upon Chiho, too openmouthed to respond. 
“Even if Maou turns into Satan again, I know he’s a good person! And I also know that that big church in Ente Isla tried to kill Yusa for no good reason!” 
That experience composed the brunt of what Chiho knew about Emi’s homeland. 
“You never met the Devil King before you stormed the Devil’s Castle, either, right, Yusa? You talked about how Satan’s armies invaded the land and did all these evil things, but that’s it. Do you even know what the Devil King was doing before then?” 
“…You would make a gifted court attorney someday, Chiho. By my name as a former member of the Council of Inquisitors, I guarantee it. The way you turn people’s words against them is breathtaking.” 
“Suzuno! Don’t dodge the question! Please, answer me!” 
“He was their commander! He bears full responsibility for what his armies did! Do you think a man who orders massacres should escape fault because it was someone else who actually committed them?” 
“Hey, can both of you calm down a little? We’re not gonna accomplish anything arguing out here.” 
“Wait!” 
“But we must!” 
The two of them protested in unison at Emi. 
“Suzuno… No. Crestia Bell. I think everything you’re telling us is correct. Really. But I just want to say one thing.” 
Emi brought her hands behind the back of Chiho, whose face was reddened with tears by now. 
“Yusa…” 
“The peace I fought for is the kind of peace were people feel like smiling again. Not a peace where sacrifice is viewed as a necessary evil, where I have to turn my eyes away from something that makes my friends cry.” 
Suzuno’s appalled face shot upward. 
“I want to slay the Devil King in a way that everyone can smile about at the end. The idea that we don’t want to get Japan caught up in this just shows how arrogant we are, coming from Ente Isla. We have our thoughts about the Devil King, and other people have theirs. We don’t have any right to make one-sided decisions for them.” 
“…Do you truly believe that?” 
Suzuno’s voice was shaking as she asked. 
“I sure do.” 
Emi’s was clear and defiant. 
“It is a pipe dream. Do you want the permission of every man, woman, and child on Ente Isla and Japan before slaying the Devil King? Such an approach is impossible. There are always going to be sacrifices that must be paid.” 
The energy seemed to drain from Suzuno’s eyes and voice as she spoke. 
It hurt her deeply. How could her own words stab so deeply into her heart? 
She had searched for Emilia precisely because she wanted to rid the world of “sacrifices that must be paid,” because she wanted to do away with a world so willing to turn its back to those sacrifices and the reasons they were made. 
“But that’s what I have to do. I am Emilia, the Hero. The hope of mankind.” 
Suzuno knew Emilia would have understood that. Just as she did back in her own world, a world that tried to bury her in the darkness once. 
Emi lightened her expression for a moment before continuing, her words aimed squarely at Suzuno’s heart. 
“And there’s a more present problem, too. If we meddle with them too much and the Devil King, Alciel, and Lucifer all awaken to their true natures at the same time, the two of us would be at a serious disadvantage. The skill that mystery attacker showed off to me… That wasn’t the Devil King’s style, either. If we hurried along with attacking the Devil King, we’d simply find ourselves in a two-front war without enough manpower or information. So…” 
Emi placed her hands on Chiho’s shoulders. 
“Right here, right now, I just want to keep you smiling, Chiho. I won’t erase your memories, and I won’t let the Devil King die. And if you insist on pushing the point, you’ll have to fight against me first.” 
She held her hands against her chest. 
“The holy sword… Are you serious?” 
Her right hand lit up as her holy energy resonated with the Holy Silver within her body, the core of her weapon. 
That tiny release of power was enough to send a powerful flash of light across the deserted evening intersection, dark except for the streetlights and flashing stoplight. 
“You are a citizen of Ente Isla. I protect you, just as I protect everyone else. But if you want to do anything to Chiho because of all those pretexts you spouted off, then I will fight it. I will fight for Chiho’s memories, for her indelible past. She is a friend, a precious one, who I need to protect.” 
“Yusa…” 
Chiho’s voice was laden with pure emotion. 
“Besides, you came to Japan because you didn’t like having to cover up things that were ‘inconvenient’ for your mission, right?” 
“……” 
Suzuno put up a brave front as she stared at Emi, but the bravery was brittle and fleeting, liable to crack at the slightest shock. 
“If all you cared about was the good name of the Church, you would have tried to cover up Olba’s crimes the moment you found out about them. That would have created the ideal postwar scenario in the Church’s eyes, right? Me and the Devil King being dead would let them build the legend of this great Church guard knight who sacrificed her life to defeat the ultimate evil.” 
Suzuno gritted her teeth, eyes turned downward toward the street. 
It was exactly the scenario all the old sanctuary archbishops wanted. 
“But even though you worked for Olba, you weren’t satisfied with that. That’s why you’re so preoccupied with bringing me back home, isn’t it? You want to reveal Olba’s crimes and the dark side of the Church to everyone, so it can purify itself and become the proud beacon of faith that a peaceful Ente Isla deserves.” 
Emi stepped away from Chiho and approached Suzuno, whose eyes were pointed squarely downward. 
“You are, after all, chief of the Reconciliation Panel. The Church wing whose mission it is to spread it the Church throughout the world. To portray it as a just faith.” 
Emi extended a hand, attempting to touch Suzuno’s shoulder. Suzuno twisted her body to avoid it, staggering backward as she did. 
“Whoa! Be careful!” 
But Suzuno paid the red light no mind, darting into the intersection. The loud car horn didn’t stop her, either, as she plunged into the darkness, attempting to flee the scene with all of her shopping purchases. 
Emi, to her, had accused her of being just the same. 
She made her realize that she was no different from those monstrous old men, the very ones she judged as being so below her. 
Those ugly, twisted powermongers, unable to protect those who needed protection the most, who saw sacrifice as a necessary evil, the “evil” of which should be shunned and ignored. 
The skidding tires of the screeching cars sounded like the howling laughter of the “heretics” she had cleansed from the world during her long career. 
Emi watched on, her face gravely concerned as Suzuno continued her dangerous escape. 
“I’m sorry. I think I probably went too far.” 
Chiho was behind Emi, tears still rolling down her eyes. 
“I don’t really know much about Ente Isla. Everything I do know is secondhand knowledge. But all I cared about was myself, and Maou, and…and I was so mean to Suzuno…” 
Emi, conflicted internally, patted the sniffling Chiho on the head. 
“It’s all right. You can’t choose who you wind up liking.” 
“Yeah, but it embarrasses me, you saying that…” 
Emi gently hugged Chiho as she tried her hardest to choke back the tears. 
“Yusa…” 
“It’s hard for her, too. I’m sure she has a lot to think about. So try to remember that, too, all right?” 
“All right…sniff…I better apologize to her later…” 
“Sure. And make sure it’s a nice, long conversation next time. She’s a lot more open to other people than it looks.” 
“…All right.” 
Chiho returned the hug, a little more tightly than Emi. 
“You’re like a big sister to me, Yusa.” 
“I don’t think we’re really that different age-wise.” Emi flashed a deliberate smile as she ran a hand through Chiho’s hair. “But…I think we’ll all need to be on guard from now on.” Her smile tightened as she whispered. 
Suzuno seemed to cozy up to Emi’s story in her own chaotic way, but her anxiety toward Maou had hardly vanished. There was no telling what she would do next. 
That, and there was that scythe-wielding freak who messed around with Emi earlier. 
That was obviously a targeted strike. An assassin from the Church, perhaps, as they took action in response to Olba in their own way. 
There were all these unpredictable elements running around unfettered, and she had no idea what they would do next. It wasn’t good. 
Her mind heavy with thought, Emi emitted a long, troubled sigh. 
It was probably time to tell Maou and the others about the attacker, and about Suzuno’s true colors. They needed to be prepared for the unexpected, and Emi needed to ensure she could slay the Devil King on her own terms. 
She was reluctant to do anything that seemed like she was looking out for Maou’s safety, but knowing that his next-door neighbor was a powerful Church figure was the perfect way to ensure the demons, already mostly robbed of their strength, would stay in line. In that regard, it wasn’t all bad in the end. 
She kind of had to think about it that way in order to drum up the willpower for the task. 
“Well, so be it… I really hate this. It’s like I’m helping him or something.” 
“You know, if you and Maou are being nice to each other, that’d make me happy, too.” 
Chiho chimed in, taking advantage of the now somewhat lightened atmosphere. 
“Sorry, but if you want us to be friends, that’s one request I’m definitely not taking.” 
She liked Chiho, but not enough to do that. 
“But if you’re gonna tell him, then probably the sooner, the better! If you leave a text and a voice mail on his phone, he’ll probably return it once he gets off of work.” 
Chiho took a step away from Emi before removing her cell phone from her bag and searching for Maou’s number from her contact list. 
“But when did you find out, Emi? About…Suzuno, and stuff?” 
“It was just this morning, actually. She told me everything after breakfast at Sasazuka station, and then…” 
Then Emi noticed. 
“Sorry, Chiho!” 
Her voice ratcheted up in intensity. 
Chiho was struck dumb on the spot. Then Emi leaped at her from the side. Then, a loud crashing sound. 
“Huh? What…what…?!” 
Chiho had trouble understanding why Emi just knocked her over. 
“…Speak of the devil, as they say. These stalkers must really love me.” 
Emi whispered in response, the anger clear in her voice. 
The figure was about the height of Suzuno or Urushihara. The black ski mask made a return, as well as the plastic rain poncho and camouflage-print pants. The lack of paintball stains on the mask made Emi conclude that her attacker had purchased a new one. 
In both hands was an enormous scythe, as if the attacker had plucked the evening’s crescent moon straight from the sky. 
“Y-Yusa, this guy…” 
“Yep.” 
Emi kept Chiho behind her as she steeled herself for a fight. 
“The Ente Isla assassin. The one who crashed into the convenience-store door in Eifukucho before getting driven away by that clerk’s paintball arsenal.” 
“……” 
Chiho’s eyes darted between Emi and the scythe-wielder. 
“Is that…really an assassin?” 
“Well, I can’t think of any Japanese people who fall from the sky spinning that thing around.” 
“Y-yeah, I guess…” 
“You know, it was the same thing before. Why’s this guy always attack me in public streets? We’re gonna have a ton of witnesses!” 
The three of them had just held a heated argument a moment ago. That could be ignored. Bladed weapons, on the other hand, generally wouldn’t be. 
The area seemed deserted at first glance, but once things actually got started, someone would be calling the cops within a couple of minutes. Emi found that out for herself two months ago. 
Considering this was a foe perfectly willing to involve other people in battle, she would need to make this an extremely short conflict, both to keep Chiho safe and to keep her name off the arrest records for a change. 
“I can’t spend a lot of time on this. It might get a little messy.” 
This time for real, Emi focused her energy on her right hand, binding the Holy Silver with the divine power within her body. The Better Half holy sword formed in an instant, shining in the night as it filled with holy force. That should be enough power to deflect at least one or two of those violet beams. 
The next moment, a flash of purple shot out from the holes of the attacker’s ski mask. 
Emi darted to the side, predicting the direction of the beam. The light barely whizzed by her chest, striking an intersection guardrail before disintegrating. 
Emi and Chiho both shot a look toward the rail. It wasn’t twisted, warped, or otherwise damaged at all. 
It confirmed that the beam caused no physical harm, but interacted with holy energy in some way that gravely affected Emi. 
“Heavenly Fleet Feet!” 
Focusing the Cloth of the Dispeller on her legs, she was face-to-face with the masked opponent in the blink of an eye. There was no time to let Chiho escape, so Emi had to keep her foe from striking instead. 
Since this attacker’s scythe had a longer attack range than her holy sword, she needed to settle this with close-quarters combat. 
The darkened intersection sprang alive with the shrill sound of metal against metal as sparks flew through the air. To Chiho, looking on from afar, it seemed like the two combatants had only just begun to wage their pitched battle. 
But while Emi succeeded in closing the gap, she was surprised to find this match to be a great deal more even than anticipated. 
To combat the purple light, she had powered her holy sword up to maximum, a feat made possible by her now-regular 5-Holy Energy ? habit. This sword, and the Hero’s lightning-fast advance, had been stopped front and center by the scythe’s handle. 
No matter how much power she put into her blade, it didn’t seem like she could put even a nick on the weapon. In fact… 
“I’m…getting pushed back…” 
Even with the Cloth of the Dispeller granting her enhanced speed, she was finding it difficult to advance upon her foe. Unable to support herself against the scythe-wielder’s oppressive attack, Emi was slowly, but surely, giving up territory. 
“Who are you…?!” 
Somewhere along the line, the match had gone from an even battle to a matter of the scythe-wielder completely outclassing Emi. Then a voice rang out. 
“Didn’t I tell you? Men like to seize upon weak women.” 
“…!! You…!!” 
The voice within the mask, close enough that it seemed to touch her, made Emi instinctively open her eyes wide. 
“Ngh…! Divine Flying Blade!” 
A flash of white ran across Emi’s sword. 
The move was originally meant to dispatch faraway foes with a leaping slash. At such close range, it was entirely possible Emi would be caught in the shock wave as well. 
But there was no other way to break through this. Just as she was ready to release this potentially self-destructive blast, another purple beam glowed before her. 
“None of that. Nothing that would make a woman hurt herself.” 
The violet beam released alongside the breezy, unhurried words and struck her glowing sword. Then: 
“Wha…!!” 
Emi’s shout betrayed her honest distress. Just before she could release it, Divine Flying Blade had been completely annulled. In fact, the holy energy inside her sword, brimming with her bodily strength, was rapidly ebbing away. 
She groaned as she felt her enemy grow even stronger. 
“This is my power. The Evil Eye of the Fallen. The power to overwhelm all wielders of holy magic. It’s mine, and mine alone.” 
“The Fallen…?! You couldn’t be…!” 
“Oh, I am. I’m here to release you from the cruelties of our mission. Sleep well.” 
As the silky voice continued, violet light began to gather toward the center of the mask. 
“I’ll be taking that holy sword back now.” 
“What are…!” 
At that moment, a completely different kind of light whooshed past Emi’s line of sight. 
“Yusa!!” 
Chiho’s warning scream was an instant too late. 
A huge, gold-colored streak advanced upon Emi from a place unseen, sending the pinned Emi flying with the force of a massive shock wave. 
“Gahh!!” 
Her body was steeled against one attack, only to be struck by an even more punishing one from another direction. She groaned as she flew through the air. 
Blown like a cannonball right past Chiho, frozen in fear and quivering, she slammed against the side of a building and immediately lost consciousness. 
