THE DEVIL FEELS THE PAIN OF LOSS
Amid the darkness of untwinkling stars, there was a great land, one bathed in red and blue.
This land, which shone a glistening azure, took the form of an enormous engraved cross, each branch teeming with life.
In one part of this great blue landscape, the stars were accompanied by a planet teeming with life. Therein lay a vast wilderness, one bereft of any sound. Not even a single breeze flowed through it.
A single vast tree, itself the same color as the azure land, loomed ominously in the wasteland.
This tree, standing in the vast, flat wilderness, lived for countless months and years. It brimmed with the force of countless souls, countless lives; but externally, it resembled little more than a withered husk.
There were no leaves to cover the heavens, no flowering buds to decorate the passing Springs, no fruit with which to celebrate this blue world’s bounty. There was just the tree, standing there alone, as if it had committed a great sin it could do nothing to atone for.
Ten shrines were built around this vast tree, as if to surround it, each bearing a name carved upon its entrance.
The first shrine was Keter. The next was Chokhmah, then Binah, Chesed, Gevurah, Tifaret, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and finally Malkuth.
These names belonged to someone. They must have. But no one could say where the people who could read and write these carved names could be now.
These shines were not stately buildings, no shining pillars or exquisite roofs adorning them. Instead, they were ten perfect spheres, like great stones dug up from the earth, spread out across the land like the enormous fruit the great tree must have borne at some distant time in the past.
One day, the blue wilderness was greeted with motion once more.
From the sphere carved with the word Yesod, a large figure appeared.
“Ah. Good. Found that one relatively quickly.”
It sounded like a man’s voice.
With that whisper, four pillars of light appeared around the large figure, each one soon taking the form of people themselves.
“After we received no response from the Central Continent, I was expecting to spend centuries searching…but it looks like we’ve lost nothing at all. The ‘fragments’ resonated with each other in a certain place.”
The people within the pillars of light began to murmur.
“The place Sariel disappeared to recently. Him, and likely…”
The large man took in the full length of the nearly rotted-out blue tree.
“Yes. That girl who stole the Yesod Sephirah is there as well.”
The large man raised his arms to the stars. The next moment, a great hole to another dimension opened up, filled with light and hovering in the air.
“Let us go. Go, and return the tree of Sephirot to its intended form.”
Then the five figures disappeared into the Gate.
Soon, the light from the Gate was gone, and silence returned to the azure land.
The five figures that once stood by the great tree now beheld the land engraved with the cross of life—Ente Isla, the Land of the Holy Cross. The azure land stayed close to this land of life, lazily revolving around it, but never daring to stray near the crimson orb that lurked beyond them both.
It was just a little bit before Maou and Emi disembarked from the Tokyo Big-Egg Ferris wheel.
“Yo! Bell! You around?!”
“Nrgh… Wh-what is it, Lucifer?”
Suzuno was surprised to find Urushihara outside of his closet fortress. She was even more surprised to find him visiting her room, in a state of panic.
She was enjoying a late lunch of boiled udon, causing her to almost choke on a mouthful when he burst through the door.
Urushihara noticed the heaping pile of chilled noodles in Suzuno’s bowl. Suzuno nimbly followed his eyes.
“There is none for you.”
“Yeah, I don’t need any udon for a while. I ordered in some pizza just now, so… Wait! Dude, that doesn’t matter!”
After making the confession, which would likely rile Ashiya back into his demonic form if he heard it, Urushihara asked Suzuno a question.
“Did you notice that just now?”
“Notice?”
Suzuno tilted her head in confusion.
“Guess not, huh? Hey, do you know how to contact Emilia? I’ll call Maou myself. I think we better get ’em back here ASAP.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
Suzuno frowned, noticing Urushihara acting sincere for a change.
“Just do it, dude. I don’t know why, but this huge Gate just opened up somewhere in Tokyo. I think we got some trouble brewing.”
With that, Urushihara zoomed back to his room and launched the SkyPhone app on his computer. Suzuno, finding it difficult to believe his behavior was just an act, picked up her phone and brought up Emi’s number.
That was when five figures materialized in Villa Rosa Sasazuka’s front yard.
“Whoa, whoa, you didn’t say anything about visitors.”
Maou flashed an easy smile, but still made sure to keep Alas Ramus behind him.
“So what happened first? The Gate, or this?”
“I apologize, Devil King… We were caught completely unawares.”
“Yeah, I’ll admit I didn’t think they’d make a move that quick.”
Suzuno grovelingly made the apology. Urushihara, meanwhile, demonstrated his usual lack of conscience.
“Ohh, there’s no need to blame them, mm-kay? They were nice enough to give you two a buzz, after all!”
Maou and Emi, hurriedly returning to Villa Rosa Sasazuka, found themselves greeted by neither Urushihara nor Suzuno.
“Besides, we aren’t doing anything too rough, ya know? It’d be a huuuge win-win for all of us if we can talk this out, so hopefully we can avoid any sticking points and stuff like that, mm-kay?”
The air inside Devil’s Castle was stifling.
Chiefly this was because the population density inside was causing the room temperature to skyrocket.
There were, after all, ten people in a hundred-square-foot apartment. Though, in strict humanist-biological terms, Suzuno Kamazuki was the only “person” there.
“Gabriel?”
“Ooh, bingo! Right square on the head! You must tell me how you guessed! Have we met before?”
The giant, easygoing, weirdly intense man, one Maou would have loved to punch right now, seemed to be the leader of the uninvited guests.
He had blue hair, cut neatly at the shoulders, and his eyes held no apparent concern or anxiety over anything. His upper body was easily as long as Ashiya’s, though, and the bulging muscles made him look like a professional wrestler. He wore a body-length toga, something that would’ve been stylish among the ancient Greeks, and it couldn’t have looked less natural on him.
Besides the one Maou called “Gabriel,” four other men were in Devil’s Castle. One was holding a ridiculously ornate longsword to Suzuno’s throat, while the other three stood guard around Urushihara as he sat cross-legged on the floor.
“Yeah, uh, I heard that one of the archangels up there was this huge freak that made your head hurt whenever you talked to him.”
“Aww, that’s just being mean! Hey, what kinda rumors are people spreading about me when my back’s turned? I’m gonna have to bang some heads around, if you know what I mean!”
“That, and you’re the guardian angel of the Sephirah known as Yesod, aren’t you?”
“Ee-hee-hee! You do know how to flatter a man, don’t you?”
“Can you knock that off? All right. Let’s just cut the crap and get to the point. What do you want?”
“Well, that girl hiding behind you, for starters. And, ooh, if you don’t mind my being totally greedy, Emilia’s holy sword as well! Also, we ate all the pizza Lucifer ordered from Pizza Hat. Sorr-eeee!”
“You ordered that now? Now, of all friggin’ times?!”
Not even Maou could retain his composure. Urushihara shuddered.
“Oh, stop getting your whiskers in a bunch! We’ll pay for it later, mm-kay?”
“That’s not what I’m worried about! …Well, okay, I am, but still!”
Maou stopped himself midway. There was Ashiya’s ire to worry about later as well.
“Oh, wait, wait, wait! How ’bout this: Give us the girl, or you’ll never see your precious pizza money again!”
“What kind of parent would give up his daughter to a bunch of kidnappers to get out of a pizza tab?!”
Maou was screaming by now.
“Besides, aren’t you guys kind of late? How many days d’you think she’s been here with us?”
“Hey, now, maybe it was a few days to you, but we’ve been searching for centuries by this point. Centuries! So cut me a little slack if we were off a tad, mm-kay? I mean, when I picked up pulses from the Yesod fragment, I was just about beside myself! You wouldn’t believe what a doggie downer it was when that girl’s fragment was taken away from the Devil’s Castle on Ente Isla. I was like, ‘Oooh, not yet more centuries spent searching for that thing again…’—Oh!”
The man apparently named Gabriel stopped himself midspeech.
“Right! ‘Cut the crap,’ you said! Yes yes yes! Are you giving us the girl, or not? Which is it?”
He was nothing like what Maou expected—they never were, by his experience—but judging by his fixation on Emi’s holy sword, these had to be servants of the heavens. Angels, in other words.
The large man didn’t deny his name was Gabriel, either. Which meant, probably, that this was Alas Ramus’s real parent, or guardian, or whatever.
“……”
But the look on Alas Ramus’s face as she stared at Gabriel was clearly one of alarm. There was no way she bore any friendly feelings toward him.
“Hey, Alas Ramus? Do you know this big lummox here at all? ’Cause it sounds like he wants to take you with him.”
“No!! I haaaate him!!!!”
“Noooooooooooooo!!!”
Gabriel put on a Shakespearian performance of shock following Alas Ramus’s instant response.
“Stop calling me ‘big,’ you! Words can hurt, mm-kay?”
That was what floored him? The men covering Suzuno and Urushihara stirred, silently attempting to hide their embarrassment.
“Market, ’n’ Ketter, ’n’ Binah, ’n’ Cocama, all gone! I haaate him!!”
“Ooooh, twist the knife, why don’t you?”
Alas Ramus’s follow-up was enough to make Gabriel bring a hand to his head.
“…I don’t really get what’s going on here, but if Alas Ramus isn’t up for it, then I don’t care if you’re her dad or not. She’s not going anywhere.”
“Awwww… Okay, how ’bout the holy sword…?”
“I’ll pass, thanks. I don’t care if the gods themselves beg me for it. I’m not handing it over to anyone until I fulfill my mission.”
“…Ooooh, you are making this awfully difficult, you know that? What kind of Hero and Devil King is this? So difficult. I really don’t want to get rough here, but now that I’ve found this girl, I’m kind of beholden to get her back, sooooo…”
“Like I care.”
“The holy sword, I suppose I can do without. Even if Sariel screwed the pooch on that one, at least we know where it is, more or less. But I’m gonna have to put my foot down when it comes to the girl. So…please? Just give ’er back?”
“Nope.”
“She was kind of mine firrrrrst…”
“And I’m her dad now.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
“Even if it means you versus everybody in heaven?”
“Sounds like a risk I’ll take. I ain’t gonna make this kid cry.”
Gabriel muttered forlornly to himself.
“…So difficult. This really gets my goat, do you understand…that?!?!”
He released a jet-propelled blast of holy energy from his entire body, one strong enough to nearly crush everyone against the room’s walls.
It all happened in the blink of an eye. It was enough to make Maou stagger.
“I really hate forcing people like this. If you wanna surrender anytime, don’t be shy about sayin’ it, mm-kay?”
Gabriel, still as intensely happy-go-lucky as always, was in front of Maou’s eyes before he knew it.
“Whoa!”
From the edge of his eye, Maou noticed the holes Gabriel had bored into the tatami mat floor with his feet, as a result of the blast.
“Y’know, even if you had all your Devil King strength, I’d probably still win and all, right? So…maybe just give her back?”
There was a quiet, almost sanctified air to the room, one so oppressive that it seemed ready to crush everyone inside.
