Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 6 - Chapter 3

THE HERO AND THE DEVIL TAKE A STEP TOWARD A NEW DREAM 
“Okay, one more time!” 
“Um, S-Sariel, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m strong enough…” 
“Don’t be silly! Time isn’t going to wait for us! Bell! The phone!” 
“Ugh… I do hope this will work out…” 
“Whoa, whoa, hang on, guys. Chiho just said this is too tough for her. We’ve been at this for two hours straight! Give her some rest already!” 
“Silence, you limp-wristed Devil King! It is not up to her to decide what her limits are!” 
“Dude, if she can’t figure those out for herself, then what can she do, huh?” 
“Enough! I am finding the limits of my own composure tested frequently by your lily-livered whining!” 
“Al-cell! No pickin’ on Looshifer!” 
“Don’t spoil Lucifer, Alas Ramus.” 
“Uh, dude, shouldn’t that be the other way around? I’m the one being spoiled?” 
“Now, Chiho Sasaki! I want you to summon your voice from the bottommost depths of your stomach! Here we go!” 
“At, at least let me have some water first…” 
“Knock it off , you stupid angel! Are you tryin’ to kill Chi?!” 
“She may be killed indeed if we cannot succeed at this! The pains of today will bear the fruits of tomorrow, before ultimately blossoming into the return of my goddess! Come on! Focus for me!” 
“Nobody’s talking about killing her, man!” 
“Erm… Lord Sariel, I think a small break might be advisable…” 
Inside the large gymnasium, Chiho was about to falter at the hands of Sariel’s Spartan-style training. 
They were at the Hatagaya Sports Center, a public gym not far from Sariel’s condo—around a fifteen-minute walk from the Hatagaya MgRonald. It boasted a standard-sized indoor track, a heated pool in the basement, and facilities for martial arts, as well as rental space for local events and sports education. Maou and crew had reserved the biggest of the center’s public spaces, large enough for two full-sized basketball courts, for six straight hours. Their goal: to beat the full powers of the Idea Link into Chiho’s brain, come hell or high water. 
“Yaaaaaaaggggggg… koff ! Hakkh…” 
“So be it!” Sariel grumbled dolefully. “Ten-minute break!” 
“That’s too short! Give her half an hour, at least!” 
“Silence, Devil King! What are you, this girl’s parental guardian or something?!” 
“Well, yeah, I kinda am right now! I have a duty to make sure Chi stays safe!” 
“If the two of you are going to mindlessly squabble with each other, can you do it over in the corner?” Emi asked. “All right, good… You doing okay, Chiho?” 
“Um… I think I… Hakkk! ” 
Chiho had a courageous smile on her face, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from choking on the words. 
“That is a fine effort, Ms. Sasaki,” Ashiya said from next to Emi, offering Chiho a towel and a bottle of water. Chiho accepted them with a groan. 
“Hmph. I am running low. Emilia, let me borrow the charger, please.” 
“Hooph… Oh… Let me borrow it, too koff koff !” 
With things simmering down, Suzuno and Chiho began charging their phones. 
“Hey! You can’t charge your phones in ten minutes!” 
“Then perhaps we could do some basic concentration training until they are charged…” 
“Dude, come on!” 
Remarkably, it had been Sariel who’d suggested a gym for this project. Once he learned about Chiho’s training efforts, he suggested the site would be the most ideal for them, given how shouting and roughhousing was fairly normal behavior in gyms, and it would give the spellcasters the space to fully devote themselves to their practice. Maou didn’t believe him at first, but reluctantly agreed once Suzuno called Sariel’s training regimen “sound in principle.” 
Still, this was late summer. The non-air-conditioned gym was akin to a sauna. Just standing in it made the humans and demons break out in a sweat. Between that and all the physical effort Chiho had to devote to refining her holy force, even a club athlete like her couldn’t hide her fatigue. 
In a nutshell, Sariel suggested a little mobile-phone–based image training. The core concept of the Idea Link was summed up in its name—the sharing of concepts in one’s mind, via a link between two people. For it to work, the caster had to understand, both in body and in soul, that it was actually possible to transmit one’s thoughts to another person without opening one’s mouth. 
The human soul instinctively understood that any regular person could not accurately convey their will to others without the power of speech, or at least some pretty determined gesturing. Breaking down that mental barrier proved surprisingly difficult. Just because you wanted to eliminate a core concept etched into your mind didn’t mean you could simply wish it away. 
In Ente Isla, overcoming this block began with two casters touching foreheads in order to plant the image of communicating across minds into them. Sariel substituted cell phones for that mnemonic instead. This was because conversing with someone over the phone—with someone whose face you couldn’t read—often presented very real obstacles to making one’s intentions clear. It shared that in common with the Idea Link, a spell where you linked with any given person too far away to be visible and exchanged information with them. A very compatible core concept, in other words, one every modern Japanese person had etched in their minds. 
Thus, they began with Chiho calling Suzuno. Then, they drew farther and farther away until they could no longer physically hear each other’s voices. Once they were far enough, they’d attempt to communicate with their minds over the phones, picturing themselves physically linked through the cell signal. The exact way Emi harnessed the Idea Link to converse with Emeralda, in other words. 
Chiho was proving to be an apt pupil, one whose holy-force activation skills astonished even Sariel, but using that skill for spellcasting purposes was another challenge entirely. Plain Jane telepathy was one thing, but casting one’s own voice into the spell was an even more difficult task. That was why, even with all her activation skills, Chiho struggled to convey her thoughts through an open connection just from one wall of the gym to the other. 
“I-I’m fine, Maou. I need to keep working on this…” 
“There! See? You heard it from the girl herself! Do not rob this young human of her chance to improve, Devil King. Now, sit over there in the corner and contemplate the depths of your sins for me!” 
“Why the hell do I have to sit here and listen to you— agghh ?!” 
“All right, all right, that’s enough from you. For once in his life, Sariel’s got a point.” 
“Daddy, Chi-Sis is tryin’ real hard! Don’t be mean!” 
“No, I’m…I’m not angry at Chi or anything… G-get your hands off my collar! You’re gonna choke me!” 
Chiho inhaled deeply as she watched Emi and Alas Ramus drag Maou away for her. Then, she began to sing. 
“Welcome to a new morrrrrniiiiing !! A morning filled with hope for alllllll !!” 
“Oh?” 
“Hmm… I like it.” 
Urushihara and Sariel both looked at Chiho, duly impressed. 
“Guess it doesn’t matter how you release your mind, long as you do it, huh?” 
“I suppose not. This is quite a surprise.” 
As she sang, Chiho released a bolt of holy force, one not at all inferior to her physical voice just before. In fact, if anything, the magic seemed a bit more refined than if she had just shouted it out. 
“I practiced it with Church hymns, myself,” Emi said, fingers still clasped around Maou’s collar. “But you didn’t teach her that yet, right?” 
Suzuno nodded in agreement. “But,” she said, her lowered eyebrows tempering her obvious pride in Chiho’s creative skills, “why’re you singing the song from the morning-calisthenics bit they play on the radio?” 
“Oh, you know that one, Suzuno?” came the surprised reply from Chiho. 
“I recall hearing it on MHK when I rise in the morning. They have an extended piece in the summer, if I recall.” 
“Well, I figured it’d be good for this. It always makes me feel better, hearing it. And plus, being on radio’s kind of a match for what we’re trying to accomplish, right?” 