The holy sword dropped out of her hand as she did. 
The scythe-wielding maniac watched on as it did. 
“…!” 
But the metallic-looking sword fell softly, like a feather, down to the ground, before disappearing into a million particles of light. 
Like a huge swarm of fireflies, the particles rushed toward the fallen body of their master, emitting a soft glow as they completely covered her. Then they flickered out of sight. 
The scythe-wielding maniac greeted the sight with an annoyed clicking of his tongue. 
“Yusa! Yusa!!” 
Chiho, meanwhile, was half-crazed as she shook Emi’s body. 
Emi was on her stomach and unresponsive. Chiho was unable to lift up her loose, limply sagging body with her thin arms, leaving her to clutch Emi desperately while glaring at the other attacker, the one who wielded the golden light. 
“Why? Why did you have to do this?!” 
Chiho was screaming. 
“Suzuno! Why?!” 
Suzuno’s hair, usually held together by her hairpin, was for some reason down to her waist as she carried a large war hammer in her hands. 
“You were just like them all along, Suzuno, weren’t you?! Yusa’s just an obstacle in the way to you, just like she was to Olba!” 
“……” 
Suzuno looked down upon Chiho, a pained expression on her face. 
“This…this isn’t even fair! If Maou is a demon, what does it make you, stabbing Yusa in the back right when she’s fighting for all of us?!” 
Suzuno shut her eyes, no longer able to withstand Chiho’s verbal attack, and shouted. 
“Silence!” 
Chiho froze in shock and fear, letting Suzuno advance upon her in a moment. Suzuno placed a finger on Chiho’s forehead. 
“Maou…h…help…” 
Her consciousness fell into darkness. 
The pink cell phone in her hand clattered noisily to the ground. 
 
“Ooh, there go the cops.” 
Maou noticed the shrill sirens of the emergency vehicles as they zoomed down the Koshu-Kaido Road. Night was finally starting to settle in, and as he pored over his cash-register printout, he anticipated that, while the customer stream went back to normal around dinner, it wouldn’t be enough to make up for the damage done in the morning and afternoon. 
The Greenland demotion was a joke, presumably, but Maou knew there was every chance Kisaki actually would dock Maou’s hourly wages. His only choice was to attempt a catch-up tomorrow. 
The tree-decorating gimmick had done wonders, though. It had attracted more families and large groups than usual, and—even more unexpectedly—a fair amount of couples and young women were interested in placing wishes on the tree, not just the children Maou anticipated. 
Thanks to that, the bamboo tree was now completely swathed in colorful strips of folded paper. 
The Star Festival decorations Maou had directed his staff to make were all things he learned about as part of his investigations into planet Earth’s magical and occult folklore. 
He had conducted a wide range of research in areas like religious ceremonies, alleged sources of magic, spiritual philosophy, and ancestral spirits. The bamboo décor was nothing if not authentic as a result. 
It also gladdened Maou to have a teacher, one who said she worked at a nearby preschool, ask him to show her how to make Star Festival decorations. This kind of professional compliment was a real source of pride for him—she must have already known how to make simple origami for the class curriculum, after all. 
Maou vowed to pick up a fresh tree from the Watanabe residence as soon as possible, hopefully tomorrow. He put together a rough schedule for the next morning in his mind as he directed his crew to prepare for closing procedures in between orders. 
Then the phone rang. 
Not Maou’s cell phone, but the MgRonald office telephone. 
Maou quizzically glanced at the clock, but picked up the receiver before giving it any further thought. The customer-service manual said never to let the phone go past two rings, and if the manual said it, it was law to Maou. 
“Thank you for calling MgRonald at Hatagaya rail station. This is Maou speaking. How can I help you?” 
“Hello? Oh, dear, hello!” 
It sounded like a middle-aged woman, one who seemed bewildered by the fact that anyone had picked up. 
“Is this Sadao Maou, perhaps? The shift supervisor and assistant manager?” 
Who’s this weirdo who knows my entire job title? Maou’s eyebrows arched up incredulously, but he didn’t let it show in his voice. 
“Yes, this is Maou, shift supervisor for the evening… May I ask who’s calling?” 
“Oh! Well, my goodness, I’m very sorry! I was just surprised… I didn’t think you’d actually be the one answering the phone! Hee-hee-hee-hee!” 
Maou silently begged the woman to stop laughing and just get on with her request. 
“This is Chiho Sasaki’s mother. Thank you for taking such good care of her in there!” 
“Uh…” 
Maou could feel the muscles in his back twitch like a tightly wound spring as he let out a short groan. 
“W-well, thank you very much. You’re Chi…er, Ms. Sasaki’s mother, then? It’s good to hear from you!” 
He folded his upper body into a bow as he spoke, even though she wasn’t actually there. It almost made him bang his head on the drink dispenser. 
There was no need to get worked up. It was just the family of one of his employees calling. 
It’s not like he had some kind of especially close relationship with Chiho. Well, okay, they were pretty familiar with each other. But they definitely weren’t a couple or anything. …But, considering that Chiho’s home cooking was apparently parent-approved, Maou found himself unable to figure out how to approach Chiho’s mother, or even what he should call her. 
The slight quiver in Maou’s voice as his entire body erupted in a cold sweat must have been clear across the phone line. 
“I do have to apologize, though. I understand Chiho’s been causing assorted trouble for you as of late? Let me tell you, it was quite the surprise this morning, her coming home with a bicycle I’d never seen before!” 
She almost seemed to be enjoying this. 
“N-no, it’s no trouble at all. Chiho is a wonderfully talented crew member, and…well, not to speak too personally here, but I’m on a rather tight budget at the moment, so I very much appreciate the large breakfast she prepared this morning.” 
“Ah, well, Chiho, you know… It’s not that she never helps out around the house, but she’s certainly never prepared that much food by herself before, so, you knoooow, if anything was undercooked or tasted off to you, don’t be afraid to come out and say it, all right? Because I taught her everything I could think of, but whenever I offered to help, she turned all red and said she didn’t need me around, so I just kind of let her do her own little thing!” 
“Ah…yes… Well, I do appreciate it immensely. It was a truly delicious meal.” 
“Oh, my, my, my! I do apologize if I’m making you feel, you know, on the spot or anything! I know it’s not a, ah, serious relationship or anything even close to that, but that girl, you know, she’s always taken to her father, and it’s not that she’s never been friends with another boy before, but I tell you, I’ve never seen her work so hard on something like that before, so… Well, it makes a mom proud, you know? Seeing that. Oh, but I’m sorry, you’re still working, aren’t you?” 
“No, er… I apologize.” 
That was the best Maou could manage. He had done nothing wrong, but the anxiety was making his entire body shiver. 
But when Chiho’s mother turned off the mom-of-a-girl-in-her-prime smarm and got down to business, the anxiety disappeared, replaced with something even more unpleasant. 
“Is Chiho still working over there?” 
“Huh?” 
Maou peered at the clock. It was just past ten in the evening. Over an hour would have passed since Emi and Suzuno escorted her home. 
“Is…she not home yet?” 
“Well, I told her to go buy some milk for us at the convenience store on the way home, but she still isn’t back yet, so I thought she was just, you know, hanging out over there after work again.” 
Maou could feel his mind freeze. 
He’d never visited Chiho’s house before, of course, but it couldn’t have been that far away. 
She seemed on pretty good terms with Emi, and it looked like she was opening up to Suzuno as well. Maybe the three of them went off somewhere else for a while. 
But Maou wasn’t feeling optimistic enough to believe it. 
A thought that bounced around Maou’s mind ever since Suzuno first moved in began to sound an alarm bell. 
If Emi was with them, he doubted their being together would lead to any weird, out-of-control misunderstandings. But maybe that was just wishful thinking. 
Ugh. That Hero is so useless. 
“Um, Mrs. Sasaki?” 
“Oh, dear, there’s hardly any need to be so formal! Ooh, I’ve never had a young male friend of my daughter call me that before!” 
Resisting the urge to ask Chiho’s mother what the hell she found so joyous about this, Maou took a deep breath and plunged forward. 
“I’d like you to just relax and stay at home until your daughter gets back.” 
The sound of his voice was transformed into digital signals and ferried over to the ear of Chiho’s mother. 
She grew quiet, the previous cattiness now very much a thing of the past, and hung up without another word. 
Maou mentally patted himself on the back. Long-range demonic hypnosis was always a bit tricky. 
A crew member called to him as he hung up the phone. 
“What’s up? Chi isn’t home yet or something?” 
“Doesn’t sound like it. She’s probably just out somewhere, I bet.” 
“Yeah. She had those friends with her, too, right?” 
That was enough to put the employee’s mind at ease as he ventured into the kitchen area, alcohol-based disinfectant and dust mop at the ready. 
Maou flew into the staff break room, taking his cell phone out from his personal belongings. He sighed painfully once the screen came on. A call had come in nearly an hour ago. 
It was from Chiho. 
The phone had rung for ninety-nine seconds, the longest his provider allowed. Maou was far too cheap to sign up for something like voice mail, and his phone didn’t allow him to automatically record calls to the internal voice-memo function. 
If it was clear Maou wasn’t going to pick up, Chiho was always polite enough to leave a text or call back some other day. And if someone like her was letting the phone ring for a minute and a half, something was definitely wrong. 
He tried giving a call back, but her voice mail picked up after half a minute or so. The same thing happened on the following two attempts. 
Stricken by anxiety, he next tried placing a call with Emi, the woman she was theoretically together with. 
After several more attempts and banal voice-mail encounters, Maou jammed the END CALL button with a vengeance. 
“Crap…!” 
Emi’s lack of responsiveness only served to further ratchet up his sense of dread. 
Hopefully this wasn’t anything more serious than the Hero ignoring his call. 
“Maou? Oh, Maou?” 
The employee from before was in the break room, apparently searching for him. The portable handset from the office telephone was in his hand. 
“There’s a phone call for you.” 
“From Chi?!” 
The sudden, urgent response made the staffer shake his head in alarm. 
“N-no, uh, it’s from a Mr. Urushihara.” 
“Huhh?!” 
Maou couldn’t hide his surprise. Of all the people to be calling right now… 
“…Hello?” 
“Oh, Maou? Yo, it’s me!” 
But there he was, the former fallen angel and current Devil’s Castle parasite, on the other end of the line. 
“What the hell are you calling the office phone number for?! Where are you even calling from?” 
Urushihara was under strict instructions not to venture outside unless absolutely necessary. There were no public phones anywhere near walking distance of Devil’s Castle. So why was Maou faced with his nasal, whiny droning right now? 
“Well, what? I know you never pick up your cell phone during work. I’m callin’ from home, what’s so bad about that?” 
“From home?! When the hell did you buy a phone?! You had that kind of money?!” 
“I don’t have a phone, dude. You think I’m loaded or something? I’m using SkyPhone. You know, SkyPhone?” 
“What’s SkyPhone?” 
“Basically, it’s a phone you can use over the Internet. It’s practically free to use, and you can even call landline phones with it. Like, signing up with a phone company is so last year, you know?” 
Maou internally marveled at how Urushihara thought he knew everything after two months of life as a Japanese shut-in. 
“All right. Fine. As long as it’s not messing up our finances. So what do you want?” 
“Jeez, you don’t have to be so passive-aggressive like that. Ashiya asked me to find some inside info on Sentucky Fried Chicken, so I found it. You happy?” 
Urushihara’s own attitude wasn’t much better. To the impatient Maou, this call didn’t seem like much of an emergency. 
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. But I’m kind of busy right now. I’ll ask you about it at home.” 
He tried to hang up. Urushihara shouted at him before he could. 
“Wait! You sure about that? You know, Sentucky… Something’s really effed up about it.” 
“Ah?” 
Maou could hear someone clicking away with a mouse on the other end. The audio quality was clearer than he’d expected. 
“That location’s managed by a guy named Mitsuki Sarue. The one with the Hatagaya address is, anyway. That’s the one, right?” 
“Yeah, I suppose.” 
“Well, the employee profile on the site says that Sarue’s five foot eleven and used to play rugby in college. He look like that to you?” 
“…It said what?” 
Maou was too thrown to shoo him away now. 
“That’s gotta be someone else’s profile. He was this little shrimpy dude, just about as tall as you are. He looked like he’d be more at home trying to hook up with chicks at a sleazy Kabukicho bar than stiff-arming dudes on a rugby field.” 
“Oh, so you’re calling me shrimpy now? Thanks a lot. Anyway, Sarue’s a pretty rare last name, so when I checked the personnel logs on Sentucky’s HQ site based outta Shibuya, that was the only Sarue on the whole list.” 
“Uh…wow, what the hell kinda sites were you accessing?” 
“And that’s not all. According to the HQ logs, Sarue’s supposed to be working for the advertising department. Those logs list someone totally different as the manager at Hatagaya. Someone named Tanaka. A girl!” 
“Hohh…” 
If Maou wasn’t focused on other crises at the moment, he could have just written that off as an inconsistency with SFC’s record-keeping. 
But considering the events at hand, was it really safe to let this Mitsuki Sarue guy, manager at the Hatagaya Sentucky Fried Chicken, go ignored when his very existence was now being called into question? 
And then there was the missing-in-action Chiho, the unusually silent Emi…and the girl who was with them. 
“Hey, uh, is there any way to, like, look up where somebody is right now if you have their cell number? Anything as useful as that?” 
“Why d’you ask? I guess so, but I’d have to look.” 
“There is?!” 
The twenty-first century was still news to Maou in countless ways. 
“But I don’t have anything like that right now, and figuring that stuff out is probably gonna take a ton of time. I don’t even even know if this piece-of-crap PC can handle it or not…” 
“All right! Sorry it’s such a piece of crap! Jeez!” 
It was a piece of crap Urushihara hadn’t spent any of his own money on. Maou felt justified taking offense. 
“But, like, what, you want to know where somebody is?” 
“Yeeaaahh, kind of…” 
“’Cause if it’s Emilia, I could probably tell you.” 
Maou stopped breathing for a moment. 
“What?!” 
“Well, yeah. I kinda stuck a tracker in her shoulder bag. A hidden GPS transmitter.” 
“A hidden…GP…what?” 
All this rapid-fire lingo was too much for him. 
“Uh…well, just imagine one of those little bugging devices you see in movies. They use ’em to track wild animals and migrating birds and stuff, you know? They tell you what kind of path whoever’s carrying it is taking, and how much time it took to do it.” 
