Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 21 - Chapter 3

THE DEVIL ADDRESSES PAST SINS

It was a day in mid-July, exactly one month after the red moon of the demon realms had begun to accelerate. The summer was already starting to get harsh, but Maou was sweating for other reasons. His focus narrowed as he faced up to the warm machine in front of him. It spat out a checking account statement. Staring at the cold, hard numbers printed on it, he froze a bit in front of the ATM, unable to move.

For Maou, a self-styled contributing member of society, the numbers printed on the receipt didn’t exactly promise a smooth future ahead. But they were the result of a lot of hard work. He couldn’t lament that, and there was no reason to.

“Are we really gonna be okay?”

“Yes. I have checked everything carefully, my liege. There is no need for you to worry about finances until we complete our battle.”

“You’re really sure about that?”

Maou and Ashiya stared closely at the receipt, virtually boring holes into it.

“Yes. Extremely sure. As a rule, all of your utilities are being paid for through your credit card. That includes the water, gas, electricity, phone, internet, and everything else! So once we make it through the day of your card payment, you will see no more inappropriate withdrawals from your account!”

“Well, it’s not ‘inappropriate’ if I’m withdrawing from my own account…”

“I… Yes, I know. And Urushihara has mostly been in Ente Isla the past two or three months, so we’ve had no unexpected online shopping to deal with. I suppose I have come to see all purchases made via credit card as ‘inappropriate,’ you see…”

“Yeah, sorry we put you through all that trouble. And I guess we’ll have more for you shortly…”

“Please, Your Demonic Highness, enough with that nonsense! This is my just punishment, as leader of the Devil King’s Army… Or karma, I should say. But still…I am heartbroken, it is true. Right now, of all times…I cannot help but feel that we have been betrayed!”

“Whoa there.”

As the two demons lamented to each other in broad daylight, an exasperated Emi brought a hand to her hip.

“You just said something I think I better not ignore.”

“What?!”

“Who betrayed whom here?”

Ashiya raised a fist high into the air then pointed straight at Emi. “Emilia! You were fully aware of the poverty endemic to the Devil King’s Army, and yet you choose this moment to demand child support from my liege! What could I call it other than a betrayal?!”

“Hey, if I could ask you, Alciel—since when…did I ever…have to consider your stupid army’s budget in what I do?! You’re the top chef in Devil’s Castle! D’you know how much it costs to raise a kid these days!”

“Y-you dare say such things at this point?! You dare place a child and money on the scales of heaven? You should be ashamed of your selfishness!”

“Look, it’s a fact that finances are part of a loving family! In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t thanked me for not mentioning your king’s support obligations even once before now!”

“Man, this stereo presentation really brings me back…”

From the side, Maou exhaled at Emi’s and Ashiya’s arguing.

“It is nostalgic, yes. But from the outside, this is such an embarrassing argument to endure…” Suzuno put a hand to her forehead, blushing.

“Well,” Urushihara nonchalantly added, “whether you’re ashamed of it or not, you’d better pay out what you can right now, huh? Emilia and Ashiya may be going on like that ’n’ all, but at least in our future plans, all five of us need to act as equals, y’know?”

“Mmm… Yes, that is true…but what has gotten into you lately, Lucifer? You have been acting unusually sensible.”

“I’ve always been sensible with you guys, dude. It’s just that you never listen.”

“You should know that in this world, what you say does not matter as much as who is saying it.”

“Y’see, this is why humans are so stupid,” Urushihara continued. “They make no effort to grasp the essence of things, y’know?”

Suzuno rolled her eyes even farther back.

“So in this situation, who’s gonna speak up first, if it’s that important?”

“That’ll be me. It’s up to me to get the ball rolling.” Maou nodded to himself, face more solemn than anyone else’s here. “The battle awaiting us is one that none of us are guaranteed to emerge from alive. That’s why we have a duty to wrap up everything now.”

Maou’s words made the bickering Emi and Ashiya silently nod.

“Our battle against heaven has finally reached its climax. The future of Ente Isla and Earth… Well, not just that. The future of Alas Ramus and the other Sephirah as well…and the Sephirah who’ll be born in however many planets in the universe from now on… We owe it to all of them. We need to atone for our past sins today.”

“…Yes, you’re right.”

“Indeed.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Mmm.”

Emi, Ashiya, Urushihara, and Suzuno—all four of them meekly accepted Maou’s resolution.

“It’s not about humanity, or the Devil King’s Army. We represent all life in Ente Isla, and we need to stand up to our past, or we’ll never move on. So please, Emi. I’m barely gonna be scraping by for a while after this, so if you can go easy on the child support thing until after the battle’s over…”

“Stop babbling. I told you a hundred times.” Emilia—Emi Yusa—grinned a bit. “I know full well what takes priority here. So…you take the lead for us.”

“…Thanks.”

“Also, just to be sure, they understand what kind of business we’re visiting them about, right?”

“Of course they do. I explained everything to Chi and her mom in advance. That’s why all of us are here today. And the timing’s right, too. It was around this time of the year when we really started getting Chi wrapped up in this.”

The words “all of us” made all of them brace themselves a bit more.

“All right. Let’s go.”

Maou took out his phone and called the number he already had up on the screen. The other side picked up after one ring; he explained that everything was ready, and once that was acknowledged, he hung up. The call didn’t last more than about ten seconds.

His resolve renewed, Maou let out a deep breath and spoke to the four people around him.

“Sounds like they’re ready, too.”

The air grew heavier. But no one said anything. There, at the Sasazuka Station intersection with summer in full swing, the five figures steeled themselves as they began walking toward the 100 Trees Shopping Arcade.

This was a well-trodden street to everyone but Urushihara. It was a quiet part of town, children’s laughter and shouting occasionally heard from afar. A classic Sunday afternoon scene like you’d see anywhere in Japan—but the quintet walking down this street was a poor match for it, with how gloomy and downtrodden they looked.

Once they’d reached their destination, Maou stepped up to push the intercom button.

“Ah! Um… I-I’ll be right there!”

A familiar voice sounded surprised as it greeted them. The intercom shut off before Maou could reply, and then they heard pattering footsteps up to the door.

“Umm…”

Chiho Sasaki greeted them there, unable to hide her ambivalence.

“Are we a bit early?”

Maou looked down at his watch. They were exactly five minutes ahead of schedule.

“Th-that’s okay, but… Wow. I’m surprised you have suits on. Even Urushihara…”

“Yeah,” Urushihara bluntly replied as he wriggled around in his brand-new suit. “I know we don’t exactly look natural, but this is important, y’know?”

“Politeness demands at least this much,” Ashiya said, tense and uncomfortably tugging at his necktie.

“It’d be too off-putting if we arrived in Ente Islan formal wear, right?”

Emi, dressed in formal black business attire, glanced at the rest of her party.

“Yes. That’s why we arrived in the Japanese norm instead, as unusual as it may make us look.”

Suzuno, for her part, was in a silken kimono of light purple, meant for visiting other families. She bowed lightly.

“Chi… Um, I mean Sasaki, are your parents at home?”

Finally Maou—Satan, King of all Demons in Ente Isla, but who still preferred to go by Sadao Maou around here—looked straight at Chiho Sasaki. To her credit, Chiho didn’t turn away, standing tall and nodding at him.

“They are, Maou. They’ve been waiting for you, actually. Come right in.”

“Thanks. Let’s go, guys.”

“Thank you,” Emi said as they all somberly went through the Sasakis’ front door. For her, Maou, and Suzuno, this was not their first visit. The familiar front foyer was still there, and their living room was down the corridor and past the door.

“You can come in.”

Chiho opened the door for them.

“Oh, hello there, Mr. Maou! And everyone else… My, how dashing you all look!”

Beyond the doorway, they saw Riho Sasaki, Chiho’s mother and a familiar sight to them…

“…Hello.”