“…Damn, are you serious?”
Maou swallowed nervously. Against all the foes he had fought in his life, nobody had ever intimidated him so much before.
It wasn’t because he was weaker now.
It was because he was fighting a guardian of Sephirot, an angel several degrees more powerful than anything he had ever experienced.
It was a surprise. But it didn’t make him relent.
“Well, it’s still no from me. I’m the lord of all demons. I love doing things humans and angels just hate. Once I conquer the world, I’m gonna raise this girl to be the heir to my throne.”
“I’ll try to go easy on you, mm-kay? It wouldn’t be fair otherwise, what with your total lack of demonic force and all. …And don’t forget about the surrender thing, too!”
That was the signal that negotiations had failed.
Gabriel’s conditions seemed generous enough. It went without saying that Maou had no chance of winning this.
A simple brush of his hand against Maou’s arm would have been enough to turn him into confetti.
But there was one thing in the room capable of stopping an archangel’s holy light.
“Maou!!!!”
It was a simple shout. Not magic, not a sword slash, but a shout.
But the shout was enough to halt the archangel’s attack.
Everyone turned toward the source of the scream.
“Maou…”
It was Chiho.
Sweaty and out of breath, Chiho was atop the stairway, looking inside the room.
“Chiho?! No! Get away!”
Emi rushed to warned Chiho away. But the girl only shook her head.
“…I thought that I needed to apologize for today…”
“For today?”
“And then…this happened… I know I can’t really do anything, but I couldn’t just sit there.”
Maou still had no idea he had been subjected to a stakeout from Chiho and her companions.
Chiho had made it back to Sasazuka ahead of the pack, but then returned home, unable to take the regret of betraying Maou’s trust in her. But stewing in her room provided no solace either, and now she was here again.
“…You must be from this world, huh? Well, this isn’t anything you’d be familiar with. Calling the police isn’t gonna help at all. I bet you won’t believe me, but me and this Sadao Maou guy…”
“I know all that!”
Chiho’s shout stopped Gabriel’s lips cold.
“I live here in Japan, but I know all that. All about Maou—about Satan, and Emilia the Hero, and Ente Isla, too. That…and how you’re probably an angel here to pick up Alas Ramus.”
Gabriel shook his head in comic disbelief.
“Well! I was impressed enough that you’ve been interacting so naturally with visitors from another world, but you even spotted me right off as an angel! Heavens be! Do I really look that angelic to you?”
The archangel’s descent back into trivial flamboyance shook Chiho for a moment.
“…Up to now, if anyone’s done anything really bad to Maou or Yusa, it’s been an angel, so…”
The response was almost too honest for its own good.
Maou, Emi, and Suzuno looked on in astonishment. Gabriel and his crew winced painfully. Urushihara, meanwhile, busted out in laughter.
“Well. No comment when it comes to Lucifer, let me tell you, but what’d Sariel ever do to you guys?”
Gabriel was clearly thrown. There was too much previous evidence to deny the truth any further.
“Yeah, I’ll grant you that Sariel and me didn’t exactly live up to the image people have of angels around here…”
“Welllll, then why don’t you stop digging a hole for yourself, mm-kay? Image is important, you know.”
“Oh, like you’re one to talk about image. And what about these guys you dragged in with you? These are, like, first-level street punks in a yakuza film.”
Urushihara glared at the four figures guarding himself and Suzuno. For some reason, they stepped back, as if scared of him.
Gabriel sighed in exasperation as Urushihara flashed a victorious smile.
“Well. Anyway. I’m sorry, but, uh, we’re a bit occupied right now? In several ways? I’m trying to talk this out, but if you don’t want to get hurt, I’d recommend getting out of here while you can, mm-kay?”
“Ooh, dude, I love it. That’s total level-one-boss street-punk dialogue. I can just eat that crap up all day.”
Nobody was lending an ear to Urushihara’s chippy repartee. Their eyes were on someone else.
“Please. Don’t take Alas Ramus away from us.”
They were focused on Chiho, her head bent deeply downward toward Gabriel.
Even though she knew the move assuaged her ego more than anything else, even though she had no idea what would truly make Alas Ramus the happiest, everything that Chiho saw drove her to take action.
“Alas Ramus really loves Maou and Yusa. So…please.”
A droplet fell to her feet.
“Chi…”
“Chiho…”
“Aw, sheesh, lady, cut that out! C’mon, put your head up for me…”
Then, to the surprise of everyone involved, Gabriel found himself deeply moved by the actions of a simple human, a mere wisp of a teenage girl.
“This is totally unfair, mm-kay? You’re all making me out to be the mean ol’ angel here! It’s like I’m some kinda grifter in a TV show, brushing off the crying girl in the corner while I strong-armed some poor schlub for the money he owed me!”
“What the hell are you going on about?”
Maou, somewhat unversed in the world of TV crime drama, quizzically looked on.
“Please… I really mean it…please…”
“Dahhh!! Come on already! Stop crying! Really, cut me a break already! Sheesh, if I knew this was gonna happen, I would’ve taken someone flailing at me with a baseball bat any ol’ day! Hey, c’mon, give an angel some slack here!”
Gabriel, now completely ignoring Maou and Emi, did his level best to assuage Chiho’s nerves.
“Please…please…”
But Chiho refused to raise her head, repeating her appeal to Gabriel over and over again.
“Ugggghhh, all right!”
Gabriel waved his hands in surrender, his voice indignant.
“You have until tomorrow!!”
“Lord Gabriel?!”
“What are you saying?!”
The men around Urushihara and Suzuno turned to Gabriel, their faces betraying total disbelief.
Gabriel ignored them as he uncomfortably watched the teary-eyed Chiho stare up at him.
“I… Oooooh!! Look, we angels, we’ve got our own problems to deal with, too, mm-kay? So first thing in the morning tomorrow, we’re hoppin’ right on back here! Feel free to get your family photos taken or whatever in the meantime! But don’t think you can escape or anything, mm-kay?”
“R-really?!”
Chiho’s face brightened.
Gabriel, unable to look her in the face any longer, averted his eyes.
“J-just till tomorrow! I can’t wait any longer than that, mm-kay? And you, Devil King! If you try fishing your demonic power out from behind the closet or whatever, you’re gonna pay for that! And that’s a fact, Jack!”
“Th-thank you very much!”
He intended to lay a final line in the sand, but this pure, unsullied expression of goodwill from Chiho stopped him in his tracks yet again.
“Let… Let’s go, you bastards!”
The outburst of holy power from before was now a barely discernible mist as Gabriel stomped toward the door.
“…Oh, nice closing line, Gabriel! ‘Let’s go, you bastards!’ I sound like such a street punk…” With that final self-effacing remark, Gabriel shook his shoulders angrily and trudged out the door with his entourage.
The minions followed him out in line, like ducklings following their mother, each one of them nudging Maou’s shoulder on the way in classic mafioso fashion.
“Ow! Hey! Hey! Dammit!”
Maou glared sullenly at them as they left, knowing full well he was outpowered, just as Gabriel took the first step downstairs.
“Agh!”
The demons heard the sound of something heavy tumbling down the stairs with a tremendous clatter.
“Lord Gabriel!”
“Lord Gabriel!!”
Gabriel had taken the stairs via the express route. He wasn’t alone.
“Ah!”
“Wah!”
“Whoa!”
“Nragh!”
Four shrill, cut-off screams, followed by four heavy objects exhausting their potential energies in rapid succession, were heard from outside.
“Oh, like I’m not having a bad enough day!!”
Gabriel was heard squabbling with his entourage for another minute or two before the voices faded away.
Then, as if on cue:
“I am back, my liege. Ah, this oppressive heat…”
Ashiya, swaggering in with almost too much carefree abandon, wiped his brow as he climbed the stairs. Wholly unaware of the past chain of events, his lips curled upward a bit once he saw Maou and Alas Ramus were safe.
“I noticed a group of people leaving. More people from the MHK begging for your broadcast license fee?”
“…Not a care in the world with you, huh? We kinda have an emergency here. Where the hell were you?”
“Huh? Whuh? What?”
Ashiya took that moment to notice the dark, frigid atmosphere that prevailed in Devil’s Castle, despite the sweltering heat outside.
“Um… Ignoring the completely clueless Ashiya for a moment…”
Now that the immediate threat was gone, Urushihara chose this moment to break the ice.
“What’re we gonna do now?”
The curtain of night wrapped itself firmly around Devil’s Castle.
“Ooghooo!”
Satan, lord of the castle, the Devil King who once plotted to conquer all Ente Isla and plunge it into unimaginable terror, sat face-to-face with Emilia Justina, the Hero who stood up to crush his vile ambitions.
“Daouuu!”
Anxiety and murderous rage filled every nook and cranny of Devil’s Castle. A single provocation, no matter how slight, would be enough to trigger a bloodbath.
“Naaarrhh…”
A light breeze, a droplet of rain, even a pebble clinking against the roadside could provide the spark to engulf the room in the flames of battle.
“Mommeee, Mommeee…”
Just as the brutal waves of crashing fury and force reached their peak:
“Wapph!”
The girl jogging around the Hero and the Devil King stumbled, nearly striking her head against the table in the middle of the Castle’s sole room.
“!!”
The Devil King and Hero both responded at once, extending a hand of support.
That saved the girl from danger, but putting their arms out at the same time caused the Devil King’s hand to brush against the Hero’s.
“D-don’t touch me!”
“Ow! Jeez, don’t scratch me…”
With a frenzied shout of dismay, the Hero slapped the Devil King’s hand away, leaving a line of red, irritated skin on his hand. It was just a scratch, not enough to break skin.
“Look, can you tell me what your problem’s been tonight?” he asked.
“You’ve been relying on other people for everything here! And you pick this moment to get involved?”
“Oh, like you’ve been the ideal mother yourself!”
“Daddy, no! No fighting!”
A figure much, much smaller than the Devil King or the Hero stepped in to end the duel between the two natural-born enemies.
“Oh, uh, no, Alas Ramus, we aren’t fighting or anything.”
“N-no! Not at all! So don’t cry, okay?”
“…Really?”
Alas Ramus peered closely at the two of them. Something about their hurried defense smelled fishy to her. She needed further confirmation.
“R-really! Really really!”
“Yeah, totally!”
“Nee-hee-hee!”
The girl, placing her trust upon the Hero and Devil King as they fell over themselves to lie to her, smiled in relief as she grabbed Emi.
“You’ll be here foreeeever, Mommy?”
“That…ummmm…”
“…! …!”
Maou sent her an invisible signal. Emi ignored the white noise.
“What about you, Alas Ramus? Do you want me… Do you want Mommy to be here?”
“Yeah! Together with Mommy! Forever!”
“Ahhhhh…”
Emi attempted a smile to hide the hopelessness in her mind.
“And Daddy, too!”
“Ohhhhh…”
Maou had no way of dodging this second salvo, either.