“Oh, is that what it is? I never seriously thought much about the lyrics before.” 
“A new morning, huh…?” the still-bedraggled Maou muttered to himself as he shot a look at Emi. 
“Is that all there is to it?” 
“No, there’s a second verse, I think! Umm…” 
Chiho paused as she checked her memory, then began to sing anew. The past two hours of voice training were worth it, after all. Chiho’s singing voice echoed attractively across the gym. Shining trees rustling under the new morning. Stretch your arms and legs high, then stamp down on the ground. Keep your legs limber every morning with MHK Radio 1. Now, touch your toes against the ground, one, two, three… Something about the joy Chiho put into it made the benign exercise song seem like a love-laden ballad. 
“Hmm,” Maou reflected. “I like it.” 
“I know, right?!” Chiho beamed, excited at her new powers. “My friends all say it’s lame and embarrassing and stuff, but…” 
The thing was, Chiho’s acquiring the Idea Link spell was about all that linked Emi and her friends with the Maou contingent. All this was happening only because there was a nonzero chance that the one supreme unwritten law between them—“don’t get Chiho involved in Ente Isla drama”—was in danger of being broken. Engaging in this training, and getting Sariel involved in it, was wandering into unexplored and treacherous territory. 
But it was also the destination at the end of the path Maou and Emi had chosen for themselves. It clashed against the thanks they had for Chiho, and all the regret and desire to help she felt in her heart, and it made their own hearts waver. 
The night of the encounter with Farfarello and Erone, an emergency conference—one that even Sariel received an invite to—was held in Devil’s Castle. Having this gaggle of uninvited guests show up at his door late at night all but terrified Ashiya, but he nonetheless reluctantly prepared tea for the whole gang under orders from Maou. His choice of beverages for everyone—cold green tea for Maou and Chiho, blazing hot tea for everyone else, Urushihara included—symbolized, perhaps, his approach to Great Demon General diplomacy. 
“Ooh, this is nice!” Chiho said, enjoying the chill of her drink. It was a nice thought, but a token one. Between the heat and the population density around Maou’s table, the atmosphere was beyond oppressive. In a space of just over one hundred square feet, after all, there were two demons, one archangel, one fallen angel, a Hero, a Church cleric, and a teenage girl. 
In terms of the faces in attendance alone, this was a historical (albeit cramped) summit of intergalactic proportions. In practice, Ashiya, too tall to find space to sit, was forced to lean against the kitchen counter instead. 
Maou decided to begin by summarizing the late events around Hatagaya station to Ashiya and Urushihara. Among the highlights, the most noteworthy was undoubtedly the fact that the boy Erone might be born from a Sephirah, albeit a different one from Alas Ramus. What made things so confusing was that this Erone was accompanied by the demon Farfarello—practically his servant, even. This marked the first time in history that a Sephirah, not just a Yesod fragment, was directly involved with events in Ente Isla. Amane Ohguro mentioned something about being a “Binah” of Earth, but despite how much of a total mystery she still remained, it seemed doubtful she was at all involved with this twisty web of Ente Islan intrigue. 
The suggestion soon came up that it was all a case of mistaken identity on Alas Ramus’s part. “But there’s no way she’d make a mistake about something so important to her,” Emi shot back, as the girl herself rapidly nodded off in her arms. “I mean, she pulled my holy sword back into her body, like, completely by herself. And besides, if he wasn’t something like that, then no way could he stop a blade that cut right through Durandal with his bare skin, no matter how weak my swipe was.” 
“True,” Suzuno added, one hand placing pressure on the elbow she wrenched on the rebound from Erone’s battering-ram blow. “I hesitate to believe it, but if Erone is the Sephirah known as Gevurah, that would explain several things I observed during the battle… Ahh, this will ache for quite a while. Gevurah is associated with the number five, rubies, iron ore, the color red, and the planet of the god of war. It wields the power of the gods, and its guardian angel is known as Camael. Even its hair resembles Alas Ramus’s—dull gray, the same color as its associated metal ore, with a single lock of red.” 
Alas Ramus, by comparison, had silver hair to match Yesod’s ore and a purple shock to match her Sephirah’s theme color. 
“So given that Alas Ramus has taken the form we see here, it is not beyond comprehension to think that the other Sephirah have human forms as well. It would just mean that Erone is the first we have seen beyond the one in your hands, Emilia. The problem, however, is—” 
“—that he’s a demon lackey, right?” 
“Indeed, my lord.” Suzuno grimly nodded at Sariel, never forgetting to remain on her best manners around the archangel. Then, with a start, the blood drained from her face. 
“W-wait a moment… Lord Sariel, did you know about…Alas Ramus…?” 
“!” 
He had become such a natural part of these proceedings that it had never occurred to anyone, but Sariel was still theoretically after Emi’s holy sword. The infant he saw Kisaki carrying once no doubt scarred him emotionally, but he still shouldn’t have known about this Yesod fragment. Maou and Emi stared at him, tense and ready to defend Alas Ramus with their lives, but the archangel puffed out his hollow cheeks and sighed lightly. 
“Yeah, I did. Gabriel stopped by my workplace a while back and started whining about how I didn’t get the sword from Emilia. He said that baby I thought was my goddess’s child had fused itself with Emilia’s holy sword, you see?” 
Neither Suzuno, who had accepted Sariel’s heartfelt confessional inside MgRonald at the time, nor anyone else had told Sariel about Alas Ramus before. 
“To be honest with you guys, I really don’t care who that kid is, as long as my goddess isn’t the biological mother. All I need is my goddess at my side, and… Ow! Eesh, did you put this cup on a hot plate before you gave it to me? This isn’t winter, you know!” 
It took at least a few seconds before Sariel noticed how hot the tea Ashiya presented to him was, as he brought it to his lips midconversation. It still remained difficult to believe this was the archangel who almost brought Emi to her knees. 
“Wow,” Chiho said, almost moved by how pathetically pained Sariel looked. “Ms. Kisaki really is the only person on your mind, isn’t she?” 
It was hard to say how honest Sariel was being, but given the subject matter at hand, it was impossible to keep Alas Ramus a secret any longer. Maou, Emi, and Suzuno relaxed in their seats a little. 
“If we assume that Alas Ramus and Erone are cut from the same cloth,” Suzuno continued, “it seems fair to say that Erone was born either from the Sephirah Gevurah or a fragment thereof. But—” 
“—but when I came down from heaven,” Sariel said, picking up Suzuno’s line of thought, “I didn’t hear about anything unusual going on with Gevurah, no.” 
Alas Ramus, at least, was created from the irregular situation of Yesod being split into an untold number of fragments. It seemed hasty to make the same conclusion with Erone. 
“Seems to me,” Maou stated matter-of-factly, “it’d be easiest to explain this by assuming heaven’s getting involved again.” 
“You’re right,” Chiho said. “I mean, the angels…” She paused, taking a moment to size up Urushihara and Sariel. 
“Yes?” 
“Dude, what?” 
Chiho hurriedly lowered her eyes. “Umm, uh, never mind. Sorry.” 
“I know exactly what you mean to say, Ms. Sasaki,” Ashiya chimed in, unable to restrain himself. “One hundred percent of the angels we have interacted with, at least, have proven to be scoundrels to the last man.” 
“Well, I guess there’s not much I can say to convince you otherwise, but—” 
“Lucifer!” 