There was no doubt Emi was a far more fearsome presence in the demons’ lives than some collared wolf or bear. Tracking her was a brilliant idea. 
“When did you do that?” 
“Back a coupla days ago. I put it under the bottom layer of her bag so she wouldn’t notice it right away.” 
It made sense. Maou recalled how Urushihara picked up all the purse contents scattered across the ground after Emi’s flying leap off the stairway. 
“Plus, you had to have noticed by now, right, Maou? Like, how Suzuno’s not exactly a normal Japanese woman?” 
Urushihara made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world. 
“You didn’t say anything, so I figured I’d play along, but you know, what reason would anyone have to move into this building unless they were seriously short on cash? I mean, there’s nothing.” 
“…You’re more observant than I thought.” 
“I don’t know if Emilia’s noticed, though, and that’s why she’s getting chummy with her. But our landlord isn’t really normal, either, right? A regular human being signing a lease with that lady and moving right next to us… You’d have to be crazy to think that was just your typical tenant.” 
When Suzuno moved in, Maou wasn’t concerned about the sort of things Ashiya mentioned—acting like a decent neighbor, being part of the community, blah blah blah. 
His sole reaction was that anyone willing to sign on with that landlord could very well be from Ente Isla. 
“So…the udon noodles and other stuff Suzuno made for us…” 
“Well, duh, I’m half-angel, remember? Holy power isn’t gonna mess up my body. I ate everything you gave me. It didn’t hurt you at all, Maou?” 
That must have been what put Ashiya down for the count—the assorted food Suzuno brought into Devil’s Castle. 
Both on Earth and in Ente Isla, food played a primary role in the sacred ceremonies generally known as “consecrations.” 
On Earth, the food involved was usually bread or wine, placed into special holy vessels for use in religious rites. 
Ente Isla, meanwhile, often used special ingredients, grown within Church grounds, raised with the help of holy water, and instilled with the power of the gods themselves. 
All of the food Suzuno brought with her must have been consecrated on Ente Isla. 
And it was easy to imagine why Suzuno was so generously sharing it with Maou and his cohorts. She was an assassin—one whose approach chiefly differed from Emi’s in its leisurely pace. 
Consuming purely cultivated, consecrated food could indeed be hazardous to the health of a lesser demon. But… 
“Hey, the worse it is for you, the better it tastes, right?” 
“That’s your take on it?” 
Maou’s utter indifference exasperated Urushihara. 
A higher-level demon eating consecrated food was essentially the same as placing holy force directly into their body. It would hurt him in the long run, but only in the same way trans fats and “bad” cholesterol would hurt a normal person. It wasn’t something that would drain his strength and shut down his bodily functions with a snap of the fingers. 
In Ashiya’s case, the cause was partly that he’d all but used up his demonic power in the battle two months ago and partly that Suzuno’s cuisine simply didn’t agree with his stomach. 
“It’s not like she’s flailing away at us the way Olba did. I’m not enough of a prick to complain about whatever someone feeds me, and hey, it helps us save some cash. I figured we’d use her for as long as we could get away with it.” 
“Yeah, but isn’t it kind of like that documentary about the guy who ate burgers every day just to see what would happen?” 
“You know, Ashiya used to bring up that film all the time when he lectured me. I think he’s a huge fan or something.” 
Maou chuckled to himself. 
“What’s he doing right now, by the way?” 
Ashiya seemed unlikely to remain still if he discovered his next-door neighbor was his mortal enemy. 
“Well, he got home, ate some udon, and now he’s grunting and groaning on the crapper.” 
“…Oh.” 
The mental image of his beloved general and tactical genius meeting his match against indigestion almost brought tears to Maou’s eyes. 
“I think he was getting pretty suspicious of Suzuno, too, though. It’s just that you never said anything, so I guess he kept quiet because it was helping keep the lights on.” 
“…I’m glad he’s got faith in me, but dude, he doesn’t have to ruin his health just to save a few yen.” 
“Yeah, seriously. So that’s why I snuck that GPS transmitter in there, but Emilia hasn’t done anything suspicious at all, really, so I turned off the tracker a while ago.” 
“Huh. All right. I gotcha. So you can use that to see where she is now?” 
“Probably. The battery’s gonna run out pretty soon, I think…” 
Maou heard Urushihara tap away at the keyboard for a moment. 
“Whoa.” 
Some surprising turn of events stopped his fingers. 
“Whoa, what?” 
“So she was at this intersection between MgRonald and our place, then all of a sudden she’s moving in this straight line. Like, right though buildings and stuff, like she’s flying or something.” 
“Where’s she going?” 
Urushihara’s reply was short and to the point. 
“Tokyo city hall, it looks like. The GPS signal’s been hovering around building number one, the main one, for a while now.” 
“…Great. That’s all I need to know. Way to actually help out for a change.” 
“‘For a change’ is kinda mean, you know.” 
Maou nodded before bringing up something else that crossed his mind. 
“By the way, how much did that track editor or whatever cost you?” 
The moment he asked the question, there was a flushing sound over the phone line, followed by the old, sticky door opening. Ashiya was out of the john. 
“It’s a tracker, dude. Uh, Ashiya’s back out now, so I don’t really want to say, but…” 
“I got your back on this one, I promise. Just tell me.” 
Maou could feel the hesitation over the phone. 
“I got it from an Akihabara online store for…uh, forty thousand…on your card.” 
The sound of something heavy falling echoed across the line. 
Through the phone’s audio, Maou easily pictured Ashiya fainting in shock from Urushihara’s extravagant purchasing habits. 
“Well, at least you’re honest. I don’t know what Ashiya’s gonna say, and I’m not sure I wanna know what you bought that thing for in the first place, but you got my permission. You really helped me out tonight.” 
“I’d kinda appreciate it if you could get home ASAP and tell Ashiya that. I’m a little scared…” 
“Can’t. Not done working yet. But thanks. See you.” 
“Whoa, wait, Mao—” 
Ignoring Urushihara’s pleas, Maou hung up the phone. 
“I don’t want you bums following me, either. Not with all your demonic energy drained. You’d just get hurt. A good supervisor needs to watch over the condition of his staff.” 
After whispering it to himself, Maou took a deep breath, almost choking on the grab bag of powerful odors that pervaded the break room, than slapped his cheeks a bit to wake himself up. 
“If this is still just Emi getting sidetracked, she’s gonna have some serious explaining to do.” 
He took a look around the room before his eyes stopped on the cleaning-supply closet. 
“Huh? Are we cleaning the floors already, Maou?” 
One of the crew members noticed Maou leaving the break room with a mop in his hand. 
“Well, uh…yeah. I need to go out for a bit.” 
“What? With a mop? Where?” 
Maou had trouble responding for a moment, but drummed up the most stoic look he could. 
“There’s something annoying me that I need to clean up.” 
“Um, I’m not quite sure I know what you… Ah! Maou, wait a sec!” 
Ignoring the employee’s cries, Maou ran across the dining area. 
“Maou!” 
“Don’t worry! I promise I’ll come back!” 
“I don’t care about that! Just don’t leave us in here!” 
The employee’s shout sounded like a battle horn to Maou’s ears as he boarded his trusty two-wheeled Dullahan and flew off. 
Dullahan’s bell rang its approval at its master’s burning spirit, its staccato ding-a-ling now a beastlike roar. 
Like a cavalryman of old, Satan, lord of the demon realms, held his mop firmly in hand as he galloped down a side road removed from Koshu-Kaido to avoid police attention, heading straight for the city center in Hatsudai-Shinjuku. 
 
“Hmm… So the angel refuses to fall that easily.” 
A cross floated in the sky, emitting an eerie purple light. The creepy scythe-wielding maniac looked up at it, and the body of Emi that was crucified upon it, as he muttered softly. Suzuno, standing right next to him, had her eyes cast upward as well. 
Emi, hair blowing in the wind, glared downward upon the pair, even as her body remained limp. 
Above them, an enormous crescent moon, far bigger than anything seen on Earth, showered its white glow upon Emi and the entirety of Tokyo city hall’s main building below. 
The area within the light was cut off from reality, much as the Devil King could wrangle with his magical barriers. 
The heliport at the top of the towering building, the one point in Shinjuku closer to the moon than anywhere else, seemed utterly detached from the hustle and bustle of the city below. It was quiet, with only the howling wind present to witness this otherworldly scene and its denizens. 
“Just…give it up already.” 
Like a holy warrior awaiting her judgment, Emi had been bathed in that purple light again and again, her body now nearly bereft of holy energy. 
The light that scythe-wielding maniac wielded really did have the power to drain her strength, after all. 
He was apparently after the Better Half holy sword within her body, but no matter how often the light coursed across her, the Holy Silver that resonated with her inner strength to form the sword refused to budge from within. 
“I’m not resisting you. You just can’t do it. So can you try again some other time?” 
Emi was recognized by the Church as the Hero with the power to slay the Demon King. They presented her with the Holy Silver, which she blithely accepted into her body with the help of the Church’s holy energy. But she had never given a single thought to how, exactly, this Holy Silver was stored within her. 
The Better Half itself seemed to present itself as a physical weapon, one forged in some heavenly foundry somewhere, but the Cloth of the Dispeller that protected her was composed strictly of light, having no physical presence whatsoever. 
Which meant, as she now questioned within her mind, that the Cloth wasn’t powered by Holy Silver, perhaps. 
Robbed of the abilities she deftly harnessed in her war against the demons, her current state made her realize for the first time just how little she knew about her powers. 
“Just…give it up already. Release me and Chiho.” 
The words weakly spilled out of Emi’s mouth. 
Chiho was still unconscious, tossed to the ground behind the scythe-wielding creep with her hands bound behind her. 
“I’m afraid that won’t be happening. In fact, I plan to have this lovely little lady help me out in more than a few ways.” 
The maniacal, scythe-wielding, convenience-store robber’s shoulders pulsed up and down as he laughed. 
“…You worked in front of MgRonald so you could hit on women, Sarue?” 
Emi summoned up all the sarcasm she could. The scythe-wielder’s shoulders stopped cold. 
“Ah. You noticed.” 
“Women are a lot more sensitive to stupid men and their exhibitionist streaks than you think.” 
Even captured and depleted of strength, Emi still never shut up. The scythe-wielder laughed again. 
“Fair enough. I did call myself Sarue. However…” 
He raised a hand to remove his ski mask. 
“My true name is Sariel. Sariel the archangel.” 
Now he was revealed—his well-ordered, boy-like visage, his purple eyes, and… 
“I didn’t know orange eyeshadow was all the rage in heaven right now.” 
The orange paint around the angel’s eyes was clear now as he introduced himself. 
“Heh… It’s proven to be quite obstinate.” 
The angel called Sariel shrugged and laughed to himself, as if wistfully complaining about bad weather outside. 
The mask was off, but the plastic rain poncho and camo pants were still on. The well-defined features of his face, now bedecked in bright orange, made for an almost clownish sight. 
A heretofore unknown enemy revealing himself was usually meant to be a dramatic situation. For Emi, it took some effort to keep from cracking up. 
“Wouldn’t be much of a crime deterrent if it came off that easily, you know?” 
“Hmph. It is of no great concern to me. I needed those sunglasses to hide my purple eyes anyway.” 
“You got a lot more issues to tackle than that, I’d say.” 
The overpowering cologne he had on was no doubt meant to conceal the odor from the antitheft paintballs. 
But his equally overpowering approach to chatting up women was likely more a permanent part of his personality. 
Emi knew Sariel’s name well. 
It was a name that appeared frequently in the Church’s holy texts. Several departments of the Church, including the Council of Inquisitors themselves, venerated him as an angel symbolic to their cause. 
He was among the upper echelons of heavenly dwellers, enough so that he bore the title of archangel. 
The purple light was the Evil Eye of the Fallen, a force that allowed him to defeat even high-level angels, sending them reeling down into the mortal world below. 
One story even pinned the blame on Sariel for the fall of Lucifer. 
“You know, you really had me concerned. Such a powerful weapon, being bandied around on another world. And now I reek and my beautiful face looks like an orange panda’s. I honestly considered taking my own life at one point.” 
Emi rued his inability to go through with it. She had no idea Sariel was such an immature, narcissistic, smelly archangel. 
“I failed to defeat you, I allowed you to regroup with the Devil King, and I almost had to miss work on our opening day. Quite the ordeal, I can tell you. But!” 
Sariel the orange panda smiled, then turned toward Suzuno. 
“Thanks to you, I managed to capture her without even breaking a sweat. And look at the lovely bonus prize I found!” 
Emi followed Sariel’s eyes. Suzuno hung her head low, teeth still gritted. 
“Chiho Sasaki. Quite a valuable sample, you know. A girl from another world who knows of the Devil King, and yet desires nothing more than to be close to him. She will provide us with untold research into how the Devil King’s powers affect the human mind!” 
Emi rolled her eyes. 
Sariel’s villainous, almost cartoonlike manner of speaking was one thing, but his current act was nothing short of unbelievable. 
“You were listening in on us at that intersection?!” 
She had noticed nothing suspicious near her at the time. 
“Psh. You could at least be kind enough to call it ‘spying.’” 
Sariel was overly eager to confess to his stalker tendencies. Emi wrinkled her nose in response, apparently enough to merit another blast of the Evil Eye of the Fallen from Sariel. 
“Nngh!” 
Emi groaned. It didn’t physically hurt her at all, but whenever she was exposed to it, the discomfort made it feel like her stomach was going to turn inside out. 
“The holy sword is not something meant to be wielded by a human. Before it returns to the people of Ente Isla, we must pluck it out from you with our own hands. Such is the consensus of all of heaven, you see.” 
“Aaaaaahhh!” 
A particularly strong blast of light almost made Emi lose consciousness. 
“Hmm. No dice, then? …Oh?” 
Sariel halted the barrage to think for a moment. He walked toward the edge of the heliport. 
He looked down, across the nearly eight hundred feet to the ground. Then he found something. He laughed. 
“Well, well! Look at the little gnat who blundered his way in here.” 
Suzuno’s head darted upward. Emi, too, lifted her head an inch or two. 
“Ma…ou…” 
Chiho, still unconscious, called his name as she struggled in her sleep. 
“I couldn’t say how he penetrated my barrier, but there’s no need to show him an improper welcome. Is there, Bell?” 
Suzuno’s body convulsed at the sound of her name. 
“He doesn’t have any of his putrid little underlings with him. Even you could defeat the Devil King easily enough at this point.” 
“…!” 