Then, awkward silence fell again.
Alas Ramus, not picking up on this, began a bold quest to climb up Emi’s back.
Thanks to Chiho barging in at just the right time, Maou and Emi managed to keep Alas Ramus safe without anyone getting hurt.
But it only seemed to be delaying the inevitable.
No matter how much Alas Ramus railed against it, Maou knew—and Suzuno, with all her theological training, certainly knew—that the Sephirah called Yesod was the property of the heavens.
And right now, none of the people involved with Alas Ramus had any ability to fend for themselves against Gabriel.
Emi and Suzuno retained some semblance of fighting power, barring something like Sariel’s special holy energy–draining skill.
But—and this was something else they already knew—they had no motivation to actively risk their necks over this.
Once Gabriel left, it was naturally Chiho who first questioned the unfamiliar “Tree of Sephirot” term.
“The Tree of Sephirot is the tree in Heaven from which everything in the world sprang forth. Anyone who partakes of the fruit of Sephirot, it is said, shall gain immortality and the gifts of boundless knowledge. The first human beings created by the gods consumed one of these fruits, as the story goes, breaking a divine promise and causing the gods to cast them away from the paradise they lived in.”
“Wow, that’s pretty similar to what we have on Earth. Like, Adam and Eve in the Bible and so forth…”
Suzuno nodded at Chiho.
“The tree bore ten fruits, known as Sephirah, each one corresponding to a different aspect of the world, or life itself. Each has its own planets, colors, metals, precious stones, and so on associated with it… For example, the first Sephirah, Keter, is said to govern over the soul, human thought, and imagination; it corresponds to the number one, its jewel is the diamond, its color white, its planet that of the god of the underworld, and its guardian angel Metatron. The fourth Sephirah is known as Chesed, governing over divine love; its number is four, its metallic element tin, its color blue, its planet that of the god of thunder, and its guardian angel Zadkiel…and so on down the line. All ten Sephirah possess aspects that correspond with the elements of the world, and I imagine Alas Ramus is attracted to colorful objects because they remind her of the colors each Sephirah lays claim to. Yesod, by the way, is the ninth Sephirah; it governs over the astral planes and one’s self-consciousness, its number is nine, its metallic element silver, its color purple, its planet that of the blue heavens, and its guardian angel Gabriel.”
The room fell silent for several moments after Suzuno’s quick rundown. Maou was the first to speak.
“…You actually memorized all of that crap?”
“These are the core tenets of our theology!”
“Can you just, like, give us the thirty-second recap, dude?”
“What right does a former archangel have to say that?!”
Suzuno bit back at Urushihara’s blithe request.
“Now, now, now… That’s just Urushihara being Urushihara, so…”
Chiho’s comment was enough to quell Suzuno’s anger, though she still remained dissatisfied at his lack of dedication to his heavenly origin. Next, Emi spoke up.
“So why did she call herself ‘Alas Ramus’ from the get-go? Why didn’t she say ‘Yesod’ instead?”
“It may be because this child is simply a fragment of the Sephirah, or there may be some other, as-yet-unknown reason. It seems clear, at least, that Gabriel did not give her that name. He never once referred to her as Alas Ramus. But regardless, assuming we should take the old legends at face value, if Alas Ramus is truly a fragment…a segment of the Sephirah Yesod from the Tree of Sephirot, then everything Gabriel told us would make sense. In other words, the elements of the world governed by Yesod are facing imminent danger. A danger that could affect the whole world. And if Gabriel wants to protect the balance of the world, as is his job as its guardian angel, then he would need Alas Ramus.”
“Oh…so…”
Chiho sadly raised her voice.
“So Alas Ramus needs to go after all, huh…?”
“Not necessarily.”
Suzuno’s sudden veer over to her side caught Chiho by surprise.
“The presence of the fruits of Sephirot as the core that forms the world, and the guardian angels managing them are really only something laid out by our holy scriptures and mythology. It is not something anyone has ever seen with their own eyes. There has been no confirmation of it.”
“Confirmation…?”
“For example, the tenth Sephirah, Malkuth…”
Suzuno was stopped midsentence.
“Market!”
Alas Ramus immediately reacted to the term. Maou stepped in.
“…Come to think of it, she talked about being friends with ‘Market’ on the Ferris wheel. Do Malkuth and the other Sephirah have personalities like Alas Ramus?”
Suzuno shook her head despondently.
“I have never heard of anything like that…but I think the fact this is news even to me could lead to what I am trying to say.”
“Oh, right, sorry to cut you off. Keep going.”
“Yes. Malkuth is located at the bottom level of the tree of life, governing over the physical world. Its number is ten, its precious stone crystal. It is associated with multiple colors, including bright yellow and olive green, and its planet is the Land of Life, which is meant to symbolize Ente Isla. According to legend, at least, if Malkuth were to cease existing for some reason, that would put the existence of crystals, the color yellow, and even Ente Isla itself in danger.”
Suzuno paused for a moment, glancing around her audience.
“But take a moment to consider this. Could you imagine all the crystals in the world disappearing all at once simply because some fruit fell off a tree in another world? What kind of phenomenon would it take for a single object to engineer such massive disasters across sea and land? Even the story in our scriptures about the ‘first human beings’ eating the forbidden fruit is subject to many interpretations. Is that fruit related to the Sephirah, or not? The Church has yet to reach a conclusive answer. As the Devil King just said, there may indeed be something to the Sephirah we could interpret as individual personalities. But, in the end, the idea that the Tree of Sephirot supports all in the world is simply something told in legend. There is no evidence of it. There are many of us who hold a connection with the heavens, but no human being has ever set foot in that divine realm. Thus, in my opinion, I doubt the world would be plunged into crisis due to Alas Ramus not being available.”
“Dude, I’m sorry, is this college all of a sudden?”
“…That being said, there is no doubting the existence of heaven, or angels, and if they wish to have this fragment of Yesod back, we have no way of resisting them. It is a horribly cruel state of affairs.”
The eyes of everyone were focused on Alas Ramus, held against Maou’s knees.
“…Man, this is a total pain in the ass.”
Maou blithely picked at his ear in response.
“Yo. Alas Ramus.”
“Hiii, Daddy!”
“That guy just now wanted to bring you back to his home, but do you wanna go with him?”
“No!!”
The refusal was clear and intense.
“Okay.”
Maou slapped one of his crossed legs.
“Right, end of discussion. If those guys tomorrow do anything Alas Ramus doesn’t like, we’re fighting to the end.”
“Wh-whoa! Wait a second!!”
Emi was less than accepting.
“Don’t you understand what kind of situation we’re in?! Bell and I don’t stand a chance taking on someone like Gabriel face-to-face, and Alciel and Lucifer don’t even have any of their power back!”
“I know. If it comes to that, I’ll take ’em on myself.”
“Yourself? Are you crazy?! How can you say that?! You realize what kind of shape you’re in?!”
“All right. Eesh, lay off a sec. Like me getting my ass beat by him is anything bad for you guys, right?”
“…I, wait, are you…?”
“This is what I want, okay? I don’t want to give Alas Ramus back, because she doesn’t want to go back. And to you humans, if I lose, then ding-dong, the Devil King’s dead and the Yesod fragment’s back where it should be in heaven, right? What’s the problem?”
“But…but…!!”
“Devil King! Are you truly fine with that?!”
“Maou!”
Emi remained unconvinced, as Suzuno and Chiho found themselves similarly unable to remain silent. Maou rolled his eyes as they confronted him.
“Hey, Ashiya? Urushihara? A little help here?”
“…Y-your Demonic Highness, this is simply…”
“Uhh…well, not like I give a crap either way, but I’m really startin’ to dig life inside this closet, so that would kinda harsh my buzz, y’know?”
“Oh, not you, too, guys…”
“And despite everything we say, you still fail to see?!”
Suzuno lashed out at Maou anew.
Alas Ramus, surprised at the suddenness of it, took a tumble off Maou’s lap.
“No! Suzu-Sis, you’re mean to Daddy!”
She stood strong, extending her little body as straight up as possible to protect Daddy from danger. Suzuno briskly pushed her aside as she moved to grab Maou by the collar.
“It matters little here whether you are Devil King or not! But all of us…even Lucifer, in his own way, finds the idea of Alas Ramus going someplace she dislikes as abhorrent! If Alas Ramus were to be taken away to a place like that…I would rather keep her in your hovel instead!”
“…I’m not exactly sure that’s how a Church cleric is supposed to talk…”
“I may be a Church cleric, but I am also a politician! I know how to compromise for the greater good! Besides, look at the sheer arrogance of that man, acting like he’s the sole steward of an object he let free for hundreds of years! The whole Tree of Sephirot is itself a pile of rubbish!!”
“So…is that what you’re all saying?”
“What?!”
“Saying how?”
“…What do you mean?”
“Yes, my liege?”
“What…”
Maou let out a wry smile, baring his teeth to the crowd.
“You guys all really like Alas Ramus, don’t you?”
“…!”
Suzuno gasped softly.
“…Well, thanks.”
It was the one word no Devil King would ever say, but one he had been throwing around over and over as of late.
“But when it comes to picking a fight against somebody holy, the Devil King’s kinda got a monopoly on that. This is too much for you guys. I’ve got something that belongs to the gods here, and I’m gonna keep it from them because I wanna. So if push comes to shove with Gabriel tomorrow, you don’t have to step in, okay?”
Suzuno, bewildered, removed her hands from Maou’s collar.
“And if it works out in the end, then great, right? Go hard or go home.”
“Hey!”
“Wait!”
“Maou!”
“My liege!”
“…Dude.”
“Guys, shut up!”
Maou waved his hands against the surround-sound wall of complaints.
“This isn’t some kind of movie. All the ’tude in the world isn’t gonna help me get past this guy. I’m a grown man, all right? Expect the best, but plan for the worst! Hey, Emi!”
“What?!”
“You’re sleeping over here tonight!”
This was not the kind of risk management anyone had pictured.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaa?!”
“How is this possibly risk management?!”
Emi glared at Maou, who still had Alas Ramus on his outstretched legs. She picked up the young girl, the toddler gleefully swinging her legs in the air in response.
“Hey, if I do wind up going at it with Gabriel, I figured that’d force you to get involved in the fight for me. You see? Always thinking two steps ahead! My mind’s a steel trap!” Maou announced proudly.
“…Do you seriously mean that?”
“Well, more than I don’t. I think I said this before, but it’s about time you step up to handle something for a change, right?”
“Oh, me handling the Devil King’s problems? Yeah, they’d be cheering my name back home if they heard that one.”
“Yaaaayy!”
Alas Ramus’s sudden cheer from within Emi’s arms was likely a coincidence. It was still enough to make Maou and Emi feel ridiculous for a moment.
“Anyway. More than I don’t, like I said, but I am trying to think about this logically a little. I’m not asking you to take up my side or anything, but if we do wind up throwing down, you could at least make sure Alas Ramus doesn’t get hurt.”