“Oh stop it,” he continued. “I can’t say I’m completely confident about this, but if we’re talking about the angel Camael, I find it, like, super hard to picture him caring about this.” 
“What do you mean?” Emi asked. Instead of answering, Urushihara turned his eyes toward Suzuno. 
“Camael…the ‘Wrath of God’?” 
“Yep.” Urushihara nodded. Sariel said nothing to deny it. “Camael’s the guardian angel of Gevurah, but he’s not like Gabriel or Raguel. He’s, like, hard-line, old-school brimstone and fire, and all that crap. Just like his name suggests, he only takes action when God wills it—so, like, if heaven itself is in danger. Otherwise, it’s a toss-up whether he’ll even get up off his ass if someone’s screwing with Gevurah. I mean, when he does take action, it makes the other angels look like the Little Rascals, but he’s just as aware of that as the rest of us are.” 
“I agree with Lucifer’s take. It takes a lot, after all, for guardian angels to venture away from heaven in the first place.” 
“So why,” Ashiya asked, “is Erone mingling with Barbariccia’s demons?” 
The question summed up the doubts of everyone in the room. The archangel and his fallen companion answered it with silence. It was beyond their knowledge. 
“Um, Ashiya?” Chiho said. 
“Yes?” Ashiya replied, far more meekly than what he saved for the angels in the room. 
“So maybe this isn’t the greatest thing to ask right now…but don’t you ever think about going back home, Ashiya? I mean, to the demon realm or Ente Isla?” 
This sudden query could prove to be a rather devastating landmine. It aroused Emi’s and Suzuno’s suspicions at once. But Chiho had a reasonable idea what the reply would be. Ashiya would never agree to side with the Malebranche. 
“Well, certainly…if I were to be completely honest, I would gladly return. However…” He paused, face stern, his indignation clear in the way he crossed his arms. “Seeing this pack of ravenous hyenas, the Malebranche, turning their backs to His Demonic Highness, throwing the demon realms’ denizens into disarray, and cheerfully seizing the foundations I built as I conquered the Eastern Island distresses me. This may not be something you should hear, Ms. Sasaki, but even if it were not the work of a human provocateur, neither myself nor my liege would ever be at peace with it. Especially considering…” 
He then rose to take the ball of demonic force Farfarello gave Maou out from the refrigerator, glaring at it ruefully. Given the summer heat, he had taken the time to wrap it in plastic for safekeeping. 
“This baseborn dark power he threw in our faces. Even if asked to, I would never deign to harness it.” 
“Really…?” 
It wasn’t quite for the reasons she anticipated, but Maou’s distaste for the Malebranche was clearly one shared by Ashiya. At least now she knew neither of them would take up Farfarello’s invitation. 
Emi and Suzuno took a look at each other, sighed, and peered at the teacups. 
“…I almost had goose bumps for a moment.” 
“Quite so.” 
“…Pfft.” 
Suzuno calmly drank her tea, now down to room temperature. Emi, meanwhile, brought a handkerchief to her sweat-caked forehead, reached over to Maou’s chilled glass, and emptied it down her throat. 
“Wh-whoa! I was drinking that…” 
“You want me to get heat stroke?” Emi half-slid, half-tossed the glass down the table at Maou. “That might hurt Alas Ramus, too, you know.” 
“That-that’s not the issue here! I don’t—” 
“Ashiya!” 
“Y-yes?!” 
Something about the frozen smile on Chiho’s face as she sat opposite from Emi made Ashiya stiffen up from his kitchen position. 
“Would you mind making something cold for Yusa, too, please?” 
“Erm, yes. Absolutely.” 
Now Ashiya and Maou were the ones in danger of breaking into hives. 
“Wh-what’s with you guys…?” 
Emi tensed up, not realizing she was the cause of this sudden standoff between her three acquaintances. 
“Dude,” an exasperated Urushihara said, “I think everyone but you knows what.” It didn’t help clue Emi in too much. 
As this charade continued, Ashiya took the glass Emi finished and replaced it with two new ones for both her and Maou, chancing odd glances at Chiho for some reason as he did. 
“Wh-what’re you…?” 
“It’s better if you don’t notice it,” Chiho said, smile still etched onto her face by a force whose depth Emi could only begin to guess at. 
“Well, um, anyway,” Emi said, trying to get the subject back on track. “That’s really constructive, though. Now we know you aren’t going to take up Barbariccia’s invite, at least.” 
“Yes. It certainly is.” 
The lack of emotion to Chiho’s reply probably wasn’t just in Emi’s imagination. 
Emi did have a point, at least. But Maou’s and Ashiya’s ambitions still had little relation to them turning down Farfarello’s offer. Maou took a swig of cold tea and picked up the thread for the Hero. 
“Y’know, maybe I was a little too quick on the draw, though. I stepped up to keep Chi safe back there. Didn’t even think before doing it, either. Assuming Farfarello isn’t an idiot, he has to know that Chi’s involved somehow. In a way Emi and Suzuno ain’t.” 
“Do you think he knows I don’t have the power to fight against him?” 
“If I were him,” Sariel reflected, “I’d take you hostage in a New York minute.” 
The observation made everyone in the room except Urushihara shudder a little. Sariel magnanimously accepted their accusatory stares. “What do you want? It worked, right? And if it occurred to me back then, why not him ?” 
Sariel had kidnapped the powerless Chiho alongside Emi in order to seize the latter’s holy sword. It pained everyone to admit it, but it was certainly a persuasive move. 
“But how did Chiho even get into Farfarello’s barrier?” Emi asked. “She didn’t do anything.” 
Chiho shook her head. “I don’t know. I looked up, and the next thing I knew, Maou and everyone else were right there.” 
“This is just a supposition…but it might have something to do with how Erone so easily slipped through Lord Sariel’s barrier. Both Erone himself and Chiho’s ring are, at the core, forged from a Sephirah.” 
“Oh, God, not again,” Maou and Emi groaned in unison. 
“…What’s with you?” 
“…Huh?” 
The pair found themselves glaring at each other yet again. Then they awkwardly turned away and tried to drink their tea, independently deciding not to let this spark yet another fruitless argument. 
“……” 
They tried to drink their tea, but their glasses were both empty. The synchronized failure to distract themselves only made things more cringeworthy. 
“Your glass, my liege.” 
Ashiya, unable to bear any more, obediently filled Maou’s glass from his bottle of chilled tea, then plunked the bottle on the table to let Emi fill her own damn glass, thank you very much. 
“But if that is the case…what next, then?” 
“What next?” 
“You know what I mean. About Chiho.” 
Suzuno had both Maou and Emilia in her line of sight, but her somewhat peeved expression was pointed straight toward Chiho. 
“This is exactly what we feared. If Farfarello sees Chiho as ‘one of us,’ what are we supposed to do with her now?” 
“Why don’t you and I just take turns guarding her?” Emi swiftly replied, staring the annoyed Ashiya down as she tilted the bottle to fill up her glass. 
Suzuno shook her head. “I am asking the question because you cannot do that.” 
“Huh? Why not?” 
That was Chiho, who wasn’t naïve enough to turn down a little extra security at this point. Maou and his demon cohorts had none of their original powers. It only seemed natural that Emi and Suzuno would step up to protect her. But: 
“Emilia, how long can you truly escape the responsibilities of work? If we are going to guard Chiho around the clock, it must be at least two people at all times, or else we are doomed to defeat.” 