She flashed an uneasy look at Emi, but her limp head, and the hair blowing wildly around her, made it impossible to gauge her expression. 
“There’s nothing to fear. This building is bathed in the glow of my moonlight. There is none of that nasty negative energy for the Devil King to harness. Go.” 
Even as her face remained pale, Suzuno dejectedly followed his words, walking to the edge of the roof. 
As a member of the Church, there was no way she could defy the order of an angel, one very much a target of worship in her domain. To both the Council of Inquisitors and the new Reconciliation Panel, Sariel was undeniably an object of veneration. 
The weight of her resolve groaned heavily on her back. The voice that followed made it all the heavier. 
“…This is what you want?” 
“!” 
Suzuno gasped as she stood motionless. 
“You want the Hero with the Holy Sword and the Devil King to meet their end on an alien world? For Ente Isla to be the exact same as it was before you came here? For peace to reign as if nothing happened? Does that work for you?” 
It was the strong wind that made her legs shake. Suzuno forced herself to believe that. If she didn’t, she would have to admit otherwise. 
She would have to admit that she was an agent of evil in the end, one of many tentacles writhing in the darkness that lurked at the very core of the Church. 
“What could be troubling you? What you are doing is right. It is just. I, the symbolic leader of the Reconciliation Panel, guarantee it. Now, go. A word or two from me, and no one in the Church could ever lay a finger on you. You have nothing to fear.” 
Sariel stood defiantly behind Suzuno. 
“Besides, this was the plan from the start, wasn’t it? We’re just a bit behind schedule, is all. Ente Isla will enjoy an era of peace. One free of the Devil King’s looming presence. One where the myth of the Hero with the holy sword shall be passed down for generations to come. You and I, Bell… We merely came to tie up the loose ends. There is no need for the audience to see all the furor and confusion behind the curtain.” 
His tone was casual, as if they were discussing where to go for lunch. 
It is true. I know I am in the right. What problem could defeating the Devil King possibly pose to us? 
It’s not that Sariel is here to kill Emilia, besides. World peace, and my own goals… We can achieve both, without a single hitch. 
“Suzuno…” 
The papier-mâché fortress Suzuno attempted to build in her heart instantly crumpled at the sound of her voice. 
“…Chiho.” 
Chiho, bound and lying on her side, watched Suzuno as the tears streamed down her face. 
“Why…why…?” 
Suzuno couldn’t will herself to look. Her eyes darted around the night sky. 
Her kimono flapped haphazardly in the rising gale. Bringing her right hand upward, she removed the cross-shaped hairpin from her head. 
Her hair spread forth like a pair of jet-black wings in the wind. The hairpin began to shine. 
“…Light of Iron.” 
A glowing, golden hammer of war materialized with her voice, the “hammer of justice” that served as the Scythe of Death’s most notorious symbol during countless cruel, heartless inquisitions. 
With hammer in hand, Suzuno shot toward the ground like a golden comet. 
“Please…help me…already…” 
Droplets of silver from her eyes and flew into the night sky. 
“I don’t want to sacrifice anyone else!!” 
“Whooaaarrghh!!” 
The man at Suzuno’s upcoming landing point was startled to notice the girl above him. 
Aiming squarely at the man as he was about to park his bicycle, Suzuno swung her hammer downward. The pathway crumbled with a roar, the man reduced to smithereens…it seemed at first. 
“Damn! That was close! What the hell! You want me to die here?!” 
Sadao Maou was on his rear end, mere inches from the edge of the hammer, as he griped. Then: 
“Ah.” 
He looked at the flattened mass underneath the hammer, stretched out like a steamroller had run over it. His face tightened. 
“Du…” 
“Du?” 
“Duuuuuuuuullahaaaaaaaaannnnnnn!!!!” 
Sadao Maou’s woeful wail echoed off the high-rises of western Shinjuku. 
Maou clutched at the metallic hulk that used to be his trusty Dullahan as he glared at Suzuno. 
“Suzuno, you incredible, incorrigible incompetent! What the hell did you do that for?! Do you have a grudge against Dullahan or something?! Give me back the two months I spent with this guy! And after that, give me a new bike, too! And the registration fees! And help me pay the bulk-garbage fee to give this guy a decent burial!” 
“Shut up!” 
“Agh!” 
Suzuno, paying him no mind, fixed her next swing squarely upon Maou’s head. 
Maou dodged in a panic, but the sight of the hammer whizzing by a few inches from his nose made him break into a cold sweat. 
“Whoa, whoa, wait! Time out!” 
“Silence!” 
“Dude, dude, listen to me for a…” 
“Silence, silence, silence!” 
“Aaagggh!” 
Faced with a war hammer swung at full force, Maou turned his back and ran. 
“Halt! Devil King Satan!” 
“The hell I’m halting! You stop first! Please!” 
Running at full speed, Maou finally managed to open some space between himself and Suzuno. 
“One minute! C’mon, just one minute!” 
Maou held his index finger in the air. 
“…?” 
Suzuno stared, temporarily bewildered at the sight. But: 
“!!!!!!” 
Maou must have mistaken her indecision for agreement to his request. She gaped silently. 
His mop was now on the ground as he slowly, deliberately, began to remove his clothes. 
He took off the trademark MgRonald red polo tee, revealing the running shirt below, its colors faded from overwashing. His belt followed, accompanied by his work pants, allowing his world-beating UniClo sweat-wicking boxers to say hello to the outside world. 
Once the cap went off, Maou wore nothing but his undies, a T-shirt, and a smile as he folded up his uniform and pants, dropping them off on the side of the pathway. Then, picking up his dingy mop, he turned to Suzuno. 
“Okay, now I’m ready.” 
“Wh-what are you doing?!” 
Suzuno simply had to ask. 
No matter what world he was in, a Devil King never stripped to his skivvies before battle. 
But here he was, this deviant sporting boxers, fake-leather shoes, and a grimy mop, snorting derisively at Suzuno like she was an idiot. 
“Hah! Like some unemployed ditz like you would ever understand.” 
Maou’s eyes flashed toward the folded uniform off to the side. 
“Listen, I don’t own those. MgRonald loaned those to me! If I get ’em messed up for nonwork reasons, I’m gonna have to pay restitution, all right? And the Devil’s Castle kinda doesn’t have that sort of surplus cash sitting around right now!” 

“Wha…!” 
Maou exuded devilish majesty as he spoke. Despite everything that happened so far, Suzuno couldn’t help but blush. 
“Also, what are you doing, huh?! Where do you get off, getting my employees caught up in this?!” 
He boldly pointed straight at Suzuno with his mop. 
“I didn’t want to go hard on you. You had guts, moving in right next to me like that, and you’re a hell of a good cook. But if you screw around with my job and hurt my crewmates, you’re gonna have one pissed-off assistant manager to deal with!” 
For an instant, she wavered in the face of such overpowering impact. 
“What…!” 
Then, in an instant, Maou was upon her. 
“Ngh!” 
She tried to duck down, avoiding the handle of the mop as he swung it, but then fell back in a panic as the mop head, swarm of fluffy, black pieces of mystery garbage stuck to it, flew straight at her face. 
Suzuno was amazed to see how Maou handled the mop, like a certain amphibious ninja with a bo pole. She finally managed to deflect the head away with the middle part of her hammer, preparing his backswing to be countered with a swipe of her own. 
“Oop!” 
But the swing was again just a moment too late, as Maou made a grand leap backward. 
It was no regular jump. One leg was all he needed to jump high, and fast, straight up before landing on a streetlight. Suzuno was thunderstruck, eyes wide-open as she looked upward at his body—the lower part—and once again felt her cheeks turn red at the sight. 
“This…this is no time for that, you perverted monster!” 
“You don’t like it? Blame yourself!” 
Maou’s running shirt, perhaps grazed by the light from Suzuno’s hammer, ripped apart from the stomach out, flying into rags in the night air. 
Now Suzuno was looking up toward a boxer-clad Devil King in severe danger of exposing a little too much of himself. 
“So you retained some demonic power all along. Did you not, you sexually deranged Devil King?” 
“Yeah, well, there was no telling when someone like you would come along. They call it a trump card because you don’t show it until the very end.” 
“…When did you notice that I was not Japanese?” 
Maou sighed like an embittered bus driver. 
“The moment I first saw you, when did you think? No Japanese person in her right mind would start caring for this bunch of destitute schlubs living next to her the moment she moved in! Not even some samurai-era Japanese beauty like you! And sure, it made me happy, but before that, it was incredibly sketchy, you know?” 

 

In the end, Suzuno was the only one out of all of them with zero doubts about her act. 
“What…what do you care about Chiho, then?!” 
“I taught Chi everything from A to Z about the job! She’s my right-hand girl now! And if you thought it was just some kind of thin, fragile relationship, you’ve seriously got the wrong idea!” 
Maou jumped down to the ground, keeping a polite distance away from Suzuno. 
“But it’s too bad, huh? I thought you had some potential, trying to take us on by yourself and getting all chummy with Emi. But you’re just another Olba, aren’t you?” 
Suzuno’s back teeth gritted against each other. 
“Long as you can score some power, you don’t care what sacrifices you have to make along the way, yeah? You don’t care how much of a hypocrite it makes you. If I let someone like you slay me, the sheer patheticness of it all would make me cry. What makes you guys different at all from us demons?” 
“S-silence…!” 
“Not gonna happen. I’m a demon, and I just love making people despise me.” 
Maou’s eyes were pointed straight toward Suzuno’s. 
“So answer me! Tricking Emi, getting Chi involved… Aren’t you even a little ashamed of yourself?!” 
“Siiiilennnnnnce!” 
“Yeoow!” 
“…Wha?” 
She had swung her hammer, fully expecting him to dodge again, only to find she made a clean hit. 
The boxer-clad Maou was a tough sight to watch. He was on his hands and knees a distance away, groveling like a crushed spider. 
“Damn…that hurt… Rngh!” 
“What are you doing?! Why did you not dodge that?!” 
Flustered, Suzuno ran up to Maou, despite having just sent him flying. 
He was now covered in abrasions from head to toe, a side effect of his free-love approach to mortal combat. 
The puddle of blood he had coughed up indicated that the hammer’s shock wave made it to his internal organs. 
“I, I tried to, but, but I exhausted my demonic force… I couldn’t release as much power as I thought…” 
“Whaaa?!” 
“Before I came here…I hypnotized someone over the phone…and I had to get through the barrier over city hall, too… Ah, crap, I totally miscalculated this. I thought it’d hold out a little more than that.” 
Maou finally propped himself up, but quickly fell facedown on the ground, unable to gather any strength whatsoever. 
One more full-swing blast from Suzuno right now would send Satan, the Devil King, to wherever his beloved mount was enjoying the afterlife right now. But: 
“…What? Not gonna do it? It’s your chance…cough, cough…to be a hero.” 
Standing in front of Maou, who was still grinning defiantly even as he grunted in pain, Suzuno could do nothing but cast her eyes downward in shame. There was nothing, no final trump card, the Devil King could use to corner Suzuno any longer. But she couldn’t do it. 
“Must’ve been real embarrassing for you, huh?” 
“…What?” 
“You want to beat me fair and square, then go home in triumph with Emi. That’s why you used Chi’s phone to call me. You wanted to have me defeat an opponent you were powerless to defy.” 
Maou raised a shaky arm toward the skyline, and the Tokyo city hall building that dominated it. 
“You…realized that…?” 
The golden hammer disappeared from Suzuno’s hand. She fell to her knees next to the fallen Maou. 
A cross-shaped glass hairpin fell from the hand that once held the hammer, plinking against the ground. 
“Well, it wasn’t hard to guess. You were proceeding along with your plan, gradually weakening us with your food. You weren’t gonna suddenly go dirty and kidnap those two. If you were gonna do that, you could have just poisoned us the normal way. Or, hell, you could’ve killed us any number of other ways and just gone home. You didn’t have to care about Emi.” 
A pink clamshell cell phone, one Maou was familiar with, fell out of Suzuno’s kimono sleeve. It was Chiho’s. The strap with the cartoon clip art of MgRonald menu items on it was a telltale sign. 
“Someone able to kidnap the Hero without a struggle wasn’t going to just sit pretty while Chi tried calling me for a minute and a half. Whoever did call me, had to be capable of doing it. Jeez, you really hammered me, you know that? You better pay my medical bills if you broke any bones.” 
Maou slowly checked over his body as he pleaded his case. He tried to painfully ease himself upward, but was interrupted. 
“…The angel is here.” 
Suzuno picked up the flagging Maou’s hand. Maou readily accepted it. 
“Huh. Yeah, I guess you couldn’t defy an Ente Islan. What’s he here for?” 
“…To recover Emilia’s holy sword, he said.” 
“Huh? Without killing me first?” 
This confused Maou. Why would the angels want their sword back from the Hero if the Devil King was still alive and well? 
“I do not know why… He said it was nothing a human should wield…” 
“Well, we can let him deal with that on his time. What about Chi?” 
Blissfully kicking away the topic, one that could very well decide the fate of every human being on Ente Isla, Maou pressed forward. To a demon, the farther away the Better Half was, the better. 
Suzuno hesitated for a moment before continuing. 
“A valuable sample, is how he put it. He wants to make her into a research subject…someone with feelings for the Devil King, despite a full knowledge of his deeds… He wanted to examine her heart, and her mind.” 
“…That bastard…” 
At that instant, Suzuno instinctively looked upward. 
Maou’s voice was darker, grittier, and angrier than she had ever heard it. 
“You.” 
“Wh-what…?” 
”Who was it? Who was the puke-ridden psycho-freak bastard who did it?” 
“Um…puke-ridden…?” 
Maou grabbed the confused Suzuno by the shoulders, shouting at her. 
“I said, gimme the name of that angel bastard who’s trying to kidnap a member of my effin’ staff, dammit!” 
“It, it’s Sariel.” 
The sheer forcefulness of the tirade made Suzuno dribble out the name. 
“…The Evil Eye of the Fallen, huh? Hell, no wonder Emi couldn’t take him.” 
“You…know of that?” 
Maou’s apparently intimate familiarity with archangels surprised her. 
“Yeah, we got some history. It just had to be that womanizing freak, didn’t it? I knew it—Mitsuki Sarue!” 
Finally, that flamboyant store-manager wannabe connected himself to the current state of affairs in Maou’s mind. 
“W-wait! Are you going now? You are injured!” 
Suzuno tried to stop the snorting Maou, all but ready to sprint into city hall. 
“Of course I am! My precious coworker is quaking in fear waiting for me!” 