…and another middle-aged man, his rigid face not hiding his confusion at all.

This was Sen’ichi Sasaki—Chiho’s father, a career police officer, and the most important person out of everyone they needed to conduct today’s events. He had a loose polo shirt on, looking every bit a dad enjoying his day off, and seeing Maou’s group only clouded his face further.

“Thanks for letting us in. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedules to see us.”

“C-certainly,” Sen’ichi replied, slurring it a bit as he reacted to Maou’s polite address. “Come on in.”

Once everyone was in the living room, Maou promptly walked up to Sen’ichi and put his hands and knees on the floor.

“Maou?!”

And not just him. Behind him came Ashiya, Urushihara, Emi, and Suzuno, all following his lead—kneeling before Sen’ichi and Riho and bowing their heads.

“We sincerely apologize for all of this.”

“Maou…”

“I am aware that Chiho and Ms. Sasaki informed you about everything. What I did to Chiho…I’m not sure we can ever make up for. We’ve constantly betrayed your trust in us as her parents.”

“Ah? …Ahh, well… Umm…”

“We convinced ourselves,” Emi continued after Maou had fallen silent, “that we were taking ample consideration of your daughter’s feelings. So we procrastinated on explaining everything as we should have, and we continually lied to you instead. And I know we could never apologize enough for that.”

“Hmm? No, uh…”

“Yusa…”

“I promise you that we never proactively sought to place your daughter in the path of danger. However, in the end, we failed. In fact, we have been saved by her hand on multiple occasions.”

“Yeah. And this…like, I know we can never properly make up for it, but…”

Ashiya apologizing in a business suit seemed natural enough, but Urushihara’s attempts at polite remorse were a wonder to see.

“I want it to be clear that Chiho never had any intention of deceiving you. It was entirely through our own wishful thinking that we placed this excessive burden on her, forcing her hand in our deceits. I know this is asking much from you, but I sincerely hope you will allow us a chance to atone for these acts.” It was Suzuno who wrapped up their appeal, quietly but with a palpable force.

“Ashiya… Urushihara… Suzuno…”

“Ahh… Mmmm…”

Sen’ichi hemmed and hawed. That was to be expected. So Maou lifted his head, looking at the man they needed to apologize to the most.

“Chiho, what’s going on here? What’s this all about?”

The voice, settling over Maou’s head, was filled not with anger, but with sheer confusion.

“Um…?”

Their eyes met for the first time. Maou had seen his face twice before, and it looked bewildered.

“I mean… All I heard was that Mr. Maou was coming here today.”

“Huh? Um, Chiho and your wife didn’t…?”

“No, they didn’t say anything. But they were both weirdly smiling at me all day, and, um, you’re dressed to the nines, so… I thought, you know, perhaps…”

The still-bewildered Sen’ichi looked at his daughter, then at the man kowtowing in front of him.

“I was prepared to have you asking permission to see my daughter, but…”

“To see… What?!”

This was more than Maou could take.

“But if it was that, you wouldn’t have these other people with you, and you’re sure not talking that way, either… Honey? Chiho? You mind explaining to me what kinda thing this is?”

Riho, picking up the hot potato, grinned a bit as she surveyed the room. Then she extended a slightly sorrowful hand to Maou.

“Sorry about that, Maou.”

“No, um, but… Today…”

“I understand, of course. But I’ve been thinking a little. And I figured that no matter what we told him, it’d just be too confusing. So we didn’t tell him anything.”

Chiho, the attention now directed her way, bashfully turned away a bit.

“Sorry, Dad.”

“That’s fine, but about what?”

“Well, um, I didn’t think he and his friends would be this tormented about it, so… But, yeah, they would be. I guess I’ve been kind of numb to it, in a lot of ways.”

Sen’ichi, faced with his wife’s and daughter’s elusive behavior, grew more and more perplexed.

“But if I could say, Maou,” Riho began, “I’m perfectly fine. I’ve talked with Chiho about it numerous times, asking her questions about what I didn’t understand, and I’ve come to accept it. And yes, maybe you were hiding a thing or two from us, but it’s clear to me that you’ve always put Chiho first.”

“Y-yes… Thank you very much.”

Riho’s true intentions were still a mystery, but hearing that from her was at least a slight comfort to Maou.

Then, as if suddenly having a new idea, Riho turned to Emi. “By the way, Ms. Yusa, is Alas Ramus around? I haven’t seen her lately.”

“Alas Ramus? She, um, yes, she’s around, but I didn’t feel right bringing a toddler in for our apology…so…”

“Is she…inside?”

“Yes…”

“Well, while we’re all here, would you mind introducing her to my husband? I think that’ll be the quickest way to get started.”

“Are you…sure?”

“It’s the easiest thing to understand, isn’t it? Out of it all. Besides, I’ve only heard about her, so I’d like to see what she’s like for myself.”

“All right, well, if you don’t mind… Alas Ramus, be a good girl, okay?”

Emi stood up and put her hands forward. The next moment, with a light pop, and a glint of purple softer than a camera flash…

“Chi-sis! Hiii!”

“Hmm?!”

“Ooh! Is that how she looks?”

From out of nowhere, a small child appeared, taking Sen’ichi visibly aback while Riho clapped her hands.

“Wh-what was that?! H-how did you…?!”

“And I believe that Mr. Maou has a similar child…?”

“Huh?! Whoa, whoa, she’s definitely not suitable for this meeting! And she’s actually napping right now!”

“Oh, that’s all right! Show us!”

“Wha…? But…”

“Do you mind showing her, please, Maou?” Chiho asked, pushing the reluctant Maou along. “With Acieth’s size, nobody will be able to explain it away as a magic trick.”

“…Well… Hey, Acieth? …Um, I don’t think it’ll be that easy to wake her up…”

Maou stepped back a bit. Then, in the space between him and Sen’ichi:

“Agghh!”

A young woman appeared.

“Whooaahhh?!”

Even the quiet father had to let out a surprised holler.

“Oww… Maou! What is meaning of this? You be the mean to me, I shoot more of the things from my face, buster!”

“Sorry, Acieth! Not here, okay? Now’s not the time or place for it! Once I get paid, I’ll treat you to whatever you want, so hold back for now! You’re in Chi’s house!”

“Ooh, now you say it! …Wait, Chiho’s house? Ahhh, yes, then I better be on top behavior.”

“Wha-wha-wha…”

“Huh? This man, he smell like Chiho, is he the father?”

“Yep. I told you yesterday, didn’t I? We were going to her place to apologize.”

“Yes, but you did not say I show up, too… Oh, but I must give my greetings! Hello, Mr. Chiho Dad! I’m Acieth!”

“Y-yes…”

“Ah, you’re Acieth? Well, I’m Chiho’s mother!”

“Her mother?! Wow! Is this the big party or something? But bringing me and my big sister out, is that okay? Too late now, but…”

“…Yeah, so that’s why I didn’t think she’d be a good fit for this moment…”

“Wh-wh… Where did those two come from…?!”

Sen’ichi stammered to himself as the two oblivious Yesod children looked around the Sasaki residence. Maou had no idea where they’d take the conversation from here.

“All right, she should be here any moment now…”

The moment Riho copped to it, they heard the sound of a scooter screeching to a halt outside. The intercom rang out.

“Hello! MgRonald delivery!”

“Whoa!”

The voice was intimately familiar to Maou, Emi, and Chiho.

“Ah, um, long time no see, Ms. Iwaki…”

Fresh from the Hatagaya Station location of MgRonald, a place that had indirectly connected these visitors from another planet to Chiho Sasaki, was manager Kotomi Iwaki, here with a delivery.

“Ooh, I thought it was your place, Sasaki! The phone number seemed familiar, so… What’s going on?”