“At the hands of Erone, you mean.” 
Suzuno nodded at Sariel. “Precisely. Erone seems at least as powerful as Farfarello, if not moreso, and yet he plays servant to the demon. Their dimensional-phase barrier was holy in origin, not demonic. If Erone were to play a primary role in battle, Emilia or I alone would be unable to stop him. Especially with Alas Ramus demonstrating the reaction she had…” 
The pure muscle behind Erone’s attacks surpassed any commonsense appraisal. And looking back, even Alas Ramus had the power to flick Gabriel away like a gnat, once she put her mind to it. 
Even without her holy sword, Emi could rely on Albert’s martial-arts training and her own holy-magic skill well enough. But against a personification of a Sephirah and a Malebranche chieftain? While protecting a noncombatant? It was hard to see how that wouldn’t pose a problem. 
“I fear that should Erone take center stage in the battle, Alas Ramus may choose to interfere with you.” 
She already had, really, dispelling Emi’s Better Half. And even if “interfere” was overstating it, it was clear Emi couldn’t necessarily rely on her holy sword. Given how Alas Ramus was fused with it, the Better Half was really no longer Emi’s. It was a sentient being of its own. 
“Well, if you put it that way…” Maou sighed. “…We’re pretty much screwed, aren’t we?” 
“Is this barrier of theirs that simple to enter from the outside?” 
“That’s mostly down to what the caster wants.” Sariel crossed his arms. “The one I put on the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building covered such a large space because it was meant to keep what happened inside away from the general public instead of blocking external attack, so I didn’t make its boundaries all that strong. That’s why you wriggled your way in, after all.” 
“Oh…yeah. True.” 
Maou had gone inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building knowing full well his enemy was up on the roof. The difference between that and this more recent barrier was clear. Whether one could break through or not depended quite a bit on whether the infiltrator knew it existed in the first place—whether the concept registered at all in one’s mind. It was a unique spell, but just like the Idea Link, it took more time to wrap your brain around it than actually cast it. 
“But it took a while after I disappeared for you to work your way in, didn’t it? If Chiho wound up getting transported in by herself…that would’ve been it for her, huh?” Maou asked. 
“……” 
A heavy silence ruled over Devil’s Castle. 
“Ooh, way to take a hammer right to the core of it, dude…………………sorry.” 
Urushihara’s remark failed to lighten the mood. In fact, it darkened it. Ashiya tried again, pointing a finger at Chiho. 
“In that case,” Ashiya offered the silence, “our only option is to teach Chiho how to protect herself on a rather, I suppose, accelerated schedule.” 
“What do you mean?” 
It surprised Chiho to hear Ashiya, of all people, suggest it. 
“This Erone boy… Even when Emilia had her blade on Farfarello’s neck, he never took action unless Farfarello ordered him to, no?” 
Emi nodded. 
“He showed no outward sign of hostility against us otherwise. It might be simpler to think of Erone as just a weapon in Farfarello’s arsenal.” 
“A weapon?” 
“Wait,” Emi said. “Doesn’t that kinda make Alas Ramus the same thing, though?” 
“No, just listen to him, man,” Maou replied. 
Emi fell silent as Ashiya continued. 
“Erone never makes any move by himself. Even if they are physically far from each other, you could theorize that Farfarello always needs to be within eyeshot of Erone.” 
“Why is that?” Suzuno asked. “Erone must have his own will, too. As long as his orders are clear enough, he should be able to fulfill them. I hardly see the need to be together like this…” 
Ashiya snorted at her. “Perhaps you would not. But being stuck in these human bodies is as shameful and embarrassing for us as it would be for you humans to walk down the street in the nude. I must apologize for phrasing it that way to Ms. Sasaki, but…” 
“…Your point being?” 
Suzuno didn’t appreciate Ashiya attempting to walk back his insult of the human race for Chiho’s sake alone. Ashiya ignored her. 
“My point is that Farfarello was ordered not to hurt any Japanese bystanders—to the point that he willingly devolved himself into a human. That is how faithful he is to his mission. A demon as driven as that would never leave a weapon as powerful as a Sephirah out of his surveillance.” 
Emi nodded. “I’m not a fan of your treatment of the human race, but okay.” 
“On the other hand, having a servant who refuses to act without orders, even in life-and-death crises, indicates a severe lack of readiness, or perhaps worse. If Erone were left to his own devices and something unusual happened, he might react in ways Farfarello cannot predict. This suggests to me that Erone will never venture farther than a certain radius from Farfarello.” 
“All…all right.” 
This was a demon general—one who held on to his conquered Ente Islan territory longer than anyone else—at work. 
“I will also note that this Farfarello became a chieftain after our forces invaded Ente Isla. In other words, he has less battle experience than the other Malebranche chieftains. In a full-on clash of forces, I doubt Emilia would falter against him. And not even a high-grade robot can make its own decisions without a well-trained handler guiding it.” 
“So we should just ignore Erone and try to beat Farfarello as quickly as possible?” 
Ashiya shook his head. “No. Otherwise, there is no point in teaching that spell to Ms. Sasaki.” 
“Oh, right.” Chiho had almost forgotten the original arguing point in the midst of Ashiya’s well-organized exposition. “You thought I should learn that, didn’t you, Ashiya?” 
“If all we did was kill Farfarello, I fully guarantee you that a second force will be knocking on our door sooner rather than later. It would be a never-ending cycle. We need to find a more fundamental solution.” 
“You really think so, though?” Emi replied instinctively. “If they were going to send another force, wouldn’t they have done that after we defeated Ciriatto and his thousand-strong Malebranche army, as opposed to some entry-level chieftain?” 
“Fool.” 
“What?!” 
“If Farfarello were to die, Erone would remain here alone. We may not know his origins, but a Sephirah is a Sephirah. Having this force—which, I remind you, only a fragment of which allowed you to dominate an archangel in battle—lie unclaimed in Japan is something Barbariccia would never allow.” 
Ashiya took a moment to survey the others in the room. 
“In other words, if we ever want to stop fretting about the future, finding a way to make Farfarello return home, with Erone, in a civilized manner would be best.” 
“You make it sound so easy,” Suzuno replied, poking at Ashiya’s theory. “If we allowed Farfarello safe passage back home, the entire demon realm would learn of Chiho’s presence. That would do far more to attract a second wave of attackers.” 
“And that is why we must teach Ms. Sasaki the ways of holy magic as soon as possible. Why do you fail to understand this, Crestia Bell?” 
“What?” 
“…Oh. I think I get it.” Maou seemed to grasp Ashiya’s intent before Suzuno did. “But that’s betting on a lot, no? You think he’ll be willing to accept that?” 
“We will have to make him do so, my liege. However, we must also remember the old adage of ‘expect peace, prepare for war.’” 
Ashiya turned to Chiho to make his point clear. “We simply need to make them understand that His Demonic Highness is proceeding along with his ambitions for Japan, and that Ms. Sasaki is an integral part of them. The Malebranche on the Eastern Island have not abandoned their loyalty to the Devil King. If Farfarello can return home a convinced demon, that reduces the chance of Barbariccia meddling with us.” 
“So basically,” a distressed Emi said, “you want to drag Chiho into the demons’ side?” 
Having Chiho become an official ally of the Devil King could have long-standing repercussions. If word leaked out to the human society on Ente Isla, they might very well start seeing Chiho as a traitorous enemy to mankind. 