“You can’t! You’ll be killed! Sariel’s force grows stronger the closer he is to the moon! There’s no way you could defeat him up on the roof, bereft of—” 
“So you think I’m gonna run instead?” 
Maou’s quiet reply stopped Suzuno’s panicked advice cold. 
“It’s my job to handle crisis management for the crew on my shift. Chi’s a valuable employee. I have to protect her. It’s basically my fault anyway that Sariel chased Emi into this world. I’m not dumb enough to foist that responsibility on someone else and run for the hills. That’s just shameless!” 
“!!” 
Suzuno froze, caught off guard by this unanticipated speech. 
“How the hell am I supposed to conquer the world if I can’t take care of business here? I can’t! So I’m going! And, worst-case scenario, if I can’t beat Sariel, I might be able to get Chi out of there!” 
Then, with a demonic roar, he brought his pained body to a frenzied run. 
“Hyaaahhh! Hang on, Chi!” 
He was inside City Hall before Suzuno could stop him. She stood dumbfounded for a moment, but quickly snapped out of it as she turned up toward the roof. 
Sariel had closed off the entire area from the outside, which meant nobody was going to stop Maou’s mad rush, but the elevators weren’t going to be operational. The climb to the top would sap even more of his energy. 
And even if it didn’t, this was a wounded man in his drawers. It was hard to see how he’d possibly win this. 
“Why…why are you doing this? You are a demon!” 
Suzuno wailed at the heavens above. 
“You are the Demon King… How can you even say things like that?” 
Then she picked up Chiho’s cell phone and returned to her feet. There, on the screen, was the word Maou, followed by a modest heart symbol. 
“If that is the Devil King’s stance, I could hardly allow myself to remain as shameless as I was.” 
Wiping her accumulated tears, Suzuno took a deep breath, feeling her pulse calm down. 
Never misunderstand what needs to be protected. Never allow yourself to lose sight of the justice that must prevail. 
As head of the Council of Inquisitors, as a proud member of the Church, it was a credo that always reigned over her heart. 
Was there any other reason that she traveled so far away, all the way to Japan? 
Suzuno racked her brain, searching for a way to open up a larger hole for the justice she needed to push through to the surface. 
Then she recalled a passing observation from Sariel. 
Negative energy for the Devil King to harness. 
Lifting her head, Suzuno grasped the hairpin that fell to the ground, turned away from City Hall, and, in a flash, flew into the night sky. 
“Hmph… It doesn’t fill me with joy, but so be it. I hate to perform such a grave disservice on a lady, but forgive me. It is simply part of my appointed task. I was expecting my Evil Eye to make the Holy Silver simply divorce itself from your body, but I suppose I will have to directly take it from you instead.” 
Sariel’s face was pained as he spoke to the limp, exhausted Emi. 
“Directly…?” 
Repeated exposure to the Evil Eye of the Fallen had robbed her of nearly all her stamina, but the sensation of Sariel suddenly reaching for a blouse button sent emergency signals across her entire body, making her open her eyes and bite back. 
“Hey! What’re you doing?!” 
“Harvesting the Holy Silver from your body. Oh, but this won’t be a horror-movie scene, so try not to worry about that. Think of it as a type of surgery, one where my holy force will provide all the anesthesia you need…” 
“That’s not the problem! I… Stop it! I’ll kill you!” 
Emi screamed as she flailed her head around, the only free part of her body. But Sariel paid no heed as he calmly, efficiently removed the buttons on Emi’s business-casual blouse from the collar. 
“Wh-what are you doing to Yusa, you weirdo?!” 
Another voice of dissent echoed behind Sariel’s back. His hand stopped for a moment as he turned around. 
“Trust me, I would never want to do anything to humiliate a woman. The present situation notwithstanding, I am considered quite the gentleman up in the heavens. But if I had to place my good name against the recovery of our Holy Silver, I’m afraid my mission must take priority.” 
“That’s awful! Just awful! Why do all you angels have to be these absolutely horrible people?!” 
Chiho Sasaki, the girl Crestia Bell brought up to the roof, focused upon Sariel, her eyes filled with as much hatred as she could manage. 
She had awakened just before Bell had gone off to eliminate their recent intrusion. Ever since, she had been savaging the archangel with as much abuse as her creative mind was capable of generating. 
“Well, considering your position near the Devil King, I suppose Lucifer is your primary experience with them, is it not? I would prefer you not to lump him in with the rest of us, thank you.” 
“Urushihara’s a self-serving shut-in creep, but at least he’s not a molester like you!” 
There was little love lost for either of them, apparently. 
“Yes, yes, all right. I’ll be happy to listen to your running commentary after we return. So would you mind being quiet for a moment?” 
“Whoa, not so fast there! What’re you gonna do to Chiho?!” 
Now it was Emi shouting out in protest. 
“You aren’t gonna take her back with you to Ente Isla, are you?!” 
“But of course. I have to, if I want to research her.” 
“Oh, yeah, that’s a totally normal thing to say… Hey! Don’t touch me!” 
“I am a gentleman. I will do my best not to look, so please be quiet. Besides, I am not a fan of, shall we say, ‘petite’ women.” 
Sariel did not hesitate to say one of the few things no man should ever say to a woman, ever. 
Emi’s emotions exploded to the point where they almost blew her into next Tuesday. She quickly regained her senses as she directed yet more vitriol at Sariel. 
“Oh, you are dead! You are so dead! And I’m not gonna let you take Chiho away, either! I’ll make sure you regret every single thing you’re doing right now!” 
“My, you certainly do make a lot of noise, don’t you? Did you think I was going to take a scalpel to that girl like a lab animal?” 
Sariel’s face tightened, as if hurt by the rebuke. 
“I have nothing but high praise for her beauty. Once my research is complete, I would be more than happy to promote her to the echelon of the angels and greet her as my wedded wife.” 
His face, and his face alone, was the very definition of angelic. But the juxtaposition with what he was saying transformed his smile into something downright indecent. 
“I’d rather die!” 
Chiho opened her mouth as wide as possible as she turned down the proposal. 
“But, of course, I will need to examine her in great detail, from head to toe, before that. I need to know how building a close relationship with the Devil King affects a human being, both in body and in spirit.” 
“You’re a hopeless monster! D-don’t touch me! You make me sick, you freak!” 
“Molester!” 
“Pervert!” 
“Die!” 
“Psychopath!” 
“False angel!” 
“Peeping tom!” 
“Panty raider!” 
“I didn’t go that far!!” 
Being sandwiched in by Emi and Chiho’s bashing was finally enough to make Sariel snap. 
“Quit it! Now! Both of you! Don’t you understand how easy I’m making this for you?!” 
Sariel removed his hands from Emi’s chest long enough to thrust them high, the anger writ clear on his face. 
From out of thin air, the scythe from earlier materialized. Holy Silver must have been at its core as well. Letting his rage drive him, Sariel took the tip of the scythe and pressed it against the blouse over her chest. 
“If I may say so, I am allowed to place the Holy Silver above Emilia’s life if need be! I had pity on you, and you repay me with nothing but this incessant blather! I have no qualms with slashing it right out of you, you realize!” 
Chiho gasped at Sariel’s fearsome tirade. Emi refused to back down. 
“So? Go ahead. I don’t how the Holy Silver’s fused into my body, either. It’s just too bad I wouldn’t get to see you all heartbroken after the Silver disappears along with my body.” 
Emi was drawing a line in the sand. Sariel ejected an irritated grunt. 
“In that case, I’d be happy to work on this girl first.” 
Sariel’s purple eyes turned toward the fallen Chiho, scythe still pointed squarely at Emi. 
“A human intimately tangled with the demons. Transporting her to Ente Isla and examining her body may offer us a way to rescue those tormented by the demons of our own land.” 
Chiho’s face drained itself of blood. Her eyes were still determinedly fixed upon Sariel, but she was still just a teenager, one with no special powers save a half-angel friend who was currently affixed to a cross. If she were tossed into an unknown world by herself, she’d be well and truly helpless. 
“I dare you to lay even a finger on Chiho. You’ll be sorry!” 
Sariel cackled as he turned back toward Emi. 
“Well, I appreciate your spunk, but what exactly do you think you can do now?” 
Emi’s dark eyes focused themselves upon Sariel. The frustration was palpable. 
“Not me.” 
“What?” 
Her hatred bubbled, even outclassing Sariel’s, as she seethed. 
“I said, if you lay a finger on Chiho, the Devil King’s not gonna let that go.” 
“The Devil King?” 
The sheer hilarity of the idea outshone any surprise Emi intended. Sariel laughed, loud and mocking. 
“So that’s your big reveal? The Devil King? Emilia the Hero pinning her hopes upon the Devil King?! You’ve been in collusion with him this whole time, haven’t you?” 
“No, I haven’t. Didn’t you notice? You were across the street from MgRonald.” 
Emi spoke with a firm voice, even as she felt a damp haze gather over her heart. 
“That girl’s an employee over there, and the Devil King’s her assistant manager and shift supervisor. If an employee’s in danger, it’s the boss’s job to step in.” 
“Have you lost your mind, Emilia? Do you truly believe the Devil King would stay beholden to the laws and practices of a human world? You are fully aware of the Devil King’s current state. A puny weakling with only the barest flicker of demonic force left. Even if he came here, what could he manage against an archangel like myself?” 
That much was true. Maou was just another young man, one with no more evil force than a low-level demon grunt back in his own realm, if even that. But even if his goals and behavior had gone off on a pretty massive tangent as of late, the trademark Devil King pride he retained hadn’t faded one iota. 
“He’s not beholden to anything. He protects it all, all by himself. That’s Sadao Maou for you. Shift supervisor at the Hatagaya rail station MgRonald.” 
“Yusa…” 
Emi’s eyes met with Chiho’s, seeking her approval. 
Chiho, face wet with tears, gave her a firm nod. 
“This is a perfect farce! The Hero, trusting in the Devil King! Heh-heh-heh… Well, where is he? I want to see this human-loving Devil King for myself! Let him take the stage whenever he likes! Not that he even exists! And not that he could even fly up here anyway. Bell’s Light of Iron would have pounded him to ash by now.” 
“I think I have my doubts about that.” 
Emi flashed another look at Chiho. 
“Chiho, have you ever thought about why you were taken up here?” 
“Because Bell followed my orders and took her hostage so you would obey me. What other reason is there? That’s why I made her take everything else from the scene, too, so the police wouldn’t catch our scent.” 
Chiho’s and Emi’s belongings had been stacked on the far side of the heliport. 
Emi chuckled at Sariel. It almost seemed like an expression of pity. 
“Then shouldn’t Bell have taken Chiho someplace where I couldn’t see her? She’d be a much more effective hostage that way. She kind of loses her value if I don’t have to worry about her safety. Bell isn’t stupid. Everything she does, she does for a reason. That…” 
Not even Emi was completely sure of this. But the agitation she displayed at the intersection seemed to provide the answer she was looking for. 
“That, and she heads the Reconciliation Panel. The council that reconciles the false teachings of the past. Better watch that your faithful guard dog doesn’t bite the hand that feeds it.” 
“What if she does? Then I’d punish her. Simple. And I hardly need to worry anyway. As long as I am an archangel, there isn’t a cleric in the Church who would dare defy me.” 
Building one of the Tokyo city hall is 797 feet tall. It was high enough that the air turbulence was blowing gale-force winds across the roof. 
A particularly strong gust had tossed Emi’s long hair toward the heavens when he finally arrived. 
“Hahh…hahh…hahh… S-sorry to…to interrupt… Urrgghh…” 
The soft voice all but disappeared beneath the force of the wind. 
But it still rang true to the three people who heard it. 
“Why…the hell…isn’t…the elevator working…huff…huff…” 
There, by the penthouse that served as the roof exit, was a man who couldn’t look more out of place on a high-rise heliport. 
“Ah… Ah!” 
The surprise and joy Chiho felt brought a wide smile to her tearstained face. 
“Maou!” 
He had a grimy old mop in his right hand, he was topless and decked out in a pair of boxers, and he was also covered in scabs and scars. But to his damsel in distress, he was as a knight on a white horse, confidently galloping to her rescue. 
Emi, meanwhile, was greeted with the forlorn sight of a near-nude Devil King clambering to the rescue on a rattly used bike. 
“Don’t look at me!” 
“That’s how you say hi?!” Maou coldly interjected, even as the fatigue almost made him lose consciousness. 
“Also, don’t look like that! Why are you dressed like that?! Get out of my sight!” 
Emi, in the unenviable situation of being restrained by Sariel and on the precipice of being undressed herself, didn’t have much recourse apart from shouting. 
“…Well. This is a surprise.” 
Sariel closed his gaping mouth, then repositioned his scythe from Emi’s chest toward Maou. 
“You appear quite human to me. Bereft of all your demonic powers. You couldn’t have defeated Bell.” 
“…Does it look that way? She beat the crap outta me. And who knows what she woulda done next if I let her.” 
Maou certainly didn’t sound like he was enjoying the evening’s events much. 
“This is bewildering to me…but you are far from well, I see. It is an unbelievable sight indeed, but here it is! You are truly no longer the Devil King I once knew, Satan.” 
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting the limp-wristed freak across the street who stank of cologne all day to be the Evil Eye, either. Still chasing after all the lil’ girl angels up there?” 
“…What?” 
A deep rumble tempered Sariel’s voice. 
“Yep! Heard you’ve been harassing a lot of people. Not that I’m gonna say who.” 
Without explaining further, Maou turned toward Chiho and Emi. 
“What did I just say? Don’t look at me!” 
Ignoring Emi’s singularly out-of-place protest, Maou steeled his gaze back upon Sariel, the two now facing each other. 
“’Course, I don’t really care what’s going on with you guys up in heaven anyway. What I’m worried about right now is the fact that you hurt one of my coworkers. You put Chi through a lot of crap, you bastard.” 
“Maou!” 
Chiho was choked up with emotion. 
“Listen. As far as I’m concerned, until you get back home, you’re still on the clock!” 
“…Maou?” 
Chiho froze. It wasn’t the gallant reassurance she expected. 
“A manager needs to take responsibility for the safety of his employees when they’re in transit, too! And I’m gonna make you pay for getting my precious staff involved in all this Ente Isla BS!” 
“…Maou…” 
This time, Chiho’s voice was filled with disappointment. 
“I’m the assistant manager right now. The safety of my crew at work is priority number one! Chi here is a valuable member of my staff! And no Devil King, no shift supervisor, ever abandons his crew!!” 