“Oh…well, if that’s all you’re asking for…but what do you mean, you’re ‘trying to think’ about this?” Emi replied. “Do you have a plan, or are you just gonna enjoy your final night with this kid? ’Cause if you do, I’d like to hear it, or else I don’t know what I can do here.”
Maou wasn’t speaking as if he intended to lose without a fight, but he betrayed no evidence of anything resembling a fighting chance. Apparently his stance was to make the most of what time they had so she’d have something pleasant to recall on the other side.
So here they were, all sleeping in the same room.
By and large, Alas Ramus had been a good little girl up to this point, except for the occasional fit she pitched about Mommy not being around. As a parent, it was only natural to want to sleep with Mommy for a change, even if just for a single night.
Chiho was wholeheartedly supportive, and Suzuno approved as well, although she did so with the most acerbic facial expression possible. Ashiya was dead set against it, but ultimately she agreed on the condition that he be stationed in Suzuno’s room in case anything bad happened. Urushihara, meanwhile, could sleep anywhere as long as his laptop was nearby.
There was no guaranteeing anyone’s safety tonight, so Emi, seeing no other option, agreed to spend the night in Devil’s Castle so long as Chiho left early in the evening.
Ashiya accompanied Chiho back home, then invited himself into Suzuno’s room alongside Urushihara. It was a very unlikely room share, given everyone’s past history of being close confidants/mortal enemies.
Maou shot a glance at Emi, largely indifferent to her question.
“I’m just risking my life for a kid. Like any parent would. But, you know, I wouldn’t worry much. If anything happens, it’s probably not gonna be any big deal for you.”
“…I wish I knew where that confidence of yours comes from.”
“If you’re expecting some basis for it, keep lookin’. But it’s weird, you know? It’s like, if it’s for Alas Ramus’s sake, I feel like I can do anything.”
“Oh, so now the Devil King’s playing the spunky against-all-odds movie hero again? Didn’t you just say that a positive attitude isn’t gonna help anyone here?”
“Yeah, and I’ll probably be paying for that pretty soon. But, you know, all the guys who died against me and my demon forces…they probably kept going ’til the very end for their own kids, too. And if they can do that, why can’t the Devil King, huh?”
Emi was fully prepared to crack back at Maou. But the serenity in his voice gave her pause.
“What… What’s that… Stop acting like you’re starting some glorious new chapter in your life.”
In the end, that was all that came out. Even that was at a barely audible mutter as she averted her eyes, for Maou’s sentiment reminded her of the face her father made as she was taken away from her village.
And just as he said, this was payback. Just desserts for the king of all demons, the monster who took countless lives, and separated her from her father.
And yet, oddly enough, Emi found herself dejected.
The Devil King is facing the same torment, the same sadness I faced. So why is my chest in so much pain over it?
“Mommy?”
Alas Ramus worriedly looked up at Emi.
Maou, watching the both of them, grinned a little. He turned toward the wall clock in an attempt to brighten the mood.
“Right! Better get some shut-eye, then!”
“Wh-what?! It’s not even ten yet! That’s way too early!”
“Too early for us grown-ups, but Alas Ramus needs to get to bed. Whether we stay up all night or not, Gabriel’s still coming tomorrow.”
“B-but…but…”
“Sleep together, Mommy! All sleep together!”
“Oooooh…”
The Devil’s Castle lacked any fluffy beds or futons to sleep on. There were just a few medium-weight blankets to share. The effect wasn’t nestling together as a big, happy family so much as three guys crashing on the floor with whatever was handy.
But to Emi, the idea of lying down in close proximity with Maou, whether Alas Ramus was between them or not, had to be tough to swallow. This, after all, was voluntary, far different from the last time she spent the night over.
And it was the same for Maou. He had trouble turning over to his side, the vision of Emi’s hands upon Alas Ramus’s throat the moment he fell asleep vivid in his mind.
But Alas Ramus was too eager to sleep together with Mommy and Daddy. Even now she was excitedly pulling the blankets out from the closet, spreading them out in any number of chaotic configurations.
“Whoa, whoa, don’t trip again.”
“Come here, Alas Ramus. That dumb ol’ daddy of yours will take care of it.”
Emi watched as Maou sluggishly helped set up their bed.
“…You better put on a light somewhere.”
She said it out of something between caution and confirmation.
“Well, yeah. She gets scared when it’s too dark.”
That wasn’t why she asked for it, but—oh, right, kids did use night-lights sometimes, right? Well, fine. That worked, too.
“Oh, does Alas Ramus have any nightclothes or anything?”
“You mean like pajamas? …You know, that’s actually all the clothes she has, I guess.”
Maou glanced down at Alas Ramus’s yellow dress as she set up three blankets on the floor.
“Uhh… You’ve been doing her laundry and stuff, right? Did you ever give her a bath?”
Emi was unable to hide her surprise at this new nugget of information. Apparently Alas Ramus had sported a single outfit since she showed up several days ago. In the dead of summer, no less.
“I did her laundry, okay? And I took her to the public bath. You don’t have to treat me like an idiot. Her stuff dried really quick in the heat, and she just trotted around the room in her diaper otherwise.”
“…I don’t believe you.”
Ignoring his sleeping partner’s disaffected stare, Maou looked at Alas Ramus’s straw hat hanging on the wall.
“Yeah, well, we haven’t bought her anything besides that hat, so… I forget if the UniClo in Sasazuka sells children’s clothes or not.”
“Oonislow?”
“I really wish you’d stop treating UniClo as the solution to every single problem in your life. She’s a girl, remember? Didn’t you ever think about finding something cute for her to wear?”
“What do you want from me? I don’t know where they sell that crap.”
“Ugh… I should’ve expected that men like you wouldn’t care about that.”
“Well, look…”
Maou casually stood up, bringing his hand to the string hanging underneath the ceiling light.
“How ’bout we just worry about seeing this through, okay? So that I would have to care.”
“Um…yeah. Sure.”
Thrown off guard, Emi found herself nodding in agreement. Alas Ramus, having trouble following the conversation, groped upward.
“Mommy! Mommy, here!”
She patted her arm against the tatami-mat floor next to her.
“Okay, okay.”
Keeping a wary eye on Maou, Emi uncomfortably laid herself flat on the floor.
Waiting for the moment she was down, Maou prodded Alas Ramus.
“Hey, better hug Mommy tight, okay? That way, she won’t go away on you.”
“Okay!”
“Agh…!”
Confused, Emi found herself slowly embracing the joyfully grinning toddler.
“Huh? Hey…what’s that you’ve got there, Alas Ramus?”
Something thin and unbending made its presence felt between Emi and the girl.
“Picture!”
It was the mounted photo they purchased at the Ferris wheel.
“Wow, you must really like that… But it’ll get all folded up and icky if you bring it to bed. Put it next to your pillow, okay?”
“Okey.”
Emi gently took the photo and placed it bedside as Alas Ramus ruefully watched. Maou smiled a bit.
“Okay, I’m turning it off.”
After a quick advance warning, Maou shut off the light, leaving a smaller night-light on to the side.
“Oof.”
Emi, her eyes not used to the darkened room, felt goose bumps erupt across her body as she heard Maou grunt from far closer than she was expecting.
“G-get away!”
“I’m not gonna go hugging you, too, all right? I just can’t get any farther away as long as Alas Ramus is like this, so…”
Looking aside in the darkness, Emi realized that the sleepyheaded child had somehow grabbed hold of both Emi’s and Maou’s shirts.
“…Pull anything weird and I’ll kill you.”
“You’re still being a bad influence on her, you know.”
“You’re one to talk. You’re like a walking, talking bad influence on society.”
“And yet there’s still someone out there who loves her daddy. Right, Alas Ramus?”
“Mm…Hee-hee!”
“I think she’s denying it.”
“Ah, she’s just shy. She says it around other people.”
“Daddyyy, tell me a story!”
Alas Ramus’s voice was already heavy with fatigue.
“Hmm? A story? Don’t want to hear a story from Mommy?”
“Mm…Mommy, tell a story tomorrow…”
“!…”
A dagger stabbed into Emi’s chest as Alas Ramus revealed her future plans.
A pained smile crossed Maou’s face as well, before he gave Alas Ramus a gentle pat on the stomach and looked upward in thought.
“Hmm, let’s see… How ’bout we pick up the story from yesterday?”
“Okey.”
“Great! Uhh, where did we get up to last time…”
“The traveler, and the angel.”
“Oh, right, right. Boy, you have a good memory.”
“Ee-hee!”
Emi, looking on curiously as Alas Ramus spoke to Maou, gasped a bit when Maou turned toward her.
“I started telling her stories ’cause it kept her from putting on a big scene or whining about being lonely at night. I had no idea her diaper was the cause that first night, though…”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Maou paid no mind to the gruff reply, slowly easing into his tale.
“Right…so the poor traveler, who was injured in the middle of his journey, was rescued by the angel.”
The poor traveler, injured after an unfortunate run-in with a mean, nasty demon, was rescued by a kind, gentle angel.
The angel told the traveler all kinds of tales he had never heard before.
Tales of high, high mountains. Tales of wide, wide oceans. Tales of deep, deep forests. Tales of kings, and princesses, and stores, and gold. Tales about plants and fish. Tales about soldiers. Tales about gods, and the world of the stars…
The traveler was very excited at all this, and listened on as the angel kept speaking.
One day, the angel gave the traveler a special charm as a present. The traveler was overjoyed to receive it, and with the charm and everything the angel told him, he set off once more.
Thanks to everything he learned, the traveler eventually became a wise and just king, one who ruled for years and lived in great happiness.
“…snrrrf…”
“…And there you have it. Night.”
It was hard to say when she fell asleep. But once Maou wrapped up his tale, he immediately turned over and away from Emi.
The only sound was the cry of the kingdom of summer insects outside.
“…Hey.”
“…Yeah?”
Emi caressed the hair of the sleeping Alas Ramus.
“What happened to him after he became king?”
Maou turned his head back. Even in the dimness of the night-light, she could tell he was looking at her like a father escorting her drunken daughter away from her wedding reception.
“I just made that up to get her to sleep, man. How do I know? He lived happily ever after, the end, all right?”
“He didn’t go back to his homeland or go searching for the angel or anything?”
“…Look.”
“Oh, just tell me. I’m gonna need some material for my turn tomorrow.”
“……”
Maou failed to understand what made Emi say “tomorrow.” He flashed her a very deliberate look of scorn before turning away from her again.
“She’s not gonna be able to follow some kind of epic backstory, you know. Just make up whatever you want. That’ll be perfect.”
As far as he was concerned, the subject was over. Emi bunched her eyebrows in dissatisfaction.
“Hey, can I ask—”
“Just go to sleep. If you start talking to me, we’re gonna fight and Alas Ramus’ll wake up.”
“If the traveler became king and everything, why did he want to go to some other country? I thought he lived happily ever after.”