“What’re you gonna do,” Emi continued, “if we can’t take that back later on? There’s no telling how much time we have left.” 
Chiho lifted her head up at the words, but Ashiya’s firm voice rang out first. 
“I have never been of the philosophy that I should stop what I am doing in life because I cannot predict what the future may bring. It is better to take action than worry about it endlessly. Besides”—taking a glance at Emi, then Suzuno—“who will the people of Ente Isla believe? The Malebranche pouring into the Eastern Island, or a counselor for the Church’s Reconciliation Panel? As long as you can keep Ms. Sasaki safe, it would be a simple matter to ensure she is not looked upon with hostility.” 
Emi and Suzuno found frustratingly little to fire back with. 
Suzuno had three overbearing goals in her life: rid the Church of corruption, ensure the Hero Emilia’s feats were recognized for what they were, and make Emilia the leader of a post–Devil King’s Army world. If achieving that meant protecting Chiho, this human from another planet, from Ente Isla itself, she was ready, willing, and able. 
Urushihara watched as both of their faces softened. “Yeah, who knows?” he mused. “Maybe those demons’re more gullible than we thought.” 
Ashiya had a point. Just because the future was murky didn’t mean wasting time in circuitous debate would accomplish anything. 
“Actions over words… Imagine a demon telling me that.” 
Emi put a final exclamation point on the debate. 
“Very well,” Suzuno reluctantly said. “In that case, starting tomorrow, we will have Chiho engage in intensive holy-magic training. But if this puts her in danger at all, I will ensure you pay for it.” 
“Well, not that I really get what’s going on, but good luck, guys. I’m heading home.” Sariel, watching the proceedings from one side, stood up. “It sounds like you all have a lot on your plate, but as long as my goddess isn’t in danger, it’s nothing to do with me. I promise I won’t meddle in your affairs, so have fun!” 
No one tried to stop him. Maou and his cohorts weren’t exactly counting on him as a team member in the first place. But as he put on his shoes by the front door, Sariel found himself stopped by a voice. 
“Umm…!” 
“Hmm?” Sariel asked. 
“I… Would you mind helping me out, Sariel? Please?” 
It was Chiho. 
The unexpected request aroused Emi’s concern. “Uhh, Chiho?” 
“…Are you insane?” Sariel looked back at Chiho in confused scorn. “Why do I have to cooperate with anything you all are doing? We’re enemies, aren’t we? And even if we weren’t, this has absolutely nothing to do with me.” 
“But that light from your eyes stopped him, didn’t it, Sariel?” 
“So what? Of course it did. A Sephirah’s basically a giant ball of holy energy, so naturally the Evil Eye of the Fallen’s gonna work its stuff against it. But why does having that mean I’m obliged to work with you?” 
“I know that. I’m not asking you to fight for me. Just while I’m learning this skill is fine.” 
“Chiho, what are you saying? Bell and I are right here for you—” 
“Well, we might not have a lot of time before something happens, but depending on what the demons decide to do, we might have more than we think, too. I don’t know how much time it’ll take, but I can’t keep Yusa away from work that whole time.” 
This sudden concern for her day-to-day life took Emi by surprise. “What’re you talking about? This really isn’t the time for—” 
“Sure it is. Even if we get past this, Yusa, what if you lose your paycheck next month or get fired for being out of the office too long? I’d never be able to make that up to you.” 
“You are being far too anxious, Chiho. I have more than enough financial freedom to allow for an extra roommate or two, and even if Emilia does lose her job, I am sure she can find another—” 
“If her friends in her next job get caught up in Ente Isla stuff, too, what then? You can’t cover everybody.” 
“!” 
Suzuno, recalling what Maou told her during their TV shopping trip, fell silent. 
It was not exactly advisable for Emi and the rest to expand their base of human acquaintances more than necessary right now. She and Maou already had a fairly decent, stable circle of friends in the relatively narrow parts of Tokyo they frequented. The wider a radius this circle covered, though, the better the chance their enemy—whoever they turned out to be—could find a way to strike at it. 
“Well…no, but…” 
Emi glared mournfully at Sariel. It failed to cross her mind until now, but this archangel had injured both her body and, more deeply, her pride not long ago. The option of leaving Chiho in his hands seemed unthinkable. And Chiho had been there the whole time, too—she must have understood Emi’s misgivings. 
“And I know you have work, too, Sariel, so I won’t count on you the whole time, either. I mean, maybe Yusa or Suzuno could cover for this or that day. And if you can help us…” 
That was exactly why Chiho chose this moment to break out her most secret of weapons. 
“I can’t promise it’ll happen immediately, but I’ll try to find a way for you to make up with Ms. Kisaki.” 
“Right! Your phone done charging yet? Let’s move, Bell! Head for the other side now!” 
“Yes, my lord!” 
“Ugh…” 
And here was the result. 
The sheer amount of holy force Sariel unleashed upon the room that evening, so eager he was to mend their friendship (as if they had one in the first place), was enough to knock Ashiya out of his master-strategist speech and straight into unconsciousness. 
“So you’ve been doing this kind of thing in this sweltering gym all afternoon?” 
Emi, fresh from work, watched the proceedings with a bored look on her face. She didn’t complain about it, though. The theory behind their training was sound enough. 
“I keep having to tell ’im to take a break, or else Chi just gets too involved in it.” 
“Still…if this keeps up, she might just be able to learn a skill before the end of the day, won’t she? That’s really amazing. It’s like Chiho’s a born holy-force activator.” 
“Don’t let her hear that. Sariel warned me about it. She might wind up developing a spell by herself, remember.” 
“Good point… Not that I think it’d be that simple for her.” 
“Wow, Chi-Sis!” 
Alas Ramus must have instinctively picked up on it. Her eyes were transfixed upon Chiho’s training. 
“So?” 
“Hmm?” 
“…You really think she can have them make up?” 
“…I dunno.” 
That, in a way, was the anxiety none of them could banish from their hearts, more so than either Farfarello or Erone. 
Having them “make up” was a fairly dicey proposal, given that their relationship this far consisted mainly of Sariel falling in love with Kisaki and eating every meal at MgRonald, not even trying to hide the fact he was pursuing her as he wasted his food budget on fattening junk. That was about the extent of it. 
“But Ms. Kisaki never stopped treating Sariel like a customer, at least, so…” 
In Maou’s eyes, “making up” simply meant that Kisaki’s blanket ban from allowing Sariel on premises would be lifted. That, at least, seemed sort of within the realm of possibility, but whether Sariel would be content with that was another issue entirely. For now at least, Sariel was playing the part of an eager holy-magic coach—but if they failed to provide the kind of “making up” he might be picturing, there was no telling what kind of fallout could result. 
“It’s always times like these when I can’t rely on Rika, either…” 
“What does Rika Suzuki have to do with this?” 
“Well, it’s not like they’re rekindling some kind of romance or anything, but I thought I’d ask her if she had any tips on helping people mend fences a little. She loves gossiping about stuff like that, you know? But…you know… him .” 
Emi used her eyes to point out Ashiya’s back as he watched over Chiho’s magic drills. As Emi’s coworker and friend, Rika didn’t know who she or Maou really were, but she was on at least casual terms with Maou, Chiho, and Suzuno—and, more relevantly, currently crushing on Ashiya like a hydraulic press. 
“So I asked her, and she was like, ‘Ooh, I don’t think I even know myself anymore,’ so I put an end to the conversation before it descended into pajama-party gossip.” 