“…Ngh.” 
This was Maou’s final blow to Chiho’s self-consciousness. Her head slumped as she held back the tears. 
“I’m afraid I have no clue what you’re talking about. But there is one thing I know for sure…” 
A sharp sparkle formed in Sariel’s purple eyes. 
“And that’s how foolish you must truly be, attempting to stymie my mission with that fragile husk.” 
A hazy aura of gold flowed out of Sariel’s body. It was an onrush of holy power riding on a sudden torrent of wind, one so intense that the restrained Emi next to him had to close her eyes. 
“I don’t give a crap about your Holy Silver and swords and stuff. In fact, if you’ll help keep that crazy Hero in line for me, go right ahead. All I care about is getting Chi out of here…” 
The shock wave of holy power would have been enough to vaporize your typical demon. It was still enough to make Maou break into a sweat. 
“But it looks like that’s not gonna happen… Jeez. Well, this is great.” 
Beams of crackling light coursed around Sariel’s body. Without any demonic force backing him up, Maou couldn’t even lay a finger on him. 
All he thought about was how he was going to carry both Chiho and the mop with him as he ran away. But then: 
“?!” 
It was difficult to describe how the atmosphere changed in that instant. 
The air around the heliport, arguably the most purified place on Earth thanks to Sariel’s holy energy, suddenly grew heavy and humid. 
Then a blindingly dark cloud began to form over the landing zone, pushing the holy energy back as it blinded everyone standing upon it. There was a prickly feeling on Sariel’s skin, like his hand was on a static ball. 
“Wh-what is…?” 
The eerie presence was enough to even make Sariel waver. 
“This is…making me sick…” 
Chiho sounded out of breath as she groaned. Emi swiveled her head around, straining to see what was happening. 
Only Maou remained serene. More than serene. In fact, both of his eyes were now the color of blood, as if fighting back against Sariel’s aura. 
A flash of bewilderment crossed his face, but only a flash, as he realized what was behind this phenomenon. 
“Oh, hell. I didn’t really feel like helping Emi, but…whatever. Listen up, Sariel. You scared Chi and put a blemish on my potential career track. Those’re both high crimes, you know.” 
Suddenly emboldened, Maou took a single step toward Sariel. 
That enough made the atmosphere all the more oppressive. 
Sariel screamed, the appalled shock obvious on his face. 
“This…demonic power! You! Why?!” 
Until this moment, he was Sadao Maou, just a normal young man. 
But in mere milliseconds, the air that surrounded him had transformed into something grotesque. 
That overwhelming sense of intimidation. Those bloodred eyes. The demonic uncanniness that now pervaded the air. 
“Whoa! Devil King! Knock that off! If you do that now…” 
Emi tried to warn Maou about his upcoming transformation, but Maou shook his head, a defiant grin on his face. 
“Quit worrying.” 
He snapped his boxers against his hip. 
“These underpants are supposed to stretch to the contours of your body. They ain’t gonna rip, I promise.” 
Then, as if the statement was the catalyst that sparked it, a rapid metamorphosis took place. 
“Who the hell was asking about your boxers, you dumbass?!” 
Emi’s scream was muffled by the violent, otherworldly gale that stormed across the heliport in an instant. 
A supernatural red glow enveloped Maou’s half-naked body. His muscles expanded, his legs becoming gnarled and beast-like. And the UniClo undies, built for hot summer nights like this one, deftly handled every change in size and shape. Particularly size. 
The one-horned Devil King, with his bloodred eyes and cloven hooves, had descended upon the Tokyo sky. 
“Whewwwww…” 
The transformation complete, the boxered Devil King Satan began twisting his neck, as if performing calisthenics. 
“Ahh, feels great. The hell did that bastard do, anyway?” 
He stretched out the rest of his limbs as he spoke. The answer was provided to him shortly. 
“You transformed while leaving Chiho in her current perilous state?! You fool!” 
She flew in like a shooting star from the direction of Shinjuku station, her hair flowing in the wind as she wielded her golden war hammer. 
“Bell!” 
Suzuno, better known as Crestia Bell to Sariel, alit next to Chiho as he watched, a look of malice on his face. The first thing she did was create a barrier of holy energy around herself and Chiho. 
“Pffahh!” 
Chiho immediately exhaled, as if ejecting the dark, grimy air from her lungs. 
“Whew… That was rough.” 
“Are you all right?” 
“Y-yes… Oh! Suzuno!” 
Chiho, who had witnessed the moment Bell sent Emi flying, tensed up for just a moment. Then her eyes opened wide at the sight of the cell phone thrust before her. 
“I apologize. I will explain later. For now…” 
Bell turned toward the demon and his terrifying crimson eyes. 
“Allow me to take advantage of the one you hold dear, Chiho.” 
“Bell! Have you gone mad?!” 
“You are the only madman here, Sariel.” 
Suzuno stood strong, keeping Chiho behind her back. 
“Pushing a false peace upon our people; planting the seeds of chaos in another world; backstabbing the very people whose faith we rely on, and must protect… Is this the truth the gods hold for us?! As chief inquisitor of the Reconciliation Panel, I refuse to overlook such a shameful, deceitful truth!” 
“And you would even link hands with the Devil King for it?! Your ‘reconciliation’ means nothing to me! You are a demon yourself! A tainted demon, driven by your inquisitor’s thirst for blood!” 
“Silence! The Devil King’s life on Earth as Sadao Maou, at least, does not run afoul of the justice that we seek!” 
“Whoa, thanks. Guess I’m the big man at MgRonald after all, huh?” 
Satan looked on as the argument raged between divinity and follower, taking abject pride in his comparatively puny assistant-manager position. 
“You know, though, I’d say the Hero and the angels have been the real villains here lately. I’m just sittin’ here living life day by day, you know?” 
Satan took another step, boring a hole into the heliport. 
That small move was enough to put Sariel on guard, halting the argument and flying backward to safety. Satan chidingly watched him go. 
“Bell…what did you have to do to gather all this evil force…?” 
Not even Satan was expecting this tsunami of demonic power to flood through Sariel’s barrier into this space. At best, he was hoping he could get Chiho to safety somehow. 
Bell turned around and gazed at the nightscape before her. 
“Tonight…the men and women using Shinjuku station have my pity.” 
“Uh?” 
“Wha?” 
“Huhh?!” 
Chiho and Emi both looked straight at her. 
“What did they call them? Electrical transformers? There were these power lines between the tracks that led to all of those, and I sliced a few of them in half. I figured stopping the trains would create a storm of anger across the area…” 
“Dude, that’s a terrorist attack!” 
Even Satan, and his visions of conquering the world, were thrown. 
“Do…do you have any idea how many trains go through Shinjuku?! Like, even if you count the Japan Rail lines alone, that’s gonna affect nearly every single service in greater Tokyo!” 
“Ah. I see. Then my guess was correct. I am glad to see my missionary training wasn’t for naught. It is quite annoying if the transport wagons in Ente Isla fail to arrive at their appointed times, after all, yes? I assumed that delaying so many trains at once would create an aura of rage that could transform into demonic force…” 
“I’m not praising your analytical skills, okay?! I’ve never even been on one of those dumb wagons!” 
Satan’s alarmingly dynamic comeback was enough to send another shock wave of evil force across the area. 
“Aagh!” 
The barrier protecting Chiho wavered at the impact, almost knocking her off the heliport entirely. 
“M-Maou! Please, be careful!” 
“Sorry, sorry…” 
“Oh, but now, Maou…or Devil King, maybe? Or Satan? Ooh, I don’t even know what I should be calling you!” 
Maou tried to ignore Chiho as she blushed, starting to feel quite out of place. 
“We, uh, we can figure that out later. Yo, Sariel. Little freak over there. Nobody’s gonna accuse me of being merciless tonight. Lemme give you a choice.” 
Satan now stood high and mighty above Sariel. 
“Either you turn your tail and run back home, or you accept your punishment and let me beat the tar out of you. Which is it?” 
“It’s obvious.” 
The archangel, great scythe in hand, spread his white, swanlike wings wide as he glared at Satan. 
“Devil King Satan! I will defeat you and fulfill my mission!” 
In an instant, Sariel was in the air, focusing his holy magic as the moon framed his body. 
“What do I have to fear from a Devil King who can only regain his powers after getting doped up on the negative energy of humans?!” 
“Man, shut up, happy hands.” 
Sariel’s wings shone across the night sky like a pair of crescent moons. 
“Thunderwing Moonlight!!” 
A laser-like beam of light navigated its way among Emi, Chiho, and Bell before boring down upon Satan. He may have been enraged, but he had not forgotten his mission. Satan had to appreciate his twisted sense of feminism, too. 
“I wouldn’t sass a Devil King at full power, man.” 
Satan raised his arms against the advancing bolt of moonlight. 
“Nngh!” 
A simple moment of concentration was all it took to repulse it. 
“Wh-what…?!” 
“Pfft. Bet you’re missing your home-field advantage right now.” 
Satan snickered at the flabbergasted Sariel. 
“Something tells me you’ve sorely overestimated our strength. Let me show you what you’re really worth.” 
The lightning that Satan repulsed was now balled up in a single palm. He handled it effortlessly, like he himself had conjured it up, despite being a product of Sariel’s holy power. 
“Guess that Evil Eye of the Fallen made you feel a lot more powerful than that, huh? You never fought against anyone who didn’t run on holy power, did you?” 
As if throwing a ball and chain, Satan tossed the small mass of energy right back at Sariel, using nothing but pure brute strength. 
“What?!” 
Sariel hurriedly tried to cancel the attack, but with the ball of lightning right before him, he fired a bolt of purple from his eyes to send it scattering. 
“That ability of yours makes you pretty much invincible against any holy force user, I’m betting…” 
From his hand, Satan summoned a ball of black fire. It was only the size of a baseball, but with the form of a Major League pitcher, he hurled it toward Sariel in the sky. 
“But when you’re faced with some other kind of power, you’re utterly clueless. Should’ve chosen someone else to pick on, huh?” 
The moment the mass reached Sariel, it grew into an enormous fireball, large enough to envelop his entire body. 
“Grraaaghhhh!!!” 
“I’d suggest you sell those chicken wings of yours, but it’d probably make Sentucky’s sales plummet.” 
Sariel’s pained scream echoed within the blazing ball of dark flame. 
Satan snapped his finger once. The mass of hellfire disappeared in an instant, revealing a Sariel who was plainly charred, his holy protection failing him. 
“Oop.” 
The moment he appeared, Satan nonchalantly swung his mop down upon the back of Sariel’s neck. 
“Gahahhh…” 
It was enough to break the mop at the middle of the handle. Sariel’s eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness, falling downward through the air. 
“Agh!” 
As he fainted, the purple cross Emi was bound to dissipated, sending her hurtling toward the heliport. 
Sariel, for his part, slammed helplessly against the pavement. 
“And…oop.” 
Satan caught Emi, robbed of her strength and unable to even prepare for impact, just before she reached the landing zone. 
“Whadaya think, Emi?” 
“…Think of what…” 
Nearly out of breath, a depressed-looking Emi looked at Satan, helpless in his arms. 
“I’m here to catch you. You could appreciate that a little, huh?” 
“………………………” 
Emi, all too aware of what he was talking about, groaned and contorted her face into a thousand combinations, as if chewing on a faceful of something awful. Then: 
“…I have to. I can’t do anything else.” 
The Hero always had to get in the last word. 
Satan chuckled to himself, then quietly placed Emi on the ground. 
“Hey. Emi. Your top.” 
“Huh?” 
The Devil King was patting his own chest as Emi howled a response, shoulders still tensed from the strain. 
“Dude, your top. Button it up. Pff…!” 
A beat, and then Emi finally realized what he meant. She took off one of her pumps and throw it straight at Satan’s face. 
“Oww! Look, demon or not, that still hurts! …Agh!” 
The other shoe hit him square on the forehead. 
“I told you not to look!” 
Emi wrapped an arm around her chest, face beaming red. Satan turned around long enough to let her redo her blouse’s buttons. 
The anger quickly returned to his voice. 
“That’s your fault for spacing out in the first place! I was kind enough to warn you, remember! Besides, it’s not like showing them off is gonna make ’em even smaller, so—gaghhh!!” 
Emi, out of ammunition, didn’t deliver the final, merciful blow that stopped Satan’s cruel rant cold. That honor belonged to Bell and her war hammer. 
“You…bast…ard…!” 
“My apologies. I simply found that too difficult to listen to.” 
Bell couldn’t have said it more matter-of-factly as she placed her hammer back behind her shoulder. 
“Uhmm, look, guys, you beat that creepy guy and all, so could you stop arguing for…” 
Chiho tentatively spoke up from behind the holy barrier that protected her. 
“What?!” 
“What do you want?” 
Emi and Bell were oddly curt as they turned toward her. Chiho wondered to herself why they weren’t looking her in the eye, instead gazing right at her chest. 
“Um…I’m sorry.” 
She decided to diplomatically step away. 
Emi, realizing that Bell was preoccupied about the same thing she was, felt a bizarre sense of kinship. 
Satan was less than thrilled at any of this. 
“Man, why did I even both rescuing either of you, huh? I shoulda just snatched up Chi and hightailed it outta here! Boy, did I blow it!” 

 

He began to visibly pout, ignoring his own tirade of just a few moments ago. 
Then, in a very undemonic, dejected tone: 
“Gate, open!” 
Suddenly, a Gate erupted to life before him, just large enough for a single person to venture through. 
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You aren’t going back now, are…” 
Emi, shocked to see Satan so casually open a Gate before her eyes, tried to stop him. 
“Yeah, I’d sure like to! But you know that’s not gonna happen!” 
With that, Satan picked Sariel up off the ground and tossed him in the Gate, like a MgRonald customer throwing his refuse in the garbage container. 
“Ahhh!!” 
“Devil King! What are you…” 
“Maou?!” 
This exceedingly rough treatment of the archangel was enough to amaze even his victims. 
“I’m not gonna kill him or anything. He’s still got most of his power left. Maybe he’ll wind up someplace livable, if he’s lucky. Who knows if he’ll make it back to Ente Isla from there, though?” 
Satan shrugged. 
“Gate! Close Sesame! Or whatever!” 
With that un-incantation-like incantation, the Gate popped out of existence. 
And with its conjurer out of the picture, the holy force field that covered the building must have disappeared as well. Soon, the nighttime murmur of Shinjuku ward could be heard once more. Satan turned back toward the others as they looked down at the city and its cacophony of neon and ad jingles. 