Iwaki was at the foyer with two large, insulated bags. The sight of the living room, seen through the still-open front door, made her eyes bug out behind her glasses. Anyone would be surprised, after all, if they saw two of their employees kneeling on the floor in business attire at someone’s house.

Then, realizing something, she gasped a little.

“Oh… Are you in the middle of something? Does it have to do with Ente Isla? Did you not tell your father before now?”

Iwaki hadn’t been acquainted with Maou and Emi for that long, but she knew the truth about them, finding out the same way Chiho’s mother did.

“Sort of, yes. Things are still kind of going in all directions for the moment, but…”

When Chiho had told her mother that Maou and his friends wanted to visit the Sasakis to apologize for lying to them, Riho didn’t react the way Chiho thought she would. In fact, she took the news pretty casually. When Chiho asked why, she had replied that, yes, they may have lied about their origins, and they may have exposed her to danger unbeknownst to her.

But…

“Did Maou or Yusa force you into any of that Ente Isla stuff, Chiho?”

That was the question Riho had asked her yesterday, eyes pointed straight at her.

Chiho, of course, denied it with all her might. The only times she’d really been put in danger against her will were when the underground mall collapsed in Shinjuku and during the Shuto Expressway rampage that Urushihara and Olba had carried out. Even those two experiences were cherished memories to her now—and in every other case, Chiho had actively volunteered to be by the side of Maou and his friends. In fact, whenever they tried to push her away, she’d use this or that tactic to stay close by and involved.

When Chiho explained all this, Riho smiled, trying to calm her down.

“Do you remember when Maou and Ashiya and Urushihara took that summer job over in Choshi? You wanted to go with them, but I stopped you then.”

“Yeah…”

“I wound up thinking better of it, but when I asked Yusa and Kamazuki to take you over, Yusa was actually against it at first.”

“Huh?”

“Yes, I think Yusa understood that you wanted to go, too. And she didn’t phrase it this strongly, but basically she said that Maou had work to do, she couldn’t let a teenage girl be by herself that long, and they couldn’t take responsibility for you at all times if something of the otherworldly sort happened. So she couldn’t agree to it. It’s pretty funny now that I look back at it.”

“Funny? Why?”

“I mean, aren’t those perfectly normal reasons?”

Chiho had wanted to join Maou on that job purely out of her own selfishness. And the fact Riho had wanted to push her on him—if you saw him and Emi as regular people—had to have been nothing but an annoyance. Thus, to a typical resident of Japan like Riho, Emi’s reaction was common sense.

“So I think it’s because of that. Even after I knew everything, I could tell this wasn’t Maou and Yusa getting you involved—it was you consciously getting yourself involved. I know I didn’t raise a dummy who’s clueless about what she’s doing. So even if you ran into danger, it’s not my job as a parent to be mad at you for that.”

“…Is that how you think of it?”

“Well, if you’d wound up dead or permanently disabled, that’d be a much different story. But getting angry about that… I don’t know. I just don’t feel like that’s what I should direct my frustration at.”

Riho was searching for words, a little unsure of her own feelings.

“But anyway, if they feel they have to apologize, I’m sure that’s something they see as necessary for themselves. So why not have them come over?”

“O-okay…”

Riho had already been given the chance to meet all of them, after all. To Chiho, this was enough to convince her that, well, that’s how it was.

Now that everyone was here, and Chiho realized that her father not only didn’t know about Ente Isla, but also wasn’t even expecting a massive crowd and magic show, she was having a lot of trouble dealing. Despite that, though—as she took in Alas Ramus’s and Acieth’s appearances, and all the fallout from that—she began to think her mother had made the right choice after all.

“Well, if you need another clued-in third party to comment on anything, let me know, all right? And…if Acieth’s there, we’ll be ready to take any extra orders you may have, okay?”

Iwaki left them with those words, but having her daughter’s boss from work walk into this mess did nothing to soothe the mind of Chiho’s father.

“Will this…be enough? It won’t, will it?”

Looking at the receipt and knowing that Acieth’s voracious appetite still hadn’t settled down, Chiho assumed with a sigh that nobody else was likely to get a chance at this food order.

“Soooo…………………………what do I do?”

After they’d finished explaining everything that had happened, Maou and his four companions each taking turns, those were the first words from Sen’ichi Sasaki. He was thoroughly flummoxed.

“Well, why don’t you say whatever’s on your mind?”

His wife, meanwhile, was almost blunt by comparison.

“What’s on my mind?”

Sen’ichi gave her a look like a lost puppy. Then he turned toward Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara, seated on the sofa opposite him. Emi and Suzuno stood behind them. He stared at them all—plus the two girls packing away the MgRonald order, oblivious to everything else—then his eyes settled on his feet.

“For now… Yeah. For now, I…understand. Yes.”

He didn’t actually mean this. He was just mumbling to himself as he organized his thoughts. Maou and the rest got that, so they didn’t move an inch as they waited for his next statement.

“I understand why my wife didn’t say anything to me. Certainly, I wouldn’t have taken her word for it alone…but also, unlike her, you know, I’ve hardly met any of Chiho’s friends. If I came in expecting an apology from all of you, I probably would’ve been all tensed up, with my preconceptions and so on, so… Yeah.”

He took a deep breath then finally looked at Maou.

“The last time we met, I figured that if there was ever a next time, it’d probably wind up being this big, shocking incident. So I was prepared for that…but never for this, sort of.”

“Oh?”

Maou raised an eyebrow, unsure how to take this roundabout observation.

He had last met Sen’ichi in the summer of the previous year, in the town of Komagame, Nagano prefecture. Maou and his friends had come to Sen’ichi’s family home to help out with farm work. Riho had pointed them over there, after the Choshi job ended early and they had a free summer on their hands, and Maou had met up with Sen’ichi once to thank him. They simply chatted a bit over tea before parting ways, and in Maou’s eyes, nothing had happened that would’ve put Sen’ichi on edge.

Now Sen’ichi looked from Maou to his daughter before letting out another deep sigh. “Well, you know… It’s not like I’ve fully digested all of this yet, but yes, I understand the long and short of it. What all of you are doing and everything. But this… What did you call it? The assault on heaven?”

“That’s right. Our term for it anyway.”

“And you say that’s the only thing left; you guys fighting against your enemy. But Chiho’s not gonna be part of that, right?”

“Of course not. We would never take her there. We can’t, for that matter.”

“And is the war gonna reach here at all? Through your…warp Gates or whatever?”

“No, sir. If they catch even the slightest sign of that, the Sephirah here on Earth will block it with all their might. I think they’d cut off all connections between Ente Isla and Earth at once.”

“All right. Also, one other important thing…”

“Yes?”

Sen’ichi took a deep breath, a few beads of sweat on his brow.

“…You, Maou, and Chiho… You aren’t a couple or anything right now, are you?”

“Ah… Huh?”

Unlike Chiho, Riho, or even the absent Rika Suzuki, Sen’ichi had learned of Ente Isla strictly through verbal discussion. Maou was ready to give sincere answers to any questions he might have, but nothing could’ve prepared him for this.

“Are you two romantically involved?”

“D-Dad!”

Chiho blushed instantly.

“Um… I’m sorry, what do you mean by that?”

“Well, I mean it pretty plainly,” Sen’ichi replied, his pace accelerating. “I’m asking whether you and my daughter are in a romantic relationship with each other!”

“Huh?! No?! No, um, we haven’t… Not that, no!”

For a single moment, the memory of what had happened with Chiho after the summit flashed in Maou’s mind. But that didn’t quite seem to connect to what Sen’ichi meant, so he ignored it. Regardless of how Sen’ichi took that hesitation, he spent a few moments leering doubtfully at Maou. Then he turned away.

“Fine, then.”

“Y-yes…?”

“Because if you were like that with my daughter, I’d have a few things to say about it, but if not, then I don’t. I can talk it over personally with her later. You don’t have to say sorry about anything.”