It had become customary for Emi to arrive at her cube and see Maki Shimizu, another work acquaintance, occasionally try to unravel the cause of “don’t think I know myself anymore,” only to be dodged and verbally beaten away each time. 
“…And you’re fine with that?” 
“With what?” 
“That.” Maou pointed out Ashiya’s back with his eyes. 
Emi shrugged as she leered up at Maou. “Bell told me about it. How you’ve been lording it over her about getting too involved with relationships.” 
“Not lording it up, really. I may’ve just said that it’d be arrogant of me to try and get Rika ’way from Ashiya, you know? Like we’re some kind of saints.” 
“That’s what ‘lording it over’ is, you know. Not like you care where I’m coming from on this.” 
“I haven’t exactly cared about what the Hero thought before now, so…” 
Maou shrugged in an attempt to escape Emi’s peeved gaze. Emi kept up the effort, peering straight at Maou’s chin, but gave up after another moment or two. 
“…I’m just like her, though.” 
“Huh?” 
Emi rested her chin on her knees and looked on as Sariel barked his orders at a huffing, puffing Chiho. 
“I don’t think I know myself any longer, either, I mean. So I don’t know if I have the right to judge other people at all.” 
“……” 
Emi was acting remarkably reserved today. Maou had trouble figuring out how to respond. 
“Don’t know yourself any longer…?” 
He dodged the issue by ruminating over Emi’s words, then turning his attention away from her and toward Chiho and her trainers. 
“Mmm…” Sariel pondered to himself for a moment. “If you’ve grown this adept at activating holy force, I feel we’re just one or two steps away… Right. Let’s change our approach. Bell! Send a message from your end this time! Maybe she’ll get the knack if she picks up on what it feels like to receive one.” 
“Yes, my lord!” 
Suzuno, on her end of the gym, raised a hand into the air. Suzuno tried to concentrate. 
“But what should I send?” 
Suzuno considered for a moment. “If I want her to pick up the ‘knack,’ as you say…perhaps some form of conversation would be more effective than simple sounds.” She continued muttering to herself as she called Chiho on her phone. “Some concrete keywords that will create an internal response strong enough that Chiho could pick up on it…” 
Something Suzuno could easily pick up on wouldn’t be a bad idea, either, just in case she needed to hear Chiho’s response. 
“…Umm.” 
“What’s the problem, Bell? Move it! The radio-calisthenics song is ending!” 
Suzuno failed to respond for a moment. The solution she stumbled upon was, to say the least, distressing. 
“Ehm… Ahem!” 
She brought the phone to her ear and coughed, a nervous habit whenever she had to ask an inconvenient question. Focusing on Chiho and her phone, unsure what was making this so embarrassing for her, she sent her an Idea Link. Thank heavens Maou wasn’t on that side of the gym. 
{“Do you want, perhaps, to mar—um, become the Devil King’s lawfully wedded wife?”} 
The shame made her dart around the question a little, but the final result was still more direct than she wanted it to be. 
{“Waaauuuuuooooooooo!!!”} 
But it had the desired effect. The next moment, a flood of powerful emotion, coupled with something like a coyote’s howl, thudded through the air and into Suzuno’s brain. The sheer force behind the feelings, represented in the volume she perceived, made Suzuno’s sight darken as though she were concussed. The resulting dizziness made her drop her phone. 
“Whoa! Bell?!” 
Emi stood up, realizing something was up with her. Looking toward Chiho, she found that her head now resembled something like an inflated, hyperventilating red balloon. 
“H-hey… Is she okay, Emi?!” 
The reaction from Suzuno was stark enough to attract even Maou’s concern. The cleric was curled up, holding her head with one hand and using the other to occasionally beat against the parquet floor, the phone, and sometimes herself. 
“All-all right, I, I-I-I-I apologize! P-please, calm down a—” 
“Chi?!” 
“Owwwww…” 
As if Suzuno’s flailing around like a fish on a dock weren’t enough, now Chiho’s own phone fell out of her hand as she slumped to the floor. Maou hurriedly ran over and grabbed her shoulders. 
“Hey, Chi, are you all—” 
The moment their eyes met, her irises, already wide open, expanded all the way to their physical limits. 
“M-M-M-M-Mao-Mao-Mao-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Maouuuuuuuu-ma-ma-ma-Maou-a-ma-ma-mah, nyeaggggggghhhhhhhhhhh !!” 
Suzuno writhed in agony, as if being physically struck with every Ma the panicked Chiho let out. 
“What the hell, man? What’s happening?!” 
“Bell! Bell, get ahold of yourself!” 
As the two girls fell deeper into panic, Sariel sidled up to Maou’s side. 
“Dahh… Hnh!” 
With one fingertip tap on her forehead, Chiho fell limp in Maou’s arms, as if fainting. As she did, Suzuno took a deep breath and sat up from Emi’s arms, released from whatever tormented her. 
“Bell must have knocked on one hell of a door in her heart,” Sariel deadpanned, looking down at Chiho in exasperation. 
The unconscious Chiho soon began to blink her eyes, still in a daze. The moment she recognized Maou’s face, she immediately turned her own aside, ensuring her hateful glare at Suzuno was at an angle no one else could catch. 
“Well, I suppose we’ve broken through the biggest wall there. Bell must have picked up on Chiho Sasaki’s Idea Link just then.” 
“!!” 
Chiho was the most surprised out of all of them. 
As if to back those words up, Suzuno groggily spoke. 
“It was… impossibly loud.” 
The training session continued until seven PM , when their gym reservation time expired. However, given how they had no idea when Farfarello and Erone might decide to strike, they opted to stay in a group as long as possible, each member leaving in the order of whose home was closest to the complex. 

“You all right, Chi?” 
“I-I-I’m A-Okay!” 
Fresh from successfully casting her own spell (whether out of sheer coincidence or not), Chiho seemed to be keeping an oddly long distance away from Maou, hiding in Emi’s shadow ever since they left the building. Suzuno was a bit wobbly herself at first, but was now managing to maintain a decent walking pace by herself. 
“So,” Sariel asked Chiho in front of his condo door. “Same time tomorrow, then?” 
“Um, sure! I have work in the evening, though, so I can’t stay around for quite so long.” 
“And you all?” 
“Yeah, I got work in the afternoon, so Ashiya and Urushihara’ll join in instead.” 
“I was kind of hoping Bell could substitute for me tomorrow, but…would you mind?” 
Emi’s hands were regrettably tied during the weekdays on that front. Suzuno was still slightly dazed at Chiho’s mercilessly high-decibel scream bouncing off her cerebral cortex, but she still nodded her approval. 
“Great. Let’s say one to four PM tomorrow, then. Is that all—” 
Is that all right with everyone was what the suddenly bossy Sariel probably intended to say. Instead, something in the evening sky, the stars just beginning to twinkle above the setting sun, made him freeze in place. 
“Hm?” Maou followed his gaze. “Hey, what’s up, Sarie—uh?” 
“Uhh?!” 
Chiho and Emi were soon gasping themselves at the figure standing above them. 
“Oh, it’s you guys? What’re you all doing here?” 
She had a business outfit and a shoulder bag filled to bursting with files and work tools. Her heels were high enough that even Maou had to turn his head upward to look at her. Mayumi Kisaki, head manager at the MgRonald in front of Hatagaya station, exuded beauty in the dim light, her long hair shining in otherworldly colors. And now she was looking at them in abject surprise. 