“……”
“…No?”
It was now the softest of whispers.
“Well, getting to be king probably made him greedy.”
“Eh?”
“…If Alas Ramus asks about it, I’ll make something up for her.”
Maou flew through the sentence in a hurry before breaking into a loud, contrived snore.
He wasn’t Alas Ramus. There was no way he could fall asleep that quickly. It was just his way of expressing his lack of interest in answering any more questions.
As if called to action by the sound, Alas Ramus removed her hand from Emi’s shirt and sidled up to Maou’s side.
“……”
Watching on, Emi gave Alas Ramus another caress before bringing the blanket up to her shoulders and turning her back to the two of them.
She now faced the wall separating them from Room 202.
“…He’s got such a twisted mind… I’m so worried, I don’t know if I’d even dare leave this to him.”
The thought whispered itself out of her mouth.
In Room 202 of the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments, Suzuno and Urushihara sat silently.
There was an old-fashioned mirror stand emblazoned with a cherry blossom design accompanied by a traditional round tea table. The paulownia-wood dresser to the side was brand-new.
While the room’s furniture was strictly “old Japan,” the refrigerator was full-sized and boasted all the latest energy-saving features, and the combination drum washer / dryer outside offered built-in disinfecting and a stand for ironing. The microwave, however, was as compact and simple as the one in Devil’s Castle, likely due to amperage issues with Villa Rosa’s ancient wiring.
The electric fan was the latest model from Tyson, one of those bladeless types where air seemed to magically flow from an empty oval frame. Urushihara stuck his hand in and out several times to entertain himself.
“…Nothing?”
Ashiya strode in through the front door.
“You did return Chiho safely, yes?” Suzuno inquired immediately.
“Of course. She was rife with concern for my liege until the moment we parted.”
“Indeed. But we certainly cannot afford to bring her into this affair.”
“Absolutely. If anything were to happen to Ms. Sasaki, we’d be unable to continue our current arrangement. I told her not to set foot near our Devil’s Castle until some sort of closure has been reached.”
“…Well. A wise decision, there.”
Ashiya idly sat himself down in the center of the room.
“Alciel, I need to ask you something.”
“What? If you’re expecting rent, forget it.”
“Who would ever dream of saying such miserly things? I am not you, after all. I wish to ask of you, and your demonic forces.”
Suzuno lifted her head from resting on her folded legs.
“What drove you to attempt to conquer the world?”
It was an unusual question to lob at two young men who looked like they hailed from Anytown, Japan.
“Because I…have grown less and less able to understand why the thought even occurred to you to invade our land,” she finished.
“…I have to say, I envy your refrigerator.”
“Um?”
Ashiya’s reply seemed completely unrelated. But, as he appraised the top-of-the-line, enviro-friendly fridge Suzuno had bought on Emi’s recommendation the other day, his face was deadly serious, and so too his voice.
“Open the door, and I am sure you will find the meat, the milk, the vegetables you bought yesterday. Anything missing from today’s menu, you can run to the store to purchase. You can make wonderful dishes, and eat them at your leisure. …I, and His Demonic Highness, too, I imagine, invaded Ente Isla in search of such things.”
“…?”
“I am not asking you to understand me. Regardless, it is my lot to work as hard as I can until the day we can return to Ente Isla… Do you understand me, Urushihara?”
“Hey, I’ll work, dude. Once I can.”
“Listen, you…”
In consideration for Room 201 and its current occupants, Ashiya and Urushihara’s verbal scuffling proceeded at a hushed tone.
Suzuno, listening to them, placed her head back down toward her folded knees.
“…oof…”
Emi rose, awoken by the one-two punch of the early morning sun and the rapidly rising temperature. She squinted at the cracks and blotches of an unfamiliar ceiling.
“…!! Uh…?”
The sudden recollection of a reluctant night spent in Devil’s Castle flooded back to her mind, making her attempt to leap upward.
“…Whoops.”
The attempt was foiled by Alas Ramus, sleeping peacefully as her body was straddled against Emi’s.
She noticed just in time. If she had bolted upward as planned, she would’ve woken up Alas Ramus along the way.
With a sigh of relief, Emi craned her head upward to look at Maou on the other side.
He was looking less than graceful.
Apparently succumbing to the heat, he had tossed away his T-shirt, snoring loudly in the morning sun. Emi was almost expecting a snot bubble to blow in and out of his nose with each breath.
“Nnnnh…”
Slowly, Emi removed her arm so as not to disturb Alas Ramus. She thought any touch might wake her up, but she remained still, apparently deep in sleep.
The clock on the wall still hadn’t passed five AM. It was easy to see how deeply into summer they were.
Thanks to sleeping on bare tatami with a blanket over her, she was sore from head to toe. Stretching out her head and shoulders, Emi yawned, thinking about how they needed to purchase at least a futon for the child.
Nothing could be heard from Suzuno’s room. They must have been asleep. The main concern at the moment was whether Chiho had actually heeded her advice and stayed home.
Giving the adjacent Alas Ramus a light brush on her hair, Emi grabbed her bag, took out the bottle of 5-Holy Energy ? she brought along, and chugged it in one swallow.
There was no telling when Gabriel would arrive, nor if he would (which hopefully he would not), but if it came to a fight, she needed all the force she could muster.
It was because Alas Ramus needed her protection. It was definitely not because the Devil King had smooth-talked her into it.
“This is for Alas Ramus…for Alas Ramus…”
She muttered the mantra to herself as she winced at the energy shot’s medicinelike aftertaste.
“Better wash my face…”
Emi made a step toward the kitchen sink.
“Mornin’, child!”
Until that moment, Emi had completely failed to notice the other presence in the room.
“Gnhhh!!!”
The man, in Emi’s blind spot opposite the kitchen before now, placed a hand over Emi’s lips before she could react.
“Now, now, no fussing! I’m not gonna do anything rough, mm-kay?”
“Mnh! Mrnngh!”
Emi tried to kick Maou awake. He was just barely out of range.
“Oh, stop! They’re both livin’ it up in dreamland…and they’ll be stayin’ in there awhile, too.”
Emi glared back at the smarmy voice’s owner, her entire consciousness focused upon him.
“Oop, look out.”
Then, almost too easily, the man removed his hand from Emi’s mouth and edged away.
Given the size of the apartment, however, there wasn’t much edging away to do without going out a window. He would still be within easy range of Emi’s holy sword.
“You angels sure have forgotten your manners, huh? Kidnapping people, putting bugging devices in people’s bags, trespassing into people’s apartments without permission…”
The man laughed heartily in his utterly nondivine, high-pitched voice.
“Aww, but this is the Devil’s Castle! Hopefully I can get a pass on that at least, hmm? I mean, we’re talking the bad guys’ headquarters here!”
“You’re here kind of early, aren’t you? Or did you think it’s okay to take this girl away just because the date on the calendar’s changed?”
Emi’s right hand was pointed squarely at Gabriel’s throat.
In the blink of an eye, the Better Half sword appeared in her hand, its point aimed straight for his neck.
“Hang on, hang on! I mean, didn’t I say I wanted to talk this out yesterday? Because you’re kind of being awful judgmental with me right now!”
“Alas Ramus or not, you wanted my holy sword, didn’t you? If someone’s trying to prevent me from my goal, I won’t hesitate to take him down.”
“Oh, you are such a party pooper. Women these days are soooo self-minded, aren’t they? No wonder so many people aren’t getting married anymore. You girls are scary!”
Whether due to his off-kilter personality or the natural confidence that came from being an archangel, the holy sword wasn’t enough to make Gabriel so much as flinch.
“Oh, and just so we’re on the same page here, it’s not like I cast a spell or put a barrier up to keep the Devil King and the folks next door from waking up, mm-kay?”
“…What do you mean?”
“Well, and I’m just guessing here, but you guys probably didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, am I right? The folks next door were up all night keeping watch over you, I guess, but they all conked out about an hour ago. Plus which, you were totally conked out, too, yes? I mean, since I stepped in here, I heated up the bento box I bought at the convenience store, ate it, went to the john, and did a little morning constitutional around the front yard, but you people were sleeping like logs, I tell you. I mean, not like I expected a red carpet, but come on!”
“……”
Come to think of it, Maou worked until midnight the previous evening, only to be jostled awake by Alas Ramus early in the morning.
“And as someone who prides himself on being the most gentlemanly archangel in heaven, I’d never attack a family while they’re asleep. So I figured I’d wait until you or the Devil King woke up. We could talk a little more, and maybe I could help you see the light this time, mm-kay? So, uh, could you put that blade away for a sec?”
With pleading eyes, Gabriel pinched the edge of the sword with two fingers, attempting to push it away. Emi held firm.
Neither this world nor the one above needed an archangel so willing to fall into mortal vices like microwave cooking and jogs around the block.
“Hey, look, unlike your pal Sariel, I don’t have any natural defense against holy power, sooo…y’know, really, I’d like to settle this like grown-ups.”
“…Like you have any right to say that.”
“Uhm?”
“You probably have those goons from yesterday surrounding the apartment by now, don’t you? The Heavenly Regiment or whatever?”
Emi’s charged question visibly disquieted Gabriel.
“Now listen, lady, I have no interest in hurting anyone, mm-kay? I just want to get what I’m getting, then get out. But cut me a break! The Devil King was ready to duke it out right in the kitchen yesterday. So, all right, yeah, I have ’em on lookout. Ooh, but listen, we had to expend a ton of energy just gettin’ me through a Gate, so they’re all kinda pooped right now, y’know? And, whew, it’s gonna be even worse once we have that girl with us on the way back. So, c’mon, be an angel and listen to one for a change, mm-kay?”
“…!”
“Aaaghh! You just poked my Adam’s apple a bit with that thing on purpose, didn’t you?! For a Hero, you’re pretty darn good at terrorizing people, you know that? Oww!”
The point Emi silently thrust forward made contact with his neck. It didn’t penetrate skin, but Gabriel at least acted like it threw him into panic.
The clamor was enough to finally make the rest of the room stir.
“…Ngh, stop making all that noise… Jeez, it’s still only five… Hey, whoa, come on!!”
No matter how much sleep he had missed the previous night, this would be enough to wake up anybody.
Maou was greeted with the sight of Emi facing off with an unfamiliar man, Better Half at the ready, in his already cramped apartment.
“Ooohh… Daddyyy?”
Alas Ramus came-to soon afterward, as Maou struggled to get his head around these rather sudden events.
“Gabriel… You didn’t have to come this early, you know…”
“Ooh, hey, sleepyhead! Sorry I had to call upon you like this, mm-kay? My schedule for today is just packed, let me tell you.”
Maou picked up Alas Ramus, putting her off behind his shadow. But with so little demonic power remaining, and his foe already so close to him, the battle was virtually over before it began.
“Y-you shouldn’t be brandishing a sword like that, y’know. Not around the little one! It’ll be a bad influence! So just put it away, mm-kay?”