“N-no, but…”

“If you really need me to,” said Sen’ichi, talking louder to stop his guest, “I’ll accept your apology for this.” He picked up the envelope Maou had placed on the living room table early on in their discussion. “I don’t remember the incident at all, but I do recall doing some shopping on the way home and having less cash in my wallet than I thought… Or, at least, I was pretty sure.”

The envelope contained a 10,000 yen note.

Right after Maou and Ashiya came to Japan, they were caught wandering the streets of Harajuku late at night and taken to the police station by none other than Sen’ichi Sasaki. Maou then used what little demonic force he had left to steal a 10,000 yen bill from him, to cover expenses for the time being. It was a crime, one that Maou and Ashiya deserved to be judged for, but until they came here today, nobody apart from Maou and Ashiya had been aware of it. Even Urushihara was a little surprised.

But even after he learned about it, Sen’ichi exhibited nothing but confusion and puzzlement. There were no signs of anger or disappointment.

“You know, when your beat has an entertainment district in it, you run into drunks passed out on the street, people screaming unintelligible nonsense at you… It’s not uncommon for me to take in foreign people with no passport and nothing to prove their real name with. Honestly, even if you told me exactly which night it was, I don’t know if I’d find any records of your time with us. I didn’t even feel victimized at all. This is kind of like opening an old book and finding money you forgot about inside. Nothing to really get angry about.”

“…Thank you very much.”

“And when it comes to lying about who you were, well, if my wife and daughter don’t mind it, I don’t see any need to, either. We’re not the type of parents to pry into our child’s acquaintances and decide who’s right and wrong for her. With the career I have, I keep telling her she can’t get involved with antisocials, but you don’t exactly count as that.”

“Antisocials?” Acieth asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“Sorry. That’s police shorthand for people who’re a threat to law-abiding individuals. The ‘bad guys’ sort of thing.”

“Oh. But in that case, Maou and friends, they are the worst bad guys, no? They are anti-human, not antisocial.”

Please stop, Maou thought—but she was telling the truth, so he didn’t fight back. But Sen’ichi seemed to take a liking to the unreserved girl, so he gave her a sincere response.

“Well, that’s the thing. That’s part of the reason Maou and his friends stick out, of course. But this is all so far beyond common sense. There’s so much that I can’t measure by our standards, and in a way, I don’t think it matters.”

“Aww, you do not say that! You are the dad! You must yell strongly at them, for Chiho’s sake!”

“Acieth…”

“Daddy! Don’t be mean to Chi-sis!”

Alas Ramus, despite not understanding any of this, took advantage of Acieth’s momentum to lord it over Maou, distracting him and Sen’ichi from the topic.

“Ah, girls, can you be a little more quiet…?”

He was still here to apologize, and he didn’t want them derailing everything before Sen’ichi was done talking. But, unexpectedly, Sen’ichi flashed his first smile of the day.

“Alas Ramus?”

“Yeh!”

“Do you love your daddy?”

“I’unno!”

“…!”

Maou had expected an emphatic yes in response. He didn’t get it, which floored him—a fact Sen’ichi picked up on.

“You must wonder why I’m not angry at all, don’t you? Well, Alas Ramus right now is one reason.”

Maou was thrown a bit by the riddle-like response.

“Girls unconditionally love their fathers only until about the age of four or five. But it’s important that they don’t after that, and lately, I’m finally seeing it as a good thing.”

“Oh, really?” Riho interjected.

“Don’t distract me,” Sen’ichi said, looking aside at his wife.

Maou mulled over this statement, the words of a man with seventeen years of fathering experience. Alas Ramus certainly didn’t always do what he or Emi wanted her to do. When they’d all lived at Emi’s place, he could tell that she acted a fair bit less well-behaved than when she lived with Maou alone. Nothing drastic—she just sometimes sassed back or rebelled a bit in order to bother Emi. She expressed herself in a lot of ways, which she never did when she was just an occasional visitor to Emi’s apartment.

“My daughter’s made a lot of choices for herself. She’s learned, and experienced, so much in her life—and your powers, and your presence, were an indispensable part of that. And if they are, then as her dad, I don’t deserve any kind of apology from you.”

“…Father…”

“Not to stop you, but it’s a little too early to start calling me ‘Father.’”

“Oh, um, yes. Sorry about that. B-but still…we’re demons, and we caused a lot of damage to Ente Isla…”

“Well, look, when you’re a cop, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no such thing as superheroes, or absolutes, in this world. And I’m definitely not someone high up enough that I’m going to judge a war taking place in some faraway world. Don’t you think that’d be irresponsible?”

“…I can’t really say.”

“Now, if all of you were on one side, maybe I’d take pity on you and get angry at the other side. But you, the Devil King, and you, the Hero, are raising a kid together, and so I can’t feel that way at all. It’d be like trying to evaluate who was ‘right’ in the Hundred Years’ War from our modern perspective. It’s pointless.”

Sen’ichi looked at Alas Ramus, currently stealing some fries from Acieth, and reached over toward her.

“Right now, all I want from you guys is to keep being good friends to Chiho.”

Everyone there—Maou, of course, as well as Emi, Ashiya, Urushihara, and Suzuno—knew what he meant when he said that, gesturing at Maou’s own “daughter.” Alas Ramus was beloved by many people, and so was Chiho Sasaki. What he meant, spoken in the plainest of terms, was “never do anything that would sadden those who love her so much.” He wasn’t speaking to the Devil King of another world. He was speaking to his daughter’s friend.

“…All right. I will.”

The answer, too, was just as simple.

The white moon was floating in a blue sky, amid the relatively tranquil summer sunlight. It was two in the afternoon, and after leaving the Sasaki house, Maou was walking through the Sasazuka neighborhood with Chiho (pushing her bike), Emi, Alas Ramus, and Acieth. Ashiya, Urushihara, and Suzuno opened up a Gate right in the Sasaki living room, off to Efzahan, the demon realms, and the Central Continent, respectively. That was their ace in the hole for convincing Sen’ichi they weren’t lying, but it seemed like he had accepted their extraordinary story without it.

Once Maou, Emi, Alas Ramus, and Acieth had stepped out the front door, they all gave a deep bow to the family before going away. Chiho was on her way to her test prep center, and they were all chatting with each other, as if there were no assault on heaven to think of at all. Their conversation was mostly about how Acieth was feeling and Alas Ramus’s likes and dislikes.

They wound up talking all the way to Sasazuka Station, where they split up—as if tomorrow would be just as normal and humdrum as yesterday.

“You have the work, yes, Maou? I promise Erone I have snack with him, so I go to Mikitty’s. Bye, big sis!”

Acieth gave Alas Ramus a friendly pinch on the cheek before running off.

“I don’t have any business in Ente Isla today, so I’ll head home. I want to do some of Alas Ramus’s laundry.”

“And I have test prep to go to, but are you going back home to change, Maou?”

“Nah, I got nothing to do at home, so I’ll just head over. It ain’t a crime to report to work lookin’ snappy, huh?”

In just over a week and a half from now, they’d have to stage an all-out attack on the heavens—and yet, this. Or maybe “this” was what everyone wanted the most right now. So Emi and Chiho kept discussing the same old everyday things, as if nothing were amiss.

“You don’t think you should change? If you get any grease on that, Alciel’s gonna yell at you, isn’t he?”

“She’s right. And you’re gonna slip all over the kitchen in those leather shoes.”

“True… Good point.”

Maou’s reaction seemed to indicate he expected as much from these two.

“But I put this suit on and everything…”

Despite that, though, he seemed intent on reporting to work dressed to the nines.

“Will you be late if you go back to change?” Chiho asked.

“No, nothing like that,” he answered airily.