“What, what about you , Ms. Kisaki…?” 
Maou and Chiho couldn’t hide their alarm at seeing Kisaki here , of all places. Meanwhile, Emi and Suzuno gave each other a quick glance. Their previous sighting was no fluke after all. 
“I’m not sure I’ve met all of you before,” Kisaki said as she sized up Ashiya and Urushihara. “Friends, maybe?” Urushihara rarely bothered going outside at all, and Ashiya had only visited MgRonald a couple of times since Maou began working there. He couldn’t blame Kisaki for not recognizing him. But the moment her eyes settled upon the man between him and Urushihara, her kindly expression turned into one of spiteful scorn. 
“…Why are you here, Mitsuki Sarue?” 
Chiho and Maou attempted to explain, but found themselves wagging their tongues fruitlessly. “This…um, this is just a…” “I… Oooh, I was…um…” 
“You aren’t messing around with MgRonald customers and crew again, are you…?” 
Kisaki pushed the women in the group out of the way to give herself a better position to interrogate Sariel from. Neither Maou nor Chiho could think of any way to stop her. They were both eyewitnesses to the moment Kisaki banned the guy, besides. 
Not only would this certainly not mend the fences between them—it’d only put more suspicion on Sariel’s shoulders, solidifying Kisaki’s decision even more. Clearly, it was up to Sariel to step up and do something . 
“Um,” he began shakily, “ummmm, I actually live in this condo building, so—” 
“…What? Here? ” 
“Y-yes, erm…” 
The overbearing high-school coach act Sariel put on back at the gym was a faint memory now. Sariel was weak at the knees, a wholly unbelievable sight given the daily rose bouquets and burger feasts he was known for. Then Kisaki brought the conversation in an abrupt new direction. 
“Since when?” 
Sariel, caught off guard, gave the honest answer. “Since they built the Sentucky I manage in Hatagaya, but—” 
“You lived in this fancy-pants condo the entire time, you freak?” Maou’s grim and resentful aside went unheard. 
“Mitsuki Sarue.” 
“Y-yes?!” 
Being called by name like a drill sergeant made Sariel’s voice quiver. 
“Lemme ask you something. Was that storefront empty when you moved in?” 
“Huh?” 
Another abrupt zigzag. Sariel had trouble sizing this one up. 
“Well?” 
The repeated question shot him back to attention. 
“Um, I think it was a restaurant when I first showed up. It didn’t look that old to me, but it closed less than a month after I moved in…” 
Kisaki’s eyebrows twitched thoughtfully once or twice. Then: 
“Ugghh…” 
She sighed. Not out of rage or exasperation, but out of resignation. 
“I guess I was figuring as much.” 
“Um… How do you mean, exactly?” Maou couldn’t resist joining the conversation. “I mean, ever since the MagCafé opened up, you’ve been acting kind of different from before. Like, it feels like you’re stretching yourself a lot thinner than usual…” 
Kisaki had never betrayed a single millisecond of exhaustion to Maou before. Now she was talking about how “seriously rough” work was and going off manual for the coffee she made Mr. Hotplease. 
That’s what I want to be someday. A true barman. —She had said that, hadn’t she? A barman, someone she described as a true service professional. And now she was examining a storefront that used to be a restaurant. It wasn’t hard to draw a conclusion from that. 
“You were talking about how difficult it was to become a barman back at MgRonald, right?” 
“…Yeah.” 
Maou looked up to Kisaki as an example of what climbing the MgRonald corporate ladder could accomplish for someone with enough ambition. Now she was acting almost…vulnerable. He decided to push the topic. 
“Ms. Kisaki, are you…are you actually gonna quit MgRon gah !!” 
The sentence Maou conceived in his mind was cut off by one of Kisaki’s files batting him on the head. 
“Don’t jump to conclusions, you idiot.” 
“The-the corners on those files hurt, you know…” 
The Devil King who laughed at the face of the Hero’s holy sword was nearly brought to tears by something from the stationery aisle. Kisaki sighed, finding herself at an impasse. 
“…You know, I do feel bad for not being my normal self around the crew lately. It’s just, with all the new stuff we do at MgRonald now, one of my old dreams is starting to make its way back into my head.” 
“Your old dreams?” Maou looked up at Kisaki as he cradled his head. 
“Right. I should probably let Chiho know most of all, shouldn’t I? Even grown-ups are allowed to dream about the future, after all.” 
She smiled. 
“I’ve always posted up better numbers than anyone else hired with me in Tokyo.” 
Maou knew this well enough by now, but those were the words that suddenly came from her mouth as she lovingly stared not at Sariel, not at Maou, but at the lonely FOR RENT sign on the window. 
“But lately, I’ve started to think…like, maybe I want to see how far I can go by myself.” 
“So you’re thinking about going solo sometime in the future?” Emi gingerly asked. “Not necessarily right now?” 
“Pretty much, I suppose,” Kisaki quickly replied—so quickly, in fact, that it caught Maou unprepared. “I mean, it’s all just kind of a ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ thing in my mind right now. I’m not taking any concrete steps toward it.” 
“Uh, I’d think that scoping out real estate is a pretty concrete step…” 
“Oh, this? This is just playing at it, really. It’s like seeing a help-wanted ad on the Net and immediately fantasizing about what you’ll do with the first paycheck.” 
“Ooh.” 
“Mm…” 
“Uhhh…” 
Maou, Emi, and Chiho all groaned uncomfortably. They’d all had experience with that. Kisaki smiled at the display. 
“Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s what motivated you to get working.” 
She approached the empty storefront window, peering into an interior lit only by the dwindling western sun. 
“All my fellow managers keep heaping praise on me for the numbers I put up. But I don’t really feel like I’m doing anything much different from any of them. The fact that the Hatagaya MgRonald keeps beating its previous sales figures year over year isn’t just because of me or anything.” 
“Oh, of course it is!” Chiho breathlessly replied. “I hear all these stories about evil managers and lazy part-timers, but it feels like our MgRonald’s on a totally other level from that. We pretty much never have angry customers, and I think a lot of that comes down to you, Ms. Kisaki!” 
Kisaki shook her head, still facing the window. “I’m glad to hear that, but it’s really nothing I could do alone. I’ve only been at that location for a year and a half—that’s actually pretty damn long for a manager to stay at one place, but even before I showed up, there was already something there that set up the framework I worked under.” 
She turned her eyes toward Sariel’s reflection. 
“What do you think that is?” 
“…The previous manager?” 
Kisaki bunched her eyebrows at Sariel’s reply. 
“Wow. Considering how you go around embarrassing yourself, calling me a goddess and just barely skirting Japan’s stalker laws, you really know nothing about me, do you?” 
Sariel visibly shrank. 
“You probably know the answer by this point, Marko. What is it?” 
“The MgRonald Corporation. The brand.” 
Kisaki nodded her approval at the confident reply. 
“I am a single MgRonald employee. I take pride in that, and I couldn’t even tell you how much I’ve learned from them. Even if I make it all the way up the ladder, I’d still just be walking a path trodden by so many people before me. The assorted things I’ve been doing at that location all came about as part of the MgRonald system that already existed.” 
“Is that…how it is, then?” Emi asked softly. 