Gabriel, however, was his usual ebullient self.
The fact he was willing to weaken his own Heavenly Regiment in order to come here seemed to indicate supreme confidence. With a name like Gabriel backing him up, it seemed certain that this man was not the frivolous, scatter-brained ditz he acted like.
“It’s not like I’m out here looking for a fight against heaven or the angels. But they just keep coming for me, you know? That’s why I have to fight them.”
“Yikes! …That’s some mean logic to argue against.”
Gabriel shrugged in despair, his face embittered.
“Okay, well, hopefully you don’t mind if I talk first, then… Ooh, but try to make sure that point doesn’t hit my hayoid again, mm-kay? …Y-y’know, if I could offer a compromise here, at the very least, if I can get home with either the holy sword or that girl, then I don’t have a complaint in the world right now. I’ll explain everything to you, and I mean it. But after that I’m giving you two choices. Hand it over, or no?”
Gabriel retained his composure as he spoke, his raised hands waving around to back up his point.
“I’m the guard of Yesod, a Sephirah from the Tree of Sephirot that forms the foundation of the world. And Yesod got stolen a long time ago, mm-kay? And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the thief split the Yesod Sephirah into a bunch of fragments and tossed ’em all over the place. And you know, Emilia, the Better Half sword in your hand and that girl behind the Devil King were both born from those fragments. And…and, you know, having stuff like that outside of heaven for long is real, real bad news!”
“My sword…from a fragment of Yesod?”
Gabriel raised a finger in the air, breezily continuing on as if discussing something he read in the news that morning.
“You betcha, lady! You see that? The purple crystal embedded in it?”
He used his finger and his eyes to point out the handle of Emi’s sword.
The Better Half’s handle was emblazoned with a wing motif, the center of which was decorated with, yes, a jewel that shone purple. Emi had assumed it was just some nonessential piece of design work.
“That Better Half’s one pretty dangerous dealie-o, you know? Pretty high-priority to get back for us. But then you, Satan—y’know, before you invaded Ente Isla, we had no idea where the heck you were! I’ve been going around for centuries, picking up a shard here, a fragment there, but I just had the worst time finding the fragments the girl and that sword came from, mm-kay? And, you know, I was trying to keep this search a secret ’cause I didn’t want any of the grand pooh-bahs to know I messed up, if you know what I mean, but going off by myself all the time to look…well, let’s just say that raised some eyebrows. Folks thought I was plotting against the gods, can you believe that? So Sariel figured out what I was really up to first. I almost got booted off the island, if you know what I’m gettin’ at! Ha-ha-ha!”
Of course Gabriel was the sort of angel to laugh at his own jokes. The cold stares surrounding him were nothing he concerned himself about.
“What’s so dangerous? We need the holy sword to defeat the Devil King. There’s nothing dangerous about it.”
“There kinda is to me…”
Maou was ignored.
“Well, that’s what you humans say… I mean, that’s what the Church said, anyway, way back when they got hold of those fragments. And if I told you why they’re dangerous…well, all that time I spent looking for them would go to waste, y’know? I can’t very well go around doing that!”
“What the Church said…?”
“That, and gee whiz, lady, use your head! Like, did you think you can just go to the big-box store and buy magical swords that only affect demons and Devil Kings? The Better Half’s power is amplified by holy force, mm-kay? Just like the Light of Iron magic your Church knights use. The only difference is the form it takes! You can search the entire universe for all I care; there’s no such thing as a special antidemon weapon!”
“But…but this sword brought me straight to the Devil King inside his fortress…”
The glowing of Emilia’s holy sword had led her party of invaders down the correct path to the Devil King during their assault on his Ente Isla headquarters. That was what had allowed them to navigate the castle’s labyrinthine corridors in such quick order.
“Lady, I don’t think it was leading you to the Devil King. It was directing you to where that child was.”
Gabriel’s reply was nonplussed.
“The separate Yesod fragments were attracted to each other. That’s all there was to it! And thanks to that, I had to waste a lot more time running around like a chicken with its head cut off searching, mm-kay?”
And after the fragments resonated with each other, the Hero dove into her final battle against the Devil King. A battle where she used her sword’s holy force to bring the demons’ leader to his knees.
“Y’see, you probably used up so much holy force during that fight, that child’s fragment likely stopped reacting to anything else for a while. And then you took a little weekender over to Nowheresville, Japan, so that trail went cold on me, too, until I figured out where the heck you were. I had no idea the fragment had become part of the Devil King’s gardening hobby, either!”
The last time Maou saw the tree that sprouted up from the crystal he was given, it had only begun to form two trunks snaking around each other. Only a few hardy leaves had budded on it, and it would be long before it would bear any flowers or fruit.
He had completely forgotten about it by that point. He wasn’t expecting that crystal to amount to much in the first place. If anything, he was impressed that it had actually grown into something.
But then, as Maou recalled all of this, Gabriel suddenly grabbed hold of Emi’s holy sword.
Surprised, Emi attempted to pull it back. The weapon refused to budge.
“Is…is…is that…?!”
A small, faint, extremely superficial cut was clearly visible on his left arm.
This was a completely unthinkable state of affairs for Gabriel. Just a moment ago, he was clenching his fingers around the Better Half like it was a French croissant.
“…Nice to see angels bleed just as red as we do.”
Emi—or, to be more exact, the Hero, Emilia Justina—flicked a drop or two of blood off the tip of her Better Half before turning back toward her foe.
“Leave here at once, Gabriel. I have zero intention of meddling in the affairs of heaven. But even more than that, I don’t want to see that girl cry.”
Emilia averted her eyes in sadness.
“W-well, it kinda doesn’t really work that way, mm-kay? …I’m not exactly in a position to just turn around and leave, y’know. How many hundreds of years do you think I’ve been looking for that Yesod fragment?”
“Oh, so you still want to fight me with that sword?”
“!!”
Finally, the look of breezy disaffection on Gabriel’s face disappeared for good.
Just like what happened to the Better Half earlier, the top part of Durandal, the archangel’s sword sung about in mythology, was sheared off.
Adding insult to injury, cracks ran down from the mirrorlike edge of the cut, all the way to Durandal’s handle. The next moment, the blade fell to pieces, losing its shape entirely.
“…Well. Guess I just punched my ticket back home, didn’t I?”
Gabriel’s surrender came far more easily than expected.
“But this doesn’t mean I gave up, mm-kay? And I doubt Sariel has, either. Someday, we’re gonna bring all the fragments of Yesod back in one place. I’m just giving you a reprieve ’til then, got it?”
“Heh. Try not to sound like such a loser, loser. But I still got a question for you. Like the Devil King said, if you’ve really been searching for centuries and nothing bad’s happened in the meantime, why are you so hell-bent on getting it back now?”
The question left Gabriel agape for a moment.
“…Well, that’s a surprise. After all that’s happened, that’s what you’re asking me?”
“?”
Emilia squinted her eyes in confusion.
“…Maybe it’s time you think a bit about what you really are, lady. That, and why we had this little fight just now. You’ll work it out sooner or later.”
Then, without waiting for a reply to his enigmatic answer, Gabriel raised the hilt of his all-but-ruined Durandal higher into the heavens.
“And I’ll hope, when that time comes, that you’ll put the peace of the world first. For real this time.”
Another blast of light emitted from his hand.
“Unless you want the scourge of Satan, the Devil Overlord, to return.”
“Wh-what the hell?!”
Maou and Suzuno had to shield their faces against a particularly strong burst of light in the air.
It looked like a gigantic explosion at first sight, but as the light dissipated, they realized that something was falling out of the sky.
Planting a foot on the ground, Suzuno flew into the air, attempting to find a closer look.
“E…Emilia?!”
She quickly realized the falling object was human—and none other than Emi.
She was either wounded, or that previous burst of light had knocked her out. Either way, she was plummeting downward, unable to control her descent. Rolling directly under her, Suzuno managed to catch the limp body before it struck the ground.
“Emilia! Are you safe?!”
Emi seemed unconscious at first sight, but upon hearing Suzuno’s voice, her eyes popped right open.
“Oh…Bell… Yeah, I’m fine. Also, Gabriel’s gone.”
“What?!”
Shocked, Suzuno turned up toward the quickly fading explosion above.
There, she saw just a faint, twinkling light in the air, the Sasazuka sky otherwise back to its normal self. No one could be seen, and Gabriel was clearly out of the picture.
But the sight did nothing to soothe Suzuno’s mind.
There was nobody at all up there.
Suzuno and Emi were the only people in the sky.
“Hey! Emi!”
They couldn’t see who was shouting from below, but the pained concern was clear in his voice.
“Where’s Alas Ramus?”
“……”
Maou, watching Emi and Suzuno slowly descend, found his voice rising.
“What happened to Alas Ramus?!”
“……”
The sight of Emi averting her face to him made a painful sense of foreboding rush down his back.
“He… Gabriel didn’t…”
Emi didn’t reply. Instead she simply muttered to herself, as if complaining to some unknown presence.
“Ugh… What’re we gonna do about this…?”
“Yo, Chi.”
Just as she was departing from her shift, Kisaki stopped Chiho from leaving.
“Oh, hi, Ms. Kisaki! I’m just about off.”
“Sure thing. Good work today. Do you have a moment?”
“Oh, of course. What’s up?”
It was nine in the evening. Chiho, beckoned by Kisaki’s hand, had a fairly clear guess what the topic was.
“I was just wondering… That little girl you had with her, is she back with her family?”
Chiho resignedly nodded to herself inside.
“Oh, I guess you noticed, huh?”
“Well, you know, he was kinda shambling around out there like a zombie, so…”
She was referring to Maou.
At the dining area and behind the counter, Maou acted like the quintessential puppet with its strings cut. There was no strength to his voice, he made a litany of careless mistakes, and his overall work performance was a far cry from the typical Maou—enough to make Kisaki more concerned than angry.
“And I know we’re just gonna have to wait for him to work through his feelings and everything, but that’s just… I’m sorry to put this on you, Chi, but if this keeps up with him, can I count on you to maybe give him a little support on the work front?”
“Sure. No problem.”
“I know I was just a little bit harsh with him today, but…well, I can’t get too soft, so…”
“Oh, no, not at all, Ms. Kisaki. I’m sure Maou knows you’re just saying all that for his sake. Anyway, see you tomorrow.”
“You got it. Be safe.”
After leaving Kisaki with a bow, Chiho checked the time and began walking toward Sasazuka station.
Alas Ramus had disappeared.
Maou, seeing Emi fly off with Gabriel and return by herself, was crushed. Heartbroken, was how Suzuno put it, and that was the only window Chiho had into the battle that took place in the wee hours of the morning.
She thought she had come to Villa Rosa Sasazuka early enough for a front-row seat before Gabriel’s gang arrived. She hadn’t. Instead, Suzuno had shocked her with the words:
“Alas Ramus is…gone away.”