This confused her a bit. She assumed they’d all split up at this point, like they usually did—and Maou wasn’t the sort to care how he looked in public anyway. As long as he didn’t look disgusting or break any laws, any outfit was fine to him. If this suit wasn’t important to him, like it was during managerial training or during this apology today…

“!”

After reaching that thought, it finally dawned on Emi.

The biggest reason why all five of them had gone out of their way to visit the Sasakis was because they weren’t certain they would all survive the assault on heaven. To put it another way, all of them coming together helped a lot to quell their pre-battle anxiety. And right now, Maou was dressed as formally as he could picture, attempting to banish any lingering concerns from his mind.

“Ughh…”

She hated it—how simple he was to understand. This obvious, tactless man.

“Well, stop dragging this on and just go home and change!”

“Huh?”

“Yusa?”

This, too, was Emi’s usual tone of voice.

“Hey, Alas Ramus?”

“Yeh, Mommy?”

“What do you think of Daddy’s suit? Does he look good?”

“Huh? Hey, Emi…”

“I hate it.”

“Alas Ramus?!”

This was, without a doubt, the harshest thing she had ever said to them. It took both Maou and Chiho off guard.

“It smells weird.”

“A-Alas Ramus?!”

“Daddy should smell like fries.”

“Huh?! I—I smell weird? But I took it to the dry cleaner for this and everything…! And I’ve been using this towel to keep the sweat off!”

“But she smells French fries on your hands on your days off. If you smell like detergent or bug spray, she might not like that as much.”

“Aww…”

The sight of Maou acting all pathetic made Emi giggle.

“She’s saying it doesn’t seem right on you. So go change, okay? Your usual UniClo outfits look a lot better, and plus…”

Then Emi looked at Chiho, still unsure how to address Maou after this scathing appraisal from Alas Ramus. Her grin instantly turned into a heartfelt, affectionate smile.

“…I think you’ll get your feelings across better that way.”

“…Ah! E-Emi, you…!”

“Anyway, we’re heading home. Oh, and I’ve been in Ente Isla too long to remember, but if you’re staying in Villa Rosa, you mind picking up your stuff from my place whenever?”

Maou stayed frozen to the spot, Chiho’s eyes darting between them as she tried to ascertain what was going on. Emi just waved instead of giving an answer.

“See you guys later. Thanks for today, Chiho.”

“S-sure…”

“Daddy! Chi-sis! Bye-bye! Study hard!”

Emi, with Alas Ramus waving behind her shoulder, quickly disappeared beyond the station turnstile.

“Um, Maou?”

“…I’m sorry, Chi, can you give me just ten minutes? I’m gonna go change after all.”

“O-okay. I can wait that long, but…”

“I’ll be right back!”

Chiho stood there, listening to the sharp clack of Maou’s shoes as he darted back home. She was worried about how much he’d be sweating at that pace, but she didn’t have to wait long.

“Sorry! I’m back!”

The same old Sadao Maou, in his same old UniClo shirt and pants, was pedaling the same old Dullahan II over to her. Exactly ten minutes had passed.

Pushing their respective bikes, Maou and Chiho walked from Sasazuka Station toward the neighborhood of Hatagaya. Even though they were walking down the same street, even though they were both headed to the same area, they had different destinations—Maou to work, Chiho to the test prep center.

Emi had been acting unusual when they’d split up. Maou was acting a bit odd himself. And based on that, Chiho felt strangely tense as they walked along silently for a bit.

“Hey…”

“Y-yes?”

“Ms. Iwaki came to make that delivery, didn’t she?”

“Um, yeah. I think she picked up on a lot of it.”

“Ah… Really? Well, unlike Ms. Kisaki, she’s probably not gonna wheedle us about it later, so that’s fine.”

“Y-yeah.”

Then a bit more silence. Things were clearly different from usual, so every beat of the conversation wound her up more.

“Speaking of which, not to change the subject, but you own a bicycle, Chi?”

“I do. It’s been a while since I took it out, but…”

“Why use it all of a sudden?”

It wasn’t strange or anything, but he had never seen it before, and it wasn’t like her test prep was located far from her workplace. Maou couldn’t help but wonder why she had it.

“Didn’t Libicocco tell you? Some guys approached me after test prep the other day.”

“What? Some guys?!”

Maou’s eyes opened up in shock.

“Yeah. They were kind of pushy with me, but Libicocco chased them off.”

“H-he did?”

“But I can’t rely on Libicocco all the time, you know? So I decided to take my bike back and forth instead.”

“Oh… The test prep center isn’t that far from MgRonald, is it? Why didn’t you use it before now?”

“You’re asking me that now?”

“Huh?”

He thought it was a normal question to ask. But Chiho frowned, slightly peeved.

“It’s because I don’t have to worry if I’m going to test prep.”

“Worry? Worry about what?”

Chiho pointed straight at Maou’s face—or to be exact, she pointed two fingers at his eyes.

“If I’m riding a bike, my bangs get all messed up, all right?”

Not even Maou was dull enough to say “Yeah, so?” to that. The wind messed up anyone’s hair on a bike. Of course, she’d be going into the changing room at work and making herself as bland-looking as possible in a moment. But for just that minute—for just those few seconds—between dismounting and going through the door…

“Look, don’t you think it’s about time you realized how hard I’ve been working?”

Naturally, there were some shifts where everything was so busy that Maou and Chiho wouldn’t even have a single second to take a look at each other. If anything, her efforts were probably fruitless more often than not. But still:

“I’ve been trying to make my bangs cute so maybe you’d see them, Maou.”

“…I’m sorry?”

“And I never rode to your apartment because I didn’t want the food I bring to get mixed up in the basket, and someone always walked me home afterward anyway.”

Chiho was no longer in the same place as him. Not in their jobs, and not on the battlefield. Maou had lingered too long, and now they had drifted away.

“You know, Maou…”

“Hmm?”

The more they walked, the closer they’d get to their destination. So Chiho laid out her approach.

“Why did you keep my memories intact for me?”

“Ack…”

That yelp might have sounded like a half-hearted reply—but between him stopping and where his eyes were pointed, Chiho could tell it wasn’t.

They were at a large intersection now, and to their left, one cross street away, was the Koshu-Kaido road, the Shuto Expressway spanning above it.

“Chi, did I ever tell you about when I founded the Devil King’s Army in the demon realms?”

“No. I’ve never heard about it from you.”

“So from Ashiya or Urushihara, then?”

“From Ashiya, a little.”

“Really? Did he say anything weird about it?”

Maou winced, like a teen whose mother was showing off an old family album to one of his friends.

“I don’t think anything about it was that strange. He told me up to when you and he became friends. The Malebranche hadn’t shown up yet.”

“Oh, up to that point? So did he tell you that the first guy I recruited was Urushihara?”

“Wasn’t it Camio and his Pájaro-something tribe?”

“Ahh, they… They weren’t ‘friends’ exactly.”

Chiho didn’t ask what the difference was, but if what she knew about Maou’s past was correct, it seemed fair to assume Maou thought of Camio like a member of his family.

“Well, maybe it didn’t come up, but the clan I come from doesn’t have any survivors left besides me. Laila saved me, that old guy raised me…and once I grew up and became the Devil King, I looked for other members of my clan, but there was nobody left exactly like me.”

“Exactly like you?”

“Like, you know how Libicocco and Ciriatto look pretty different, even though they’re both Malebranche? That sort of thing. Our mob, they were called the Blacksheep clan, but whenever I thought I’d found someone like me, the horns or the fur would be all different, and stuff.”

“Oh… Really?”

“So first I convinced Urushihara and Adramelech to join me. Then, a while later, I took in Ashiya and the Iron Scorpions…and a lot of other stuff happened, but the point is, I always selected my companions of my own free will.”

That generally lined up with what Chiho had heard.