“You aren’t blaming me, are you? Keeping him around would just cause more trouble for us, but killing him would bring even more trouble down on me. That was the best way to do it.” 
“Yeah, but…he isn’t just some pile of garbage…” 
“I’m not too interested in killing an archangel and setting off a full-scale war with heaven quite yet. And if they take this as Sariel screwing up his mission and getting stranded somewhere, then everything works out. Everything except his rep, I guess.” 
Nobody could deny that, but was this really an issue that could be resolved so easily? Emi and Bell stood there, mouths agape, unable to react. 
“So! Now for the real problem.” 
Satan clapped his hands once, Sariel already apparently a thing of the past for him, and gave Bell a stern look. 
“We gotta clean this whole thing up. Let’s move, Bell.” 
“Clean up?” 
“Don’t just go, Cleanup in aisle seven, dude! You can’t stop every train in Tokyo and go, Oops, sorry! afterward! There’s gonna be a ton of electrical lines and transformers to repair, and now that Sariel’s barrier is gone, someone’s probably gonna be up here before long. So let’s go! I need to get back anyway. I can’t leave MgRonald before closing it!” 
Satan, sounding exactly like Sadao Maou despite his current dreadful form as king of all demons, was too much of a sight for Bell to avoid being flummoxed. 
“Oh, right. Emi?” 
“Wh-what…?” 
Satan snuck a look at the teenage girl who had been staring at him through the holy energy barrier the whole time. 
“Get Chi back home. For real this time. Her mom’s worried about her.” 
It was Bell, not Chiho or Emi, who was the most surprised. 
She looked up at Satan, an alien creature now more than twice her height. 
Only Chiho was serene, flashing a small yet undeniably triumphant smile. 
“I always knew you were a good guy, Maou.” 
“Ah, jeez, get outta here.” 
Satan shooed them away with his hands. 
“I’m royalty, you know? Kind of a big deal? I like to treat my underlings right, and if I’m gonna conquer this land, I wanna make sure it’s all nice and neat first.” 
“That all sounds fine to me for now.” 
Chiho nimbly flashed a smile back at him. He stiffened for a moment, embarrassed. 
“Ugghhhh! Let’s just go, Bell!” 
“Ah, wait, where are you grabbing me—aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh…” 
He had grabbed her by her kimono’s collar, lifting her up before flying off, as if fleeing Chiho and Emi. 
Chiho finally escaped the barrier after they departed off the edge. 
“Hey…Yusa?” 
“……” 
Emi watched Satan and Bell fly off for a little while, hands still folded over her chest. She furrowed her brows at Chiho. 
“Let’s just leave it at that for today. But only today, all right?” 
Her defeated voice was nearly a whisper. Chiho snickered a bit in response. 
“In that case, could I ask you a favor, Yusa?” 
“…What’s that?” 
She looked a bit concerned as she turned away from where Maou left, looking at the skies over Hatsudai-Hatagaya. 
“Maou said he left the MgRonald open. I think he’ll probably be in trouble. Big trouble.” 
 
“Ugh… Why’d you do all of that…?” 
Sadao Maou lumbered groggily out of the taxi in front of Hatagaya station, near the Keio line entrance. 
“Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha! Well, you see… I mean, Chiho mentioned that the Devil King restored the entire Shuto Expressway back to normal, so I wanted to be sure I had a widespread impact. That way, I could be certain you would expend as much demonic energy as possible.” 
“You liar. There’s no way you could’ve planned all this!” 
Suzuno Kamazuki laughed shrilly as she broke out in a nervous sweat. 
The Shinjuku that Satan and Bell were greeted with was an unprecedented traffic disaster. 
The way Bell had worded it, Satan wasn’t expecting much more than a few downed power lines here and there nearby the rail station. Said expectations were dashed when he found she had all but leveled an entire transformer building. 
“Yes…well, I cannot easily slice through wiring with my hammer, so I am afraid blunt trauma was the order of the day…” 
Satan saved her the trouble of coming up with any more namby-pamby excuses by flicking her on the forehead. With demonic power behind the blow, it got the message across. 
First, the transformer station had to be fully restored; next, he had to unravel the chaos unfolding on the rails across all of greater Tokyo. Then came the repairs on all the cascading damage the haywire transformer caused to the city’s electrical grid. The demonic force that was his all the way up to tossing the archangel through the Gate was running on fumes by the end of it all, transforming the Devil King Satan back to Sadao Maou, part-timer in a set of stretchy boxers. 
Bell was no help at all during the repairs, either. 
Considering she hadn’t consumed a great deal of her holy force in the battle, burning through all this evil power in front of her actually put Maou in life-threatening danger, now that he reflected upon it. But nothing happened. She merely sat and watched on as Satan worked to bring everything back to the status quo. 
And once Maou was utterly exhausted of power, she was kind enough to pick up the uniform he left on city hall grounds and grab a taxi for him. 
He had little idea what sparked this change in heart from her. But instead of trying to fish an explanation out of her, he decided to think over more pressing issues. 
It was already near midnight, closing time for the MgRonald in front of Hatagaya station. 
“Devil King! What is wrong?” 
Suzuno chased after Maou as he tried to toddle away once the taxi left. But there was no time to deal with her. Every minute, every second counted as he made his way back. 
But there was no avoiding punishment for his crime of ditching his shift for nearly two hours. 
Maou found himself frozen in the glaring light as a familiar vision marched in front of him. 
“…Now just what is going on here, Marko?” 
“Ms.…Kisaki…” 
The expression on Kisaki as she stood tall in her business suit, staring down at the emasculated Maou, was hidden by the glare. But, just the same, he could tell how stern, how judgmental, it was. 
“I mean, just…why?” 
“I had a phone call… Something happened to Chi.” 
Kisaki’s gaze, just as sharp and stabby as the Hero’s, crashed down upon Maou’s face like comets of white-hot light. 
“Yes. And it sounded like you took a mop, ran out, and never came back. You caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people.” 
“I… No, but…” 
Maou’s face twitched as he leaned away from her. Suzuno stood motionless next to him, perhaps just as awed as he was. 
“You got a lot of guts, you know that? The shift supervisor, one who still hasn’t made up for the morning’s losses, cutting work for two hours without telling anyone where he’s going. What is this, a date? Well? Is it?” 
“That, uh…” 
His brain was running in circles. This couldn’t be more awkward. 
Maou wasn’t expecting Kisaki here, but looking back, he must have really freaked out the staff. After all, he ran right out of the place with barely a word after Urushihara’s phone call. 
Since repairing the train system took longer than expected—and took far more of his demonic strength than expected—he wound up having to waste more time waiting for Suzuno to go fetch his uniform for him. 
And with him reporting back to work with a girl in a kimono, it wasn’t outrageous to imagine the idea of Maou shirking work to hang with the ladies for a while. 
Kisaki didn’t seem too open to the real reason behind his disappearance, and he didn’t have any other useful excuse for her. Giving her even more transparent lies would only make her angrier… 
“Mr. Maou rescued me, madam.” 
“What?” 
Kisaki looked up at the unexpected voice, noticing an unfamiliar woman in front of her. 
Where did she come from? Maou briskly turned around, never expecting to hear this voice right now. 
“…Can I ask who you are?” 
“My name is Yusa. I’m friends with Chiho Sasaki, and…” 
She froze for a moment, taking the time to gauge the ball of sweat and nerves in front of her. 
“And Mr. Maou, too.” 
There. She said it. 
Maou was already sheepish enough before. Now, looking at Emi, he felt like an entire flock of them. 
Emi averted her eyes, focusing on Kisaki alone. 
“Marko’s…friend?” 
“Yeah. When we were returning home with Chiho and Ms. Kamazuki over there, we were stalked by a molester. We hid, and Mr. Maou wound up rescuing us.” 
“A molester? Oh. You know, I did hear about something happening at an intersection in Sasazuka.” 
“We were just three women, and we didn’t have anything to defend ourselves with. It was all we could do to keep ourselves unseen…” 
Kisaki listened on, still dubious. Then Suzuno decided to board the roller coaster for herself. 
“Yes…she’s, er, Yusa is correct.” 
“Suzu…uh, Ms. Kamazuki…” 
Maou barely avoided revealing his familiarity with Suzuno. That was how unexpected her follow-up was. 
“M-Maou chased the stalker away for us, but he, er, he needed to return to MgRonald because he’d left it empty, so I reasoned, uh, I thought I should accompany him back…” 
It was an awkward performance, but the tears Suzuno somehow summoned to her eyes did wonders to sell it. 
Maou had to resist asking whether she’d made up that character herself, or she was imitating someone on TV. 
Then Emi gave him an even bigger fright. 
“…Sadao.” 
“What…?” 
It was the first time Emi called him by that name in front of anyone else. 
“We wound up bringing Chiho back home. Her mother was waiting for her.” 
“Oh? Oh. Well, great. Sounds, uh, good.” 
Maou found himself unable to form a coherent sentence. He decided to nod lightly instead. 
Kisaki watched all of this in silence before speaking up. 
“…Well, I suppose it’s not your fault, then.” 
She sighed, eyebrows still slanted downward, as if resigning herself to the “truth.” 
“I guess I knew I shouldn’t have had teenage girls working dinner alone. You never know what kind of people are out there, waiting to prey on them.” 
She placed a hand on Maou’s shoulder, plainly a level calmer than before, even as she ruefully reflected on her scheduling practices. 
“Listen, Marko. You’re a really important part of the team, both for me and the rest of the staff. So try not to get yourself hurt, okay? I’m glad you were brave enough to protect Chi and these other two friends of yours, but if you were injured out there, that’d really hurt me…and them.” 
“Ms. Kisaki…” 
“I hope that today’s been a constructive experience for you…and I hope you understand how these girls feel, too.” 
Then Kisaki finally rested her eyes upon Suzuno. 
“Thank you for bringing Marko…I mean, Maou…back for me. Why don’t you take a break inside? I’ll get some coffee going. You, too.” 
She gave Maou another friendly pat on the shoulder as she called for Suzuno and Emi. 
“What do you think?” 
“Oh, I think we should…” 
Suzuno and Emi looked at each other hesitantly. 
“Ah, just have a drink.” 
Maou abruptly stopped them before they could refuse. 
“It’s weird how good the coffee at the Mag tastes when Ms. Kisaki makes it.” 
It came out more awkwardly than he’d hoped. Suzuno and Emi exchanged another glance. 
“Ahh, don’t be silly. The coffee tastes exactly the same no matter who prepares it.” 
Kisaki lightly chided Maou before turning toward the girls. 
“How about it?” 
“Well, if you’re offering…” 
The pair entered the dining area, not wanting to put Kisaki off too much. 
“Ms.… Ms. Kisaki!” 
But as they did, a crew member dashed out into the room, his face pallid. 
“Oh, Maou, you’re back! Oh, uh, but we got another problem right now!” 
He was waving his hands all over the place, in a state of near shock. A simple order from Kisaki was enough to bring him back to military discipline. 
“Calm down! Nobody on my crew needs to get all panicky like that! Just tell me what happened, and keep it short!” 
The ramrod-straight crewman replied to the battle-hardened sergeant’s command. 
“Yes, Ms. Kisaki! Someone fell out of the refrigerator!” 
“Wha?” 
Kisaki, Maou—even Suzuno and Emi—reacted in such unison that it sounded almost like a choir.. 
“There was this guy in the fridge, and his clothes are all charred and stuff! I think he’s unconscious, but what should we do?” 
“Oh, no way!” 
“Hey! Marko, hang on!” 
Brushing Kisaki away, Maou flew into the kitchen. 
“Gehh!” 
The sight prompted him to shout out loud. 
Sariel, the archangel he had just tossed through a Gate to parts unknown, was lying on the floor, halfway outside the industrial refrigerator used to store MgRonald’s ingredients. 
Given how there wasn’t much space for Sariel in between the bags of potatoes and chicken parts, he must have “fallen out” just like the crew member described. 
“Wh-what the hell?!” 
Kisaki and the others were equally shocked when they took in the scene. 
Suzuno and Emi in particular, naturally. 
“Maou! That sasa tree…” 
Suzuno turned back toward the entrance. 
It couldn’t have been mere coincidence that the Devil King’s Gate connected to someplace like this. The only explanation was that the bamboo tree he’d unwittingly placed right by the front door, now a manifestation of Maou’s demonic power, had somehow resonated with the demonic power Satan used to open the Gate. 
The tree had attracted a litany of customers, including some who never should have been customers at all. But uprooting it now wouldn’t make Sariel go away. 
“Gnh…nngh…” 
But before the chaos could subside, Sariel slowly began to groan and wriggle on the ground, struggling to regain consciousness. 
Having him stir up trouble here would cause nothing but despair. 
Sariel had merely been knocked out in the battle before. His powers were still very real. His Evil Eye would render Emi and Suzuno all but powerless, and Maou—the only one who could hurt him, really—had just exhausted his demonic strength. 
There was no time to have Suzuno wreck the train system all over again. As Maou’s mind blanked out on him, Sariel’s head rose upward. 
“Who…might you be?” 
It was Kisaki that dared to confront him, the only one in the group Sariel didn’t know. She was preparing to deal with the intruder, no doubt. The Devil King, the Hero, and the Reconciliation Panel chief all began thinking in unison about how they’d ever keep her safe. 
“…You’re…beautiful…” 
It sounded like the ramblings of an alcoholic, and Sariel’s drugged facial expression looked the part. 
“…Pardon?” 
It took a moment for Kisaki to parse what he’d said. She smiled awkwardly, not wanting to rile him. 
“The goddess of beauty… She existed in another world…” 
“…I’m afraid I’m not quite sure what you’re saying.” 
Not even Kisaki could hide her bewilderment. 
“Sariel, you couldn’t have…” 
Maou groaned at the fearsome prediction that crossed his mind. The frenzied scream Sariel erupted into a moment later confirmed it. 
“Ahhhh! Such sweet destiny! Such a wondrous miracle! Here, in Japan, I’ve stumbled upon the goddess of beauty! Oh, by all the gods in heaven! My body burns with the flame of forbidden love! I am about to fall from my angelic heights!” 
“………………………………” 
Maou, Emi and Suzuno froze, unable to figure out how to react. 
“Who’s this idiot?” 
Kisaki, alone, snapped out of her friendly business face, sneering at the pathetic figure before her. 