Suzuno, Ashiya, and Urushihara sat dejectedly on the stairs, their minds far off in another place. The massive hole in the upstairs wall told the story well enough for them.
Chiho was used enough to witnessing extraordinary events engineered by beings from other planets by this point to realize she was at the scene of a battle.
The fact this apparent early-morning furor wasn’t enough to alarm the neighbors or summon the police bothered her a little, but there was no time to dwell on that.
“Um, Ashiya, is this…!”
“My liege is…unhurt. He is resting in Devil’s Castle…but he wishes to be alone at the moment.”
“What happened to…to Alas Ramus? Did that Gabriel guy do something to her?!”
A sudden rush of concern drove Chiho to bring up Gabriel’s name. Urushihara was nonplussed.
“Dude, how should we know? Emilia’s kind of off in her own little world, too, so… But it’s kinda logical to assume that Gabriel took her and left.”
“N-no!”
Chiho’s voice was a mix of pain and sadness.
“There was no way to restore my liege’s power this time. Not with the Heavenly Regiment guarding us. And I doubt Emilia could have fended for herself against an angel guarding the Tree of Sephirot. Neither of them are hurt, at least, but…as much as it pains me to say, chances are that Gabriel left with her.”
“Well, not like we coulda done anything about it, right? I mean, that girl was a Yesod fragment, dude. It’s kinda natural that Gabriel would want her back in heaven. Besides, it’s not like we had any duty to—“
“Urushihara!!”
Chiho bellowed at Urushihara to find his silence.
“Don’t say anything else! If you do, I…I’ll make you regret it!”
“……Eesh.”
Urushihara pouted for a moment, but still took the hint.
“…But what’s wrong with Yusa?”
“Emilia has already returned home. Apparently she had to report to work. …I understand that her clothing and belongings were ruined, but how could that girl be so heartless…”
Ashiya’s reply was weak and droning.
“You had best go to school yourself, Ms. Sasaki. I’m afraid His Demonic Highness is…”
Ashiya paused to take a pensive look at the hole upstairs.
“…likely not in the mood for conversation.”
Chiho followed his eyes upward. Just then, she felt some unknown sensation bubbling up into her chest, something strong enough to make tears well into her eyes.
“I-I’m sorry… I’d better…”
She briskly bowed at the trio, hiding this onrush of emotion, and left the apartment building behind her.
“Alas Ramus…”
She whispered the little apple girl’s name on the way to school as another tear came to her eye.
They had only been together for a short while, and yet even Chiho was experiencing a profound sense of loss. She could only imagine how it was for the man Alas Ramus had loved as her father.
And even at a time like this, I can’t be by Maou’s side.
She clenched her teeth at her helplessness.
“…Ooh.”
Noticing the phone in her bag vibrating, Chiho wiped away the tear and took it out.
“Yusa?”
It was a text from Emi. It invited Chiho to meet with her, whenever it was convenient.
Chiho replied that she had work after school, only to have Emi say that even late night would be fine, so could they meet up? If she was that insistent, there was no reason to say no.
And now, on the way home from her shift, Chiho spotted Emi inside Sasazuka station.
“Hey, Yusa! Sorry to make you wait!”
“Oh, hi, Chiho. I’m sorry to keep you out. You must be tired.”
Emi looked far more tired than Chiho was.
The loss of Alas Ramus must have weighed upon her as well, in its own way.
“Oh, no, it’s fine…but what’s up?”
“Um… Well, how ’bout we chat inside that Tacoma’s Best? There’s a table free over in that corner. My treat?”
“Oh? Um, sure, but…”
Emi ordered a coffee blend at the Tacoma’s Best coffee shop at the far end of the Sasazuka station mall. Chiho went for an iced soy-milk latte.
Scoping out a table in an isolated nook of the coffee shop, Emi plopped down on the cushioned seat and let out a long, deep sigh before diving straight into the topic at hand.
“So did you hear about this morning from anyone?”
So that was it. Chiho nodded solemnly.
“…I went over to the apartment.”
“Oh…”
“Um…so, so did Alas Ramus really get taken away?”
“……”
Emi looked even more somber than Chiho, hanging her eyebrows low against her face.
That was what must have happened.
“…If I just had a little more power…”
“Oh, no, Yusa, this isn’t your fault…”
“…If I had the power to fight against Gabriel by myself, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“No, you…you really don’t have to torture yourself over this…”
“No. This all happened because I didn’t have the strength to do it.”
“Mommy, are you okay? You feel sick?”
“Yusa…”
“Chi-Sis! Mommy, are you hurt? Where’s it hurt?”
“No, no, I’m fine. Just in the heart, a little. …Huh?”
“Oo?”
Emi and Chiho stared down at their feet.
“Aaaaggghhhhhhhhh?!!”
Chiho instinctively tried to stand up, bumping her knees and almost toppling her soy-milk latte as she did.
“Ow!”
The blow was enough to send her tumbling to the floor.
“Chi-Sis! You okay?!”
A small, chubby hand patted Chiho’s face.
“Alas Ramus!!”
Chiho, still kneeling on the floor, shouted out in surprise.
“What? Why? How?! Why are you here right now, Alas Ramus?!”
She looked up at Emi, back turned as she sat, her face clearly red as she rested an elbow on the table.
“Wow! You’re okay! That’s great!!”
Chiho let out a delighted cheer as she embraced the child.
“Wabpf!”
“B-but why?! Maou and Suzuno and Ashiya all thought that Alas Ramus was gone!”
She didn’t mention Urushihara, who largely couldn’t have cared less.
“…I never thought this was gonna happen, either.”
Emi mumbled the response, back still turned.
The way she put it, Emi had felt something strange from her holy sword the moment she saw Alas Ramus emit a flash of bright light.
“Y’know what I did? I ate the sword.”
“…Huh?”
Alas Ramus ate the holy sword.
Chiho’s eyes nearly bugged out as she attempted to parse the sentence in her mind.
“It was like she just bunched it up like a wad of bread and popped it in her mouth. Could you imagine how much of a panic that put me in?”
“……”
There was no way she could formulate a reply to that, either.
“Anyway, I guess that was her way of ‘fusing’ it with the Yesod fragment she has. Gabriel and I were shocked. Neither of us knew what had happened.”
“I’m with Mommy forever now!”
“So then, I guess those were two Yesod fragments brought together, and the sword is kind of part of my body, so I guess that kinda led to the next thing.”
Emi put her hands above her head, attempting to keep Alas Ramus out of sight from the other cafégoers.
“Wah!”
Then, Alas Ramus disappeared into a swarm of light particles.
In the time it took for Chiho to blink in surprise, a beautiful knife had appeared in Emi’s right hand.
It must have been Emi’s holy sword, but it was wholly different from the one she had before, the purple globe of light around it glowing noticeably brighter.
Then a gauntlet of finely forged silver appeared over Emi’s hand, something Chiho had never seen in battle before. Then:
“Mommy, you scared me!”
The sword talked.
“It…talks…? Whaaa?! Is that really…”
“Sure is.”
“How do I look, Chi-Sis? Do I look cool?”
“…Alas Ramus became part of the holy sword. And the Cloth of the Dispeller.”
Chiho’s jaw fell to the floor.
“So…so you didn’t tell Maou or anyone else? I mean, you should see how depressed he is right now. He’s totally not himself at work.”
“Oh, no? Well, huh. Must’ve really hurt him, I guess.”
“Well, yeah! You saw how much he liked having her around…”
“Tee-hee… I’m sorry. But I figured I could get away with this much. Besides…”
In another moment, the dagger disappeared from Emi’s right hand, and Alas Ramus came back into existence before Chiho’s eyes.
“I thought it’d be best if he understood what it meant to lose something a little, too.”
Once the glow accompanying the transformation dissipated, Emi gave Alas Ramus a reassuring caress on the head.
“Gabriel went home with his tail tucked between his legs. Not that he could do much. I mean, if Sariel’s Evil Eye of the Fallen wasn’t enough to pull the sword out of me, what is, you know? The last thing Bell and the Devil King saw was Gabriel whining like a schoolboy before diving back through his Gate… But anyway, that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.”
“…Um? Oh, uh, so what is it?”
Chiho’s brain was having trouble keeping up with this conveyor belt of revelations. Emi continued to show her no mercy.
“…So as you can see, Alas Ramus fused herself with my holy sword, so now we’re able to move around with a little more freedom.”
“Right.”
“But—and this is something she said before all of that happened—but apparently she’s under the notion that me and her ‘daddy’ are gonna be together forever…”
There was brief silence. It was followed by a groan from Chiho’s side of the table.
“Uhhngh?”
“I mean, the whole day through, all I heard in my mind was ‘I want to see Daddy, where’s Daddy,’ and so on ad nauseam… But if I keep leaving this girl in Devil’s Castle, what if something happens then? I won’t have my holy sword on me.”
“I don’t know if I’d worry about that first—”
“And the worst part, you know, was that Rika was no help to me at all today. She was all freaking out about something, too.”
“You mean Rika Suzuki?”
“All through our whole shift… Even afterward, too, she was acting all weird and fidgety, you know? And she kept checking her phone, too.”
Emi gulped the remains of her lukewarm coffee blend and brought a hand to her head in despair.
“I can’t do this! If this keeps up, I won’t be able to work—at the call center, or as the Hero! I still have to slay the Devil King, but that would mean having Alas Ramus kill her own ‘daddy,’ and if I store her in my body in holy-sword form, she’s whining and moaning in my mind and I can’t focus on anything… I just don’t know what to do…”
“Kind of a weird case of postpartum stress…”
Chiho could feel a headache forming as the Hero of the Holy Sword whined apace. None of this was helping her understand the situation at all.
In her mind, Emi owned one of the most envious positions in the world, one which she’d gladly trade places for in a heartbeat.
“I don’t know if this is gonna be a solution or anything, but…”
“But what?!”
Chiho continued calmly as Emi nearly leaped off her seat.
“But, um, if you moved into an empty room in Maou’s apartment building, that’d at least make Alas Ramus happy.”
“Nuh-uh. Not happening. That’d make me feel like I lost to him, kind of.”
“Yusa, you don’t have to start acting like a child, too!”
“But, come on—“
“Whee! Moving to Daddy’s house!”
Alas Ramus, the apple girl completely oblivious to Emi’s anguish or the ways of the grown-up world, continued to pick up solely on the things that mattered to her.
“You’re lighting that campfire again?”
Emi and Chiho, visiting Villa Rosa Sasazuka together, stared on listlessly as Maou burned a bunch of ogara sticks. The wisp of smoke extended upward into the sky as the western sun just barely peeked above the horizon.
“This is called the okuribi, okay? Could you at least try to learn a little about Japan?”
“Okuribi? Huh. Great. …So why’re you doing that?”
“It’s so I can guide the souls of the ancestors I called over here with the mukaebi back to their own world. Normally you’d do this at the end of the Obon holiday, but I don’t think anyone’s gonna care if I push it up a bit.”