“Now, there was a lot of infighting between us and the Malebranche, Malacoda in particular. There’d occasionally be offshoot forces we had to put back in line. In the end, they stormed Ente Isla and lost to Emi’s forces, but…”

“Right.”

“And I’m sure you know my history after I came to Japan, but after a lot of twists and turns, I got a job at MgRonald, and then you applied there, too, right?”

That was the highly abridged version, but to Maou, those two facts were at the crux of his story.

“I was the guy handling most of your training…and, you know, that was the first time I ever trained someone.”

“Oh, was it?”

Maou didn’t tell her at the time. And quite a bit of the crew around Chiho had learned at least a thing or two from him as well.

“Like, training someone solo, I mean. Man to man. I did it together with Mae a few times, or I’d just teach a few things to someone I shared a shift with, but that was my first one-on-one experience. Right after your interview, Ms. Kisaki came up to me and said, like, ‘Okay, she’s all yours.’”

That made Chiho a little happy to hear. She thought she had blown the interview pretty badly—so much so that she didn’t even remember much of it. But learning that Kisaki approved of her immediately afterward, despite it being so long ago, gave her an ever-so-slight sense of pride.

“So I was glad for that. You know, having Ms. Kisaki leave a new hire in my hands. I always had a lot of respect for her, and I figured I’d never be brought on full-time if I never trained anyone. So…”

Maou looked at Chiho and smiled warmly.

“I’m wanna, I—I mean, I’m gonna be working here starting today! My name’s Chiho Sasaki! Good to meet you!”

“So I was really into this assignment. Like, ‘I’m gonna totally make a great crewmember out of this girl.’”

“Mmm…” This sounded a bit odd to Chiho. “You mean you wanted to score points with Ms. Kisaki?”

“Well, at the time, yeah, I’m sure there was some of that.”

Maou didn’t recall his exact feelings back then. But putting words to his memory like this, it likely wasn’t far from the truth.

“But in all my life, that was the first time a superior believed in me enough to entrust someone else to me.”

“You’re making me sound like I was a preschooler or something.”

“Well, I meant to treat you as carefully as one anyway.”

“You meant to?”

“Ahh, stop pressing me,” Maou said, lifting up his hands in surrender. “But to me, Chi, you were the first human being I viewed as precious.”

“Is that something I should be happy about?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“I’m not the judge of that. I’m a demon, despite it all.”

“That’s true. Despite it all.”

She decided to let go. To be frank, it was all in the past.

“And I know I’ve been going on for a while, but my point is, I didn’t want the people I held dear to forget about me. If I let that happen, and they just gave me this blasé look starting the next day… Well, I didn’t want to imagine that. I had a few coincidences happen in my life, and then I started thinking about things that way.”

“If I can take the opportunity to ask what kind of coincidences…?”

“Having Emi there.”

“Ah, it was her, huh?”

“Yeah. I put you through all kinds of hell, and part of me was, like—just because I don’t want you to forget about me, should I really leave you be? But if I did that, the only human who’d know everything I did was Emi.”

Maou winced—an emotion from the bottom of his heart.

“And it was, like, anything but that. So…”

He stared straight at Chiho.

“Not wanting someone you hold dear to forget about you… I guess that’s part of loving someone, isn’t it?”

“…Huh?”

This was unexpected. She’d already concluded this would be like any other chat—that he’d try talking his way into another deadline extension. For a moment, she forgot to breathe.

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. I’m a demon, but over the past year or two, I’ve come to realize that my feelings—my spirituality—they aren’t that different from any other human being’s. But when it comes to loving the opposite sex, I really do know nothing about that. I didn’t have any parents or friends to show me the ropes, and physically speaking, I’m not sure if demons even have the capacity. But…”

Maou didn’t take his eyes off her. Chiho, feeling her palpitations grow stronger, couldn’t reply.

“And to be honest, I’ve been kind of sick lately, and…after a series of improbable events, Sariel visited to take care of me.”

“What? You’ve been sick?! Huh? And Sariel took care of you? What?!”

It was shock on top of shock. Chiho exclaimed far more loudly than she’d intended.

“And I didn’t have anyone else to ask, so I asked him. Like, what does ‘love’ feel like? He’s had the hots for Ms. Kisaki since forever, y’know—but if things go naturally, Ms. Kisaki’s absolutely gonna reach her natural lifespan before him. Same with Laila and Nord. They’re destined to leave the people they love in the past. So it’s, like, how can they have those kinds of emotions?”

“So let me get this straight. After all this, you still don’t know what kind of feelings Chiho Sasaki has for you?”

“It’s not that I don’t know. It’s just… You see how I am.”

Chiho’s kiss after the summit—that explosive bolt of energy that had built up for so long, following Maou’s delayed answer—was such a straight expression of her feelings, it trampled all over Maou’s nature as a demon. It wrecked his health, after years of never suffering any illness apart from malnutrition at a very young age. He could almost feel his body going out of control, like all the demonic force was leaking out of it. It struck him so hard that Sariel could’ve stuck a whole onion in the rice porridge he’d made for him out of spite, and he would’ve eaten it, not noticing.

“I want to cherish Chi. But if you’re asking me whether I care about her so much I can withstand this level of passion…”

“What are you, a preteen?”

“Huh?”

“No, maybe not that. You’re thinking like a man in his forties or fifties. The kind who, despite having actual feelings, pretends he’s not suitable for his partner, like some dried-up tumbleweed.”

“…My mind’s a little bleary, but I can tell you’re bashing me.”

“Not that there’s much point reasoning with someone willing to eat that kind of rice porridge…”

Sariel turned from the pot he was washing in the sink and sighed.

“I said this to one of your men before, but there’s no way to tell what the other person really feels in their heart. There are a lot of loving couples in the world, but how can you quantitatively measure that from the outside?”

“…Stop using all these hard words. My head hurts.”

“A perfect ten in Chiho Sasaki’s heart is different from a perfect ten in yours. You’re not duty-bound to give back exactly what your partner gives you, and besides, that’s not even possible.”

“Chiho’s ten is different from my ten…?”

“Lemme try to put it this way: Never once have I ever wanted Ms. Kisaki to reward my love poetry with some of her own.”

“Ha-ha…! I get it. If she asked for that, I’d take a step back, too.”

“Ms. Kisaki cares far more for work than for the trappings of love…and I’m fine with that. But if her exhaustion reaches its peak at some moment, I want to be wherever she returns to. I’ve always felt that.”

Sariel and Kisaki were not at all a couple. It was entirely a crush on Sariel’s part. Based on Kisaki as of late, their relationship wasn’t as stormy as when they’d first met, but if asked whether she had romantic feelings for Sariel, a hundred people out of a hundred would shake their heads. He was aware of that, of course, but that didn’t stop him from waxing on about this stuff. Truly an amazing case.

“So is Emilia’s father the type of person to sing love songs every time he sees Laila?”

“…I heard he’s pretty lovey-dovey with her, but nothing like that, no.”

“Is Chiho the type of person who’d weigh her private life against work and choose work every time?”

“…No. That’s not her style.”

Chiho didn’t have the sort of work-first, everything-else-second credo that Kisaki basked in. At least, she didn’t in Maou’s eyes.

“What, so you’re saying there’s no answer, then?” he asked.

“Not in terms of love having a particular shape, I mean. It all comes down to what you want Chiho Sasaki to mean to you. That, only you can say. Not even she can tell you. But if you ask why Laila and I can find it within ourselves to love human beings, well, it just comes down to how we want to be thought about.”

“I hate to say it, but the talk we had definitely helped me work out my feelings.”

“I’d hate to say that, too.”

Sariel was their enemy. Everyone who knew the archangel could tell that he’d never find the ideal future he dreamed of. But put that aside, and here was a man unafraid to discuss his most intimate hopes in detail—and in a way, thanks to Maou and Chiho, he no longer hid any of that from Kisaki.