Suddenly, Sariel came to his knees, shouting as he pressed his still-charred body against Kisaki’s legs. 
“Ahh, that worshipful face, looking down upon me from such lofty heights! It makes my heart pulsate like the great bell tower that governs the passage of time in the heavens!” 
“Can anyone explain this? Who is this weirdo?” 
“…Well, he’s kind of the manager at the Sentucky across the street.” 
Sariel nodded briskly at Maou’s introduction, pointing wildly out the window. 
“My beloved icon of beauty, my name is Sarue. I am manager of the Sentucky Fried Chicken location in front of Hatagaya station. The two of us, from two rivals doomed to compete with each other… Truly, we are the Romeo and Juliet of the fast-food industry!” 
“…Freak.” 
“No matter how vulgar and abusive the words that spill out of your supple lips be, they ring like the great orchestras of heaven in my ears! I would gladly fling my body into the fire and brimstone of hell if it would make your eyes turn toward mine! What kind of fragrant rose would possibly serve as your equal, my sweet flower of love?” 
It was quite a feat of improvisation. 
“…Can someone translate this guy into Japanese for me?” 
“I, uh, I think he’s saying that he’ll do anything you say, Ms. Kisaki.” 
Sariel nodded proudly at Maou’s expert interpretation. Kisaki closed her eyes and sighed. 
“…All right. Get over here.” 
At that moment, Sariel’s orange-encrusted eyes gleamed like a full moon as he dragged himself before Kisaki’s feet. 
“Aaaaahhhh! The height of ecstasy! Oh, may all the gods in heaven forgive me! I remove myself from your flock and fling myself into the pyres of passion!!” 
Kisaki’s heel embedded itself into the face of the advancing Sariel. He howled like some otherworldly beast, then fell. 
But even with this rebuke, the Evil Eye–wielding archangel’s expression was one of sheer ecstasy, even as it was warped and twisted by the MgRonald manager’s heel pressing into it. 
“You think I’m playing around? Franchise management isn’t some kind of game, you know! What is with that loony panda makeup? And what’s with the oil drum of cologne you threw over your head?! Is that what Sentucky expects from its managers?!” 
Kisaki’s heel dug itself further into Sariel’s face. Sariel greedily accepted his punishment. 
“Ahh, the lure of the fallen! Such a sweet, fetching scene, one I am no longer able to resist!” 
“Shut up, you perv!” 
Kisaki glared at Maou, eyes open wide, as she kept up her barrage of abuse. Her gaze, sharp enough that even the Evil Eye was reluctant to focus upon it, made not just Maou, but Emi and Suzuno gulp nervously as well. 
“Marko…are you telling me we placed second in customer draw to this idiot?” 
“Uh…well, no, I…um.” 
“Huh. Hope you and everyone else won’t complain when I send you all off to Antigua and Barbuda, then.” 
“I, I don’t even know where that is, Ms. Kisaki…” 
“Well, that was my and your problem to deal with, and we blew it. We’ll both have to volunteer to return our salaries for the day. Ugh. Guess I still have a lot to learn, don’t I? Serves me right for whining about that manager training session.” 
In one fell swoop, Kisaki had pieced the situation together in her mind, expressed regret, then made Maou join her in the punishment. The sheer speed made the blood rush from Maou’s head. 
“W-wait…you’re joking, right, Ms. Kisaki?!” 
“I thought I told you, the only time I tell jokes is when I want people to laugh!” 
“I’ll laugh all you want! Please! Just tell me you’re kidding!” 
Now it was Maou throwing his body upon Kisaki, not altogether unlike what Sariel attempted. 
“Ugh! Enough! You’re a man! Just accept it! A true samurai would rather starve than allow his honor to be tarnished in public!” 
“But this is the twenty-first century! I’m just a simple commoner, Ms. Kisaki!” 
The twenty-first-century commoner and lord of all demons begged Kisaki for a change of heart he knew was unlikely to come. 
Emi and Suzuno, watching the part-timer and location manager’s aimless argument, their sexually overactive archrival prostrate before their feet, exchanged glances at each other. 
“…Quite a joke, indeed.” 
“I’m sure not laughing.” 
Yet the Hero of Ente Isla and head of the Church’s Reconciliation Panel both smiled giddily as they looked on. 
“Me, being Maou’s friend… Ugh. That isn’t funny at all. Why did I have to call him by his first name, even?” 
 
“S-Suzuno!! What are you doing in here?!” 
Chiho shouted out loud upon opening the door to Devil’s Castle and finding Suzuno already inside. 
“Ah, welcome, Sasaki! Just the person I needed. I was attempting to make a tea-flavored pound cake with this rice cooker. Would you like to try some?” 
“Ooh, thanks, Ashiya! I’d love to! …Wait, no!” 
Chiho noisily stormed into Devil’s Castle. Suzuno was facing Maou across the domain’s sole table, pointing a pair of food-laden chopsticks at him. 
It looked like the classic open your mouth and say ahhh trick, but considering how the chopsticks were attempting to bore their way through Maou’s cheek at the moment, there seemed to be a communication breakdown in progress. 
Inserting herself between them, Chiho glared ruefully at Suzuno. 
“What are you doing? Could you avoid being in my way, please?” 
“No, what are you doing?! And why are you just taking that from her, Maou?!” 
“Uhh…” 
Maou cast his eyes downward, plainly just as sick of this as Chiho. 
“Aren’t you two supposed to be enemies, Suzuno?! Where do you get off, inviting yourself into his place and trying to feed Maou like that? It makes me so…jealous…” 
“Chihooooo, you might wanna filter yourself a little…” 
“You stay out of this, Urushihara!” 
Urushihara meekly closed his mouth. Now Chiho’s eyes were locked with Suzuno’s. 
“Yes. It is as you say. I am, at the core, the enemy of the Devil King.” 
Suzuno repositioned herself, back straight up, face cool and composed. 
“But, while the Devil King may not have intended it at first, he has also performed a great service for me. Thus, I am doing my best to prepare my consecrated ingredients in the most taste-tempting ways possible and pretend to repay his efforts with food while secretly filling the demons’ bellies with damaging holy force…” 
“Suzuno, I have no idea what any of that means! Ashiya! Don’t you care about what she’s saying?!” 
“I know full well how you feel, Sasaki. Too well, in fact…” 
Ashiya’s eyes darted over to Urushihara as he showed Chiho a college-ruled notebook. 
“But thanks to Lucifer’s unplanned shopping spree, our budget for next month will be firmly in the red. It is truly a gut-wrenching travesty for me to witness…” 
Looking at the last page of the notebook labeled, DEVIL’S CASTLE ACCOUNTS on the front, Chiho saw a line reading Card payment: 40,000 yen; User: Dumbassihara. 
“Forty thousand…? What on earth did you buy, Dumbassihara?” 
“Quit calling me that, man! I know Ashiya’s pissed off ’n all, but if I didn’t buy it, you might’ve been in Ente Isla with Sariel right now! You could try thanking me a little, for a change!” 
“…But it was Maou’s money, right?” 
Ashiya approached Chiho, whispering in her ear, “And what’s more, the money was for a hidden GPS transmitter he slipped into Emilia’s shoulder bag.” 
“…That is so creepy.” 
Her reaction was one of utter disgust. 
“You guys are so unfair! This is BS!” 
Urushihara resentfully tried to defend himself, showing no sign of regret. 
“…But, regardless, we are now firmly in negative territory…so we’ve been forced to grudgingly accept Crestia’s attempt upon our lives via her dietary support…” 
“You don’t have to wreck your health just to save some money! Please!” 
Chiho rapped the notebook in her hand against the table. 
“But we do! Now that we are unable to return home, bringing ourselves back into the black is my utmost priority!” 
In the end, the customer numbers for the week that Maou served as shift supervisor lost out to Sariel’s Sentucky Fried Chicken location…but only by the slimmest of margins. 
Perhaps Kisaki had awoken something within Sariel. For reasons only he could understand, he officially became a full-fledged employee of SFC the following day, serving as the Hatagaya location’s permanent manager. 
Maou was wary at first, fearing he would go back to his nefarious, disturbing, womanizing ways, but Sariel—aka Mitsuki Sarue—had become an honest, hardworking fast-food employee. Apart from the bouquet of roses he sent Kisaki on a daily basis, he was just another manager striving to boost sales at his franchise, a far cry from when Maou first met him. In fact, one of the message cards included with the bouquet read: 
I look forward to visiting on the day when we finally surpass you. 
Kisaki was deeply offended, of course (“Do I really look that weak to him?!” were her exact words), but since none of it was the flowers’ fault, she decided to place them outside to provide some store décor, along with a sign inviting anyone interested to take them away for free. 
Urushihara reasoned that, besides his sudden infatuation with Kisaki, Sariel was sticking around because he had no way to return home. 
He had failed in his mission, after all. Flying back to the heavens after a painful loss to Satan, the Devil King, could apparently place him in serious danger of being banished from his native domain. 
Sariel hadn’t infiltrated SFC for any strategic reason. In the end, he simply lacked anything he could sell for money, the way Suzuno did. So he took a job to support himself, just like any other destitute urban outcast. 
And as for Suzuno…the scene playing out before Chiho’s eyes told her all she needed to know. 
“What are you even doing here, Suzuno? How can you just sit here and relax inside enemy territory like this?!” 
“I am here to fulfill the justice that must be done.” 
Suzuno smiled at her—this smile laden with hidden meaning, one unlike anything she showed her before. 
“I desire to slay the Devil King, of course. But, more than anything, I want to bring Emilia back home and reform the rotten and corrupt Church organization. The Church must remain an icon of truth, a holy place that mankind can confidently place its faith upon. But, as you see, Emilia refuses to return until the Devil King is defeated, yes? So I thought I would weaken him and his generals as much as possible, to make it all the easier for Emilia to strike the final blow when she deems it proper.” 
From the ever-prim and upright Suzuno, it sounded like a laudable pursuit. Chiho knew better. 
“Ugh! And you think Maou isn’t going to do anything about you?!” 
Chiho waved her hands wildly as she spoke. The gesture was pointless, given Maou’s obvious disinterest in moving away from the chopsticks jabbed into his face. 
Between losing all of his demonic power and most of his stamina that fateful night, combined with the rigors of shift-manager duty and his bitter loss at the hand of Sentucky, Maou was physically and mentally defeated. 
What’s more, the police had found the antitheft registration label on the mighty steed Dullahan that Suzuno had flattened in front of Tokyo city hall, earning Maou another home visit from the cops. The ensuing lecture was the final knockout punch at the end of an already-grueling bout. 
In the end, he risked his life, blew his big chance to regain his demonic force, got raked over the coals by Ashiya…and now Suzuno was needling him with her sanctified, holy meals. It was enough to take the wind out of any demon’s stygian sails. 
“I’ll cook for Maou, all right?! You don’t have to worry about him, Suzuno, so please, go find a job or something instead of hanging out here all day!” 
“I am afraid that proposition is a difficult one for me to swallow. This, right now, is my true calling. Now, when the Devil King is at his weakest, is the greatest chance we will ever have!” 
“Are you being serious?! You can try to make excuses all you want, but you just want to have Maou eat your home-cooked food, don’t you?!” 
“Hohh? Is that how you see this? Do you think the heart I placed in his bento box is a sign of my true love for Maou, rather than its true origin as a symbol of the Holy Grail as it pervades and destroys the Devil King’s body?” 
“I… What? No! No ‘true love’ at all! Please! You’re the one who thought osechi cuisine was standard bento-box food! Quit making all this junk up!” 
“I do not understand what you mean.” 
“Stop playing dumb! Come on, Maou! You don’t need to sit here and let your sworn foe try to kill you! I’ll have my mom teach me how to make all kinds of dishes!” 
“Oh? Well, well! We must come visit your mother to pay our respects sometime, Sasaki!” 
Ashiya, ever the househusband, chimed in as he cleaned the kitchen floor. 
“Think it over carefully, Devil King. If you refuse my food now, I will forever cut off your supply!” 
“What, is that your attempt at threatening him or something?! Don’t listen to him, Maou! I’ll take real good care of you, I promise!” 
“…Man. Weird how it’s starting to look like they’re fighting over him, huh?” 
Urushihara lazily gave his own two cents, elbow planted on his computer desk. 
“It’s like he’s some kind of hot-to-trot playboy or something.” 
The two girls paid no mind as their slightly off-kilter conflict continued to heat up. 
“Well, which is it? Chiho or me?” 
“Whose food are you gonna eat?!” 
Confronted by the pair, Maou flashed an utterly exhausted look as he muttered softly. 
“Please…just let me enjoy some breakfast, at least…” 
His plaintive request was blown to bits in the next moment. 
With a great crash, the door to the Devil’s Castle was kicked open. The group immediately turned toward the front of the room, only to find: 
“Luuuuciiiferrrrrr…” 
Emi Yusa, angry enough to transform into demi-angel form at any moment. 
Framed by the morning sun, Emi stomped into the room, all but breaking the floorboards underfoot as she grasped a small, boxlike object. 
Urushihara grimaced when he saw it, sidling up against the wall in a futile attempt at escape. 
“What the hell were you thinking?! Hiding this inside my bag?!” 
It was the GPS device discussed just a moment ago, the one that pinpointed Emi’s location. 
“That, uh… You know…” 
“No, I don’t know! Why did you put this in a woman’s bag? So you could find out where I was at all times, you stupid shut-in fallen angel?! You’re gonna pay for being such a goddamn creep all the time!!” 
The freight train of Emi’s blitzkrieg attack struck Urushihara pallid with fear. The rest had already returned to the pre-Emi business. 
“Hey! Ashiya! Stop Emilia for me!” 
“It is not my business to.” 
“It kind of is, dude! Whoa! Jeez, c’mon, Bell!” 
“If Emilia would be kind enough to dispatch all of you at once, our work is done here.” 
“You’re freaking me out, guys! Chiho Sasaki! Get Emilia away from me!” 
“C’mon, Yusa! Go get him!” 
“This is so unfair! I hope you all go to hell! Dude, Emilia, calm down! I can explain all of this!” 
“No more excuses! Kill yourself now, before I do it for you!” 
“This is insane!!” 
“Please…I’m begging you…let me eat in peace…” 
Maou’s pained whisper was muffled by the noise of the life-or-death struggle that shortly ensued. 
Even with all the powder kegs and enraged intruders, a steady, if insane, sort of peace continued to rule over the hundred-square-foot Devil’s Castle. 
The sunlight pouring in signaled that the true arrival of summer was just around the corner.