Maou let out a languid sigh.
Out of the corner of her eye, Emi noticed that Maou’s listlessly dangling hand was holding the framed photo they took together with Alas Ramus.
“This is my way of getting Alas Ramus back up there, to…wherever, okay? …And I guess I wasted my money on that, too. Didn’t even use it once.”
Maou’s eyes were pointed at Dullahan II, its yellow plastic child’s seat reflecting the white light of another summer sunset.
A light breeze entered the scene, taking up the wisp of smoke and dispersing it into the sky.
“I don’t feel like talking to you today. Go away.”
“Oh, thanks a lot. I’m here because I wanted to ask you something, okay? And I better get an answer.”
“……”
Maou distractedly turned his grimace downward without a word.
“Lemme ask you about that charm the traveler got from the angel. What happened to that once he became king?”
“!…”
Maou let out a soft groan, face still turned downward.
“I just want to know for reference. If you had that planned out, can you tell me?”
“…So that’s all? You’re just here to screw around with me?”
“Sure. Fine. It’s just me, coming over here to laugh at the Devil King while he’s moping all by himself.”
“You Heroes and angels are just the nastiest bastards, aren’t you?”
“Not as much as you demons are.”
Chiho silently watched the exchange unfold.
She thought Maou would erupt in rage, but after a few moments, he faintly spoke.
“…Once the traveler became king, he forgot all about the charm. Then a lot of stuff happened to him, and once he was back on the road as just another dusty wanderer, he came across it again. He swore he’d treat it better this time, but…maybe it was payback for what he did as king, who knows, but anyway, someone took it from him, probably.”
“Hohhh. Innn-teresting. But he still remembered that it really meant something to him, huh?”
“…Look, what do you want?”
Maou glared at Emi, shooting daggers from his eyes.
But, for her own reasons, Emi was no longer ready to bully Maou around. Her face was a little red, her eyes removed from Maou’s.
“…Huh?”
Seeing this made Maou even more suspicious.
“So I think he’ll probably treat it really well next time. What do you think?”
“I agree.”
Chiho spoke up for the first time.
“What is with you two today…?”
Even the normally slow-on-the-uptake Maou noticed they were hinting at something.
“Well, it’s not like I know what kind of great treasure this was for the traveler, but if that’s how you put it, it must’ve been really important, wasn’t it?”
Emi raised her right hand. It emitted a dull glow.
“Do you know how it feels to lose something precious to you now? If you do, then you better treat it right this time.”
Then, a small miracle suddenly unfolded before Maou’s eyes.
“Daddy!!”
Maou was astonished to see the little girl appear, as if materializing from thin air in front of the okuribi fire. He froze, eyes wide open, like a deer scoping out an advancing minivan on the highway.
“Alas…Ramus…? What on, hang on, how did you…?”
Staggering to his feet, Maou accidentally dropped the photo he was holding.
Alas Ramus, the girl he thought gone forever, was unimpressed.
“Daddy, no! Don’t drop it! You’ll hurt it!”
She nimbly picked up the picture and held it against her chest.
“Is…? No way, is this for real? Are you really Alas Ramus?!”
Maou fell to his knees on the ground, patting the girl on the head, face, and shoulders as she held on to the photo.
“Eek! Daddy, that prickles!”
Alas Ramus laughed like a puppy in response, grabbing Maou’s hand with her own.
“So…there you have it.”
Maou paid no attention to Emi’s words.
“Wow, so…so he didn’t take you away…”
“I figured I’d let you stew in your own juices for a while longer. But Alas Ramus kept going on about seeing her daddy, and it struck me as kind of a ‘demon’ move overall, so I brought her over here. I hope you appreciate… Wait.”
Emi’s flurry of excuses was cut off by something that stunned her.
“Are you crying?”
“Uh? Huh? Buh?”
Maou brought a hand to his own face. There, for the first time since that day when he thought he’d lose his life, lay a single stream of tears.
“Wh-what kind of Devil King are you? Crying like that?! What are you, stupid? Quit it!”
Emi, flustered by Maou’s reaction, couldn’t decide what to do next. She opted with the safe choice of yelling at him.
“Daddy, are you hurt? Are you hurt?!”
Alas Ramus, also noticing the tears, looked up at Maou, looking about ready to cry herself.
“No, this is just, um, it’s like, kind of an accident, and things.”
The ex–Devil King tried his best to hide the tears. It didn’t work.
“You must be really happy, Maou. I mean, Alas Ramus is back!”
It was Chiho’s smile that did all the explaining for him.
“Everyone cries when they’re happy like that, you know.”
Maou blankly looked at Chiho.
“So, did you learn something new about this world?”
“Chi-Sis, is Daddy okay? He isn’t hurt?”
Chiho patted the head of the tearful Alas Ramus.
“He’s okay. Daddy’s just really happy to see you, is all.”
“I’m not crying!”
Suddenly, Maou indignantly stood up.
“Wh-who the hell’s crying here?! Besides, I knew all that anyway! I’m the father of this girl! And I knew Gabriel and the Heavenly Regiment ran away, too!”
Not even a grade-schooler would put on a strongman act like that in this day and age.
“Wabpf!”
His point made, he then abruptly picked up Alas Ramus.
“We…we even made Alas Ramus’s food for today! Yo! Ashiya! Suzuno! We’re eating! It’s time to eat!”
With that, he ran up the stairs, not even bothering to put out the okuribi fire.
“…I’m amazed he could keep the act going for that long. But are they really going to eat in there?”
“I think they’ll be eating in Suzuno’s place for the time being. They’re still gonna sleep in their own room, though. It’d be cooler that way anyway, is how they put it.”
“Yeah, that sure sounds like them.”
With a wry smile, Emi looked at Villa Rosa Sasazuka’s second floor.
Seeing this very Sadao Maou–like reaction, she was forced to admit that there was a sense of relief somewhere in her heart.
The mysteries behind her Better Half sword had only deepened, and she had no idea how the Devil Overlord Gabriel mentioned was involved.
Upstairs, she could already hear Ashiya and the gang exclaim their surprise.
“You know, though…you don’t think anyone’s gonna call the cops or anything, do you?”
“I was just thinking about that, actually, but…well, it’s getting a lot of looks from people, but that place is kinda falling apart anyway, so… Besides, we wouldn’t really want the police here anyway, right? All’s well that ends well.”
“True. And it’s not like I have to worry about it. I’ll need to have Alas Ramus over at my place for a while anyway.”
“Mommy! Chi-Sis! C’mon! Let’s eat!”
“Whoa, Alas Ramus! Watch out! You’re gonna take a tumble like Mommy did!”
Alas Ramus was near the top of the stairs, calling for Emi and Chiho. Maou was just in time to grab her from the rear.
“Come on, join us. Suzuno made it all, so it’s not gonna mess you up or anything.”
“…What do you think?”
“Well, despite every intention I had, I’m her mother now, I guess. Better keep an eye on her diet.”
Emi gingerly began to climb the stairs.
She thought she could feel Chiho snickering to herself as she followed behind. Apparently the act Emi put on was about as convincing as Maou’s.
There was no telling what Gabriel meant by his parting words. But as a bona-fide Hero, there was no way she could proceed down the road to ruin. Not if she wanted to preserve the peace over dinner tonight.
For now, at least, she was able to think that to herself.
“That child fused herself with Emilia’s holy sword?!”
“Yes! Completely! And boy, I just couldn’t believe it!”
“Goodness. It must have been terrible. But enough about that. I was thinking about finally asking out my goddess, but what do you think!”
“Dahh! Just once, I was hoping you’d think about someone besides yourself. Nice to see I’m wrong yet again!”
“Now, now. What do you expect from me anyway? My Evil Eye of the Fallen is useless against her. What could I do to help?”
“A lot less than I was hoping, apparently.”
“That’s, um, really bad news, though, isn’t it? The Yesod they call Alas Ramus fusing with the Better Half?”
“That’s why I came to you! That’s why I’m practically having kittens right now, if you hadn’t noticed! That’s why I’m asking for some advice! Don’t you see how much danger this is gonna put us all in?! This is no time to work on your game with the ladies, mm-kay? Ugh! Why did I give that girl even a moment of kindness back there?”
“Looks like the opposite sex is giving both of us a few problems, hmm? I’m starting to empathize with you a little.”
“Oooooh, I could just punch you right now!”
“Ahh, don’t get in such a tizzy. What do you think, though? Isn’t she beautiful? They used her in one of the paper placemat ads, you know. Those things’re going for fifteen hundred yen on ReLay right now!”
“You asked for it!”
“Gah!”
“I said, try to act a little concerned, mm-kay?!”
“You don’t see any value to this? Pft. Philistine. But Emilia didn’t know what she was doing, right? She didn’t mean to fuse Alas Ramus with the Better Half?”
“No! Probably not! Why?!”
Late at night, upstairs at the Sentucky Fried Chicken in front of Hatagaya rail station, the archangel Sariel gnawed at a chicken wing and some cold potato wedges as he addressed Gabriel.
“Then perhaps we could avoid the worst-case scenario if we corralled the other ‘half.’ The second wing, apart from the Better Half.”
“…We could. But who can say where that even is—”
“Pfft! I shouldn’t have expected you to understand at all. Someone has a lot to learn about love between a man and a woman.”
“……”
“Hey! Don’t just sit there shaking your fist at me! Just think about it for a second!”
“Who?! Sorry I’m so stupid, but I don’t know, man! Also, I don’t exactly remember hearing about you ever successfully finding a girl in your life!”
“Hee-hee-hee! Ah, but all of my experiences come down to right now, this very moment, when I finally bag my goddess… Oww!!”
Without warning, Gabriel slapped Sariel in the face.
“You try being the archangel who had to handle all the sexual-harassment complaints filed against you, mm-kay?”
“A-all right! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Just stop hitting me! I need to put my best face forward for work tomorrow!”
“If that’s your best face, hon, you got problems. Think about where I’m coming from! I’m the one who couldn’t get that sword back, so I’m the one who’s gonna have to answer for it. But what if they knew that it’s all because you’re playing demigod Casanova with some human girl, huh? You wanna wind up like he did?”
Sariel rubbed his swollen cheek as he ejected a whiff of laughter at the exasperated Gabriel.
“I will do anything—even make the gods, make the whole world, my enemy—to consummate my love!”
“I wish you had a sign or something you could put up to show when you’re not being sarcastic with me… So, what? Who is it? Who’s this guy with the other half, whom I’d surely know the identity of if only I was such a hot stud like you?”
“Well, who made off with the Yesod Sephirah in the first place? Think about that stumper, and the answer should be obvious.”
Sariel grinned salaciously as he kept his face guarded.
“One of the wings was granted to his daughter. Who got the other one? Well, who else could?”
Sariel waved a chicken bone in the air to drive his point home.
“Nord Justina. Emilia’s father.”
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login