“He’s so happy, isn’t he?” Maou said, chuckling.

“As someone who put me in a lot of danger,” Chiho said, smiling back, “I can’t say I like it very much.”

“So, yeah, Chiho…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want you to forget about me.”

“Yes!”

“Why didn’t I erase your memories back then? I know I’ve said a lot, but in the end, it all boils down to that. I didn’t want you to forget about me. And now that’s even more true. If you forgot about me now, I know that’d leave a hole in my heart.”

“…Yes…!”

“So…give me just a little more time to answer your feelings. I’ve got one other thing now; one more thing I need to solve before I can answer you. Nothing to do with the assault on heaven. It’s a problem strictly about me…or between me and you.”

“…Yes!”

Tears were forming in Chiho’s eyes, tears she couldn’t hold back. She was trying her hardest to keep them in, but she was rapidly approaching her limit.

“That…and we have a certain order to think about. You remember what I told you, Chi.”

“Yes… Yes… Right.”

Chiho knew that Suzuno had confessed her love to Maou. It was different from the romance-driven love Chiho felt for him, but Maou had postponed his answer to those feelings as well. And no matter what he decided, Chiho made him promise that he’d save his answer to her for the very end. Considering Maou’s behavior up to now, that wasn’t too much to ask. That’s why Maou was so preoccupied with the “order” of things.

“…Um… Like, I’m sorry. You had yourself all ready, and I’m giving you this half-assed response.”

“That’s all right. I’m totally fine with it. But, um, I don’t think I, um, will be able to focus on studying too much today…”

Wiping away the tears she could no longer contain, she revealed a beaming smile beneath the streams.

“It’s certainly not done yet, after all.”

“No. If we can solve a few other things before then, it’ll be easier to think about more stuff.”

“…Thank you very much.”

“Don’t thank me. Really, I’m sorry I’ve made you wait so long.”

He put both hands against his cheeks. They were blushing—something very unusual for him.

“…!”

“Maou?!”

“…No, um, I—I feel so ashamed right now. I totally get why you ran from me that one time now. I, um, I’m gonna go on ahead a little! Good luck with your test prep, Chi! See you!”

Before he even took another breath, Maou was on his Dullahan II and pedaling away at a furious speed. Chiho watched him zoom away. It was all so unexpected.

“Oh, come on…”

She stood there until she could no longer see him. Then she shrank down, trying to shut in all the unbearable heat coming from within her chest. Despite her efforts, the love and happiness kept streaming out.

And that was why.

“But Maou…”

She wanted to release her feelings, like fireworks into the summer daylight. She knew everything there was to know about Maou—about Satan, the Devil King—but she still loved him. She wanted to shout it to the world.

And that was why…

“Haaahhh…!!”

Those feelings were exhaled, even hotter than the summer air.

Restraining the tears threatening to shoot out anew, Chiho took out her phone and called a very familiar number to her.

“Hello?”

She thought she was cutting it close timewise, but when she heard the noise in the background, she realized she was just in time. Or maybe the person she was calling was expecting Chiho to call her at this exact moment. The recipient of the call sounded like she was in a rail station—in front of Meidaimae Station, perhaps—and that made it natural for her to be able to answer Chiho’s call. And from that moment, until this one, the world that she saw had moved itself. Chiho wasn’t aware of this. But she was.

“Call? From Chi-sis?”

“Don’t take the phone, Alas Ramus.”

Through the speaker came the drama of a mother keeping a smartphone away from her child.

“Hello? Chiho?”

“…Yusa?”

Emi’s voice sounded as normal as ever. The same Emi Yusa that Chiho had known ever since she’d met and befriended her.

“Chiho? What’s up?”

Emi, picking up on Chiho’s erratic behavior, lowered the tone of her voice. She was worried for her, from the heart.

So Chiho drummed up the willpower to ask. She could no longer look at the path Maou had disappeared down.

“Yusa… Why… How… Did you know this would happen?”

“Hello, Your Demonic Highness. Did your apology at Lord Chiho’s residence go well? …Your Demonic Highness?”

It must have been the middle of his afternoon break. Libicocco, entering the staff room next to the changing area, removed his crewmember cap and sat on a folding chair, munching on a bag of something from the nearby convenience store and reading a magazine.

“Everything okay? You look kind of pale.”

Maou all but fell into the staff room, his breathing ragged. Feeling the AC breeze on his face, he dragged himself inside.

“You’re sweating a whole lot. Is it that hot outside?”

“…No……… It…… It’s nothing…”

“My liege?”

Maou was acting off. His panting was more of a wheeze, and despite all the sweating, his skin was a paler shade than usual.

“Urr…p… Libby… Sorry, that, that bag…”

Before Libicocco could respond, Maou grabbed the plastic bag from the convenience store…

“Nn…oo…gghhh…”

“M-my liege?!”

…and expelled the contents of his stomach into it.

“Wh-what has happened to you?! Did—did you get food poisoning…?!”

“D-don’t say that…in here… It’s not that… I’m sorry about, about the bag…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine! But you have a fever, too, don’t you? What happened?!”

“Don’t raise your voice. I feel a little better now. I can push myself to calm down. Ngh… Haah…”

His skin tone went from white to blue as he stood up, bracing his arm against the wall.

“Are you really all right? You should ask Ms. Iwaki to give you the day off…”

“I’m fine. Really. Unlike last time…there was no contact, so probably…”

The warm feeling came back to the pit of his stomach. He could feel himself recovering.

“Or is it the other way around…?”

Maou shook his head as he changed clothes, still catching his breath.

A kiss is a way to express your love, strongly, via physical contact. If his body had a negative reaction to love, the opposite of fear, he could understand that. But back there, he hadn’t even held hands with her, much less shared a kiss. Despite that, though, he immediately felt the demonic force inside him being rent apart.

He had touched Chiho several times before. They held hands all day during their date in Shinjuku. She had even held him in her arms once. If his body was going to physically recoil over a little affection, it should have happened well before now.

Was it because her feelings up until now had been more of a childlike puppy love? Or a blind sort of romance that hadn’t quite matured into full-on love? That couldn’t be the case, either. Rika Suzuki had told Ashiya she had a thing for him; Suzuno had told Maou she loved him. They were adult women, and their love was backed with supreme confidence. Even when Chiho grabbed his hand as they went upstairs to Laila’s apartment, her feelings couldn’t have been much different from now. She had even demonstrated her loyalty to him as a Great Demon General, and he physically picked her up during the zirga after obtaining the Spear of Adramelechinus.

So why only now?

“Ahh, this is…” he groaned.

“Why is Japan so hot?!”

That was the first thing Chiho shouted as she jammed the button on her AC’s remote. It was a familiar unit in a familiar space, and once it detected the temperature in the dank, humid room, it let out a whine and began blowing cold air in. At almost the same time, the door swung open.

“Chiho! You’re back?!”

Riho, her mother, was standing there, holding a back scratcher for some reason.

“Oh, hi, Mom. Why the back scratcher?”

“I heard a strange noise, so I was scared. When you come home, can come through the living room or front door? It’s bad for my heart.”

“The last time I did that, you spilled curry all over the carpet, remember? I can’t open a Gate in places where I could run into someone.”

“Honestly… Then at least text me when you’re coming back or something. I know you have ways to. Because when you open a Gate, it causes a lot of noise and shaking, you know.”

She lightly shook the back scratcher in her hand as she let out her complaints.

“Well?” she went on. “Tell me, which one was better?”

“Hmm… If I had to pick, Ente Isla.”

“It wasn’t cheap, you know, having you study abroad in London.”

Riho hung her head, although she’d half expected that answer.

“As your mother, you know, I’m happy with any job you think is your calling, but…you know, having you tilt this much toward another world…”

She sized up Chiho, head to toe.

“I mean, what kind of country were you even in?”

Her baggage was the usual wheeled sort, but Chiho was sporting the traditional wear of somewhere or other, featuring a rainbow of colors woven into shiny, silk-like fabric.

“Well, the design comes from the Wurs clan, but the fabric’s made by the Welland clan.”

“Yes, yes… You’re a lot more impressionable than I thought. You purchased that picture book with the cute British characters in London, too.”

“You could at least call it being broad-minded.”

“Well, look at it from my perspective, too, won’t you? My broad-minded daughter, going off to a whole other world…”

Riho smiled, a mix of emotions behind it.

“So how’s your stomach?”

“Hungry!”

It was a routine Chiho had played out with her mother thousands of times since childhood.

“Great. Your father’s been in Kyoto since last week, helping with security at this international conference. When I’m alone, I always wind up cooking too much…”

“I’ll eat anything if you made it, Mom.”

“Oh? Well, that’d help a lot. Eat it all, for all I care… But before that, go take a shower, will you? You’re smelling pretty dusty.”

“What? Oh! Sorry!”

Realizing this, Chiho blushed then left her baggage behind and made a beeline for the bathroom.

“Don’t put that outfit in the washer! I’d hate for all those colors to fade!”

“Okay!”

“Oof…”

The way she stormed around the house hadn’t changed one bit since her early childhood. It hadn’t…but now she was a college junior. She was past twenty, a grown woman. Riho sighed as she used the back scratcher on her spine, even though it didn’t itch at all.

“Maou’s perfectly happy working in Japan, so why is she so eager to work in Ente Isla…?”

Chiho had gone through two bowls of chicken and vegetable stew, left simmering for over a day to seal the flavor in, alongside some rice cooked up the day before and on the dry side as a result. She put both hands together, her face revealing her joy.

“Thank you so much!”

“You sure ate a lot.”

“I did.” She nodded, grinning wildly. “Honestly, if I’m gonna try to make it in Ente Isla, this is the biggest hurdle.”

“Oh?”

“There’s lots of good food over there, and by their standards I’m enjoying some pretty haute cuisine every day…but it gets so boring.”

“Oh, does it?”

“When I was in London, they had this place called the Japan Store off Piccadilly Circus, where they sold snacks and instant noodles from Japan.”

When her host family told her about this store, located on a side street off one of London’s busiest neighborhoods, Chiho didn’t see it as anything important at first. Her college friends and advisors told her a million times that once she spent a week overseas, she’d be aching for white rice and miso soup—but her three weeks in London were so busy and exciting, she didn’t have enough time to miss Japanese food.

Everyone also told her that British food was awful, but given this was the other side of the Northern Hemisphere, she assumed it wouldn’t agree with her at first, and either way, it wasn’t as bad as they all said. A lot of the soups and stews were better than in Japan, and most of the sushi places had actual Japanese soy sauce, as opposed to the “sushi” joints run by outfits from every Asian nation except Japan you often saw overseas. As long as the soy sauce was good, she knew, any sushi would be great, no matter how crazy it was—although either way, food was never a concern of hers.

But:

“Old Lidem, you know… I think she must’ve heard from Albert, but she tried to make some more Japanese-style food for me. She even opened up a restaurant serving Japanese-ish stuff. But…like, it’s all kind of off…”

“People like her don’t take half-measures, do they? And why are you being so fancy?”

Hearing about Lidem opening a restaurant must’ve shocked Riho.

Chiho’s Ente Isla study began right after her time in London ended, during her school’s summer break. She spent it on the Northern Island, in the “Goat Pasture” city of Phiyenci, the area she came to grow fondest of. Her mission: Do an internship.

“So what did you do in Ente Isla?”

“Well, I dunno… To sum up, I guess I mostly just did miscellaneous stuff for Lidem…but to put it another way, I was a politician’s secretary, a cabinet secretary… That kind of thing. I met a lot of Northern Island people, collected their demands and petitions, built a schedule for Lidem, and sometimes I’d step in and create resolutions for Lidem’s or the Wurs clan’s decisions…”

“Oh…?”

“Well, you said Lidem would be best because she goes around to a lot of Ente Isla, so that’s what I did, is all.”

Chiho, realizing her mother was sounding a little put off, hastily tacked on that addendum. It didn’t have much effect.

“So in the final week, I had Emeralda and Rumack guide me around Saint Aile. The imperial palace was so pretty. I took a lot of photos, so I’ll show them to you later.”

She made it sound so casual, but this wasn’t like checking out Japan’s Imperial Palace, or the changing of the guard over at Buckingham Palace in London. She was going inside a palace ruled by a real, living absolute monarch, and the fact she saw that as normal was nothing short of ominous.

“And you know, Lidem told me to bring my parents next time. You could check it out, too, Mom.”

“Well… Well, certainly, someday. But after this, Chiho…”

“…Oh, right! I gotta go out again after this.”

“What? But you just got here…!”

“Yeah, but it was just a forty-minute trip. I’m not all jet-lagged like after the UK, so once I change clothes, I gotta go. Thanks for the stew!”

“…Sure, sure. Just tell me if you need dinner or not later, all right?”

“Okay!”

Flinging some new clothes on (along with some quick makeup), she flew out the front door. Riho watched her go, then sank back into the living room sofa.

“If she’s like this before she even finds a job,” she muttered, “I hate to think what’ll happen once she’s married. I’ll need a new hobby to pass the time, I suppose. Siiiigh…”

Chiho hurried toward Sasazuka Station, feeling just a little bad for her dejected-looking mother and promising herself that she’d make up for it later. Today, at least, she had something even more important than her mother to handle.

“She should arrive in the afternoon… When was it again…?”

Chiho checked her messages then the train schedule on her phone.

“Great. I’ll be on time. Ten minutes early to Tokyo Station!”

Running through the cityscape—both familiar and fresh after three months away from it—Chiho jogged through the 100 Trees Shopping Arcade, crossed the Koshu-Kaido road, and arrived at Sasazuka Station.

There, right in front of the turnstile:

“Oh!”

“Ah!”

She ran right into Maou, who was traveling to Tokyo Station at the same time.

“Hey. Welcome back. We’ll be on time, right?”

“Thanks. We’ll be ten minutes early if all goes well.”

Maou and Chiho both waved and greeted each other. Then they went through the turnstile—Maou pressing his wallet against the card reader, Chiho using her phone.

“Y’know, everyone at work knew you were coming home from ‘study abroad’ today. They slammed me for not meeting you at the airport. I think that bastard Libicocco told them.”

“Ahh… Did he? Sorry. I’ll explain things to everyone later…”

“Nah, it’s fine… I think that’d hurt my rep even worse. But how was it? Did you get a lot to think about?”

“There’s still a lot troubling me, but I think it gave me a lot of material to work out my future with.”

“Yeah?”

“For now, I intend to find a job in Japan. But when choosing the firms to apply to, I have one condition I’m not gonna waver on.”

“What’s that?”

“A workplace where I don’t have to be in Japan during summer!”

“Yeah, that doesn’t even sound like a joke any longer. This is definitely the worst summer I’ve seen since coming to Japan. I’ve even started willingly buying sunblock.”

“Sunblock? …Hmmm?”

As they waited at the platform for the next train to Shinjuku, Chiho took a closer look at Maou’s face.

“Are you applying it all the way down your neck?”

“…No.”

“Well, your neck’s got weird tan lines on it. Like, your shirt collar, and probably your helmet visor, too.”

“…Oh. Well, you know, I don’t wanna waste it…”

Watching Maou awkwardly grope at his neck, Chiho let out a hearty laugh. The sight of him finding a chin hair he’d missed and wincing with the same awkwardness was even funnier to her.

“Seriously…”

The next train to Shinjuku slid into the station just then, blocking Chiho’s muttered observation.

“That part of you hasn’t changed at all.”