Kisaki neither nodded nor shook her head as her smile broadened. “You are… Ms. Yusa, right? Do you use a lint roller to get the junk off the shoulders of your work clothing when you get home?” 
“Huh?” Emi instantly turned her head toward one of her shoulders. “N-no, nothing quite like that—” 
“When you wash your hands, do you lather up all the way to your elbows and use a brush to polish up and disinfect your nails?” 
“Well, I use soap, but—” 
“Right, you see? A quick soap and rinse is just fine. There’s some great soap out there in Japan.” 
Then Kisaki took her hands, refined and beautiful enough to feature in a cell phone ad, and thrust them into the evening air. 
“Those are two examples of the kinds of things MgRonald’s spent years hammering into its store locations. That kind of hygiene isn’t something a place besides MgRonald can encourage through just a little education alone. That’s what I mean when I say there’s nothing about that location I’ve built up by myself.” 
She turned around to face the group. 
“And, of course, there’s still a lot I want to do. A lot of things I could only do in MgRonald. I kind of went off script a bit ago, actually. I know what some of my regular customers like in their coffee, and I tried to adjust my procedure for them…but man , it’s been hard. And now I guess I’m checking out a storefront that’s doomed to fail, huh? I’ve still got a lot to learn. It’ll probably be a while before I start talking about any dreams again.” 
“W-was that what you did?!” 
It was the day Kisaki had begun whining at Maou. He couldn’t believe that was what she was doing up there. It wasn’t too long after their grand reopening, either; they had to be fairly crowded. Their regulars numbered in the dozens, if not the hundreds. Remembering all of their preferences and crafting the perfect cup of coffee for them…? 
“So the coffee you had us drink, Ms. Kisaki…” 
“Yeah. Sorry about that.” Kisaki winked and gave them a mischievous chuckle. “That was kind of unfair, I know. I just figured it’d be nice to remind everybody who’s boss. But I didn’t treat you to ‘today’s special’ just for fun, either. You like your coffee bitter and not too hot, right, Marko? And Chi likes hers with no sugar and tons of milk.” 
Kisaki made a regular habit of treating the crew on duty to free Platinum Roast coffees whenever they exceeded their revenue goal for the day. What this meant was that through the days and weeks, Kisaki grasped how everybody on payroll liked their coffee—their MgRonald coffee, something specifically engineered not to be all that customizable. 
“……” 
Maou and Chiho were shocked. 
“But don’t let that make you think the MgRonald Barista workshop is a waste of time,” Kisaki said. “Having a broader knowledge of the stuff you’re working with creates the foundation for a whole new world of skills and technique. Every dream is just the culmination of a lot of tiny steps, after all.” 
She seemed to chew on her words a moment. 
“Right now, MgRonald’s giving me a pretty stable life. I’ve got talented people like you under me, and I’m notching some serious career achievements. Maybe a promotion’s in my future. Who knows? But…” Her hand gripped the shoulder bag at her side. “There’s always going to be this dream alive in a corner of my mind. This idea that I can build my own history as an individual person. That I can take that step.” 
Her eyes seemed to twinkle like a little girl’s as she revealed her heart. Not even people Chiho’s age talked so frankly about their dreams like that too often, but here was their boss, a fast-track manager going everywhere in life, laying it all bare for them. She wanted to be a barman, an expert in every aspect of service. That was her dream, and the unexpected installation of a café in her Hatagaya location had helped kindle the flame a little. She had that dream because she knew her talents made her dissatisfied with the status quo. Her efforts in life granted her the right to dream. 
“We might all dream in different ways, but depending on how we live and what we strive after, we can always have a new dream to pursue. Whether you make it happen or not is another matter, though.” 
Kisaki shrugged and pointed at the empty storefront in Sariel’s condo. 
“This place looked pretty fancy when it was open, didn’t it?” 
“I…think so, yes,” Sariel said, trying to recall. 
Kisaki nodded. “I thought it was a little cheap for what it offered,” she sniffed. “Must be something else going on with it.” 
Something about the way she put it suggested that she was more than window shopping. She must’ve discussed the space with a real estate agent, at least. 
“But why, though?” Maou asked. “I’d figure the condo residents would eat here, and I don’t think there’re many other restaurants around to provide competition. If the décor suited the location, you’d think it would attract a customer base…” 
“One way of putting it, yes,” Ashiya retorted. “But if you think about it another way, those could all be negatives as well.” 
“What makes you say that, sir?” Kisaki addressed the stranger politely. 
Ashiya responded by timidly looking up at Sariel’s building. “From what I can tell, this building is not that fully occupied. It might be nearby, yes, but no resident is going to stop here for lunch on a daily basis. The moment it grows old in their minds, they will stop coming. And being located in Hatagaya, I imagine the rent cannot be all that reasonable. A restauranteur would have to factor that into their prices. Perhaps you would have to charge 500 yen for a cup of coffee—but if you went that high, it would be difficult to ask that of customers without some sort of added value that goes beyond the quality of the drink.” 
He took a look around the street. 
“However, have you noticed? We have been loitering here for quite some time now, but we have yet to see anyone so much as brush past us. On a straight two-lane road without any stoplights, cars are going to pass by without even a second glance, so despite the amount of traffic, there likely would not be too many drop-in customers. Those cars have a municipal road lined with stores and restaurants just a little way ahead as well.” 
Then he turned toward the condo’s residential floors. 
“We are far away from both the rail station and the local shopping district, and there are no other shops near us. You could frame that as having little competition to deal with, but having no stores here means there is nothing else to drive people into the neighborhood. That was likely why few people visited this café. Even if they were counting on work-commuter traffic, this area is wholly residential, and one would have to live here to even realize there was a café at all. They simply had a very limited audience to work with. And, I imagine, the killer blow was the convenience store right next door.” 
Kisaki listened on, impressed at this impromptu economics lesson. 
“I have the impression that there are relatively few families around this neighborhood. Most of the apartments seem to be meant for singles, and you have to travel a fair distance before you begin to see any stand-alone housing. If you live by yourself, I think the choice between a café and a convenience store is fairly obvious. With most convenience stores, it’s almost a given these days that you will find drinks from Moonbucks or Dully’s Coffee on offer. Most single condo dwellers have visitors only on rare occasions, and even then, they would be unlikely to entertain them somewhere outside of the home. Along those lines, as well, a convenience store offers everything they need. …Those are my impressions, at least,” he added to Kisaki, beginning to regret going on for so long. 
Kisaki, who had been listening with eyes closed and a finger on her chin, turned to Maou. 
“You’ve got a good brain on your side.” 
“Um, thank you.” 
Ashiya bowed at the indirect compliment. 
“I completely agree with that. The only good things about this location are the exterior and the equipment. Beyond that, it doesn’t offer any of the elements a restaurant needs. In terms of the locale, I’d guess it’s better suited for a barber shop or beauty salon or something. I’m glad I figured that out, at least.” 
Kisaki nodded to herself with a smile. 
“Well, sorry I stopped all you guys. I’m heading to MgRonald, but are you all going home?” 
“Um, yeah, for today, anyway,” Maou nodded. 
Kisaki gave him a smile. “All right. Thanks for putting up with my rambling about my dreams. Next time you all show up at my store, I’ll treat you all to a café au lait from upstairs, so stop on by when you’re close.” 
Just as she was about to briskly saunter away, a tiny, withdrawn voice behind her back stopped her. 
“……ah……” 
It was soft enough that even the tapping of her heels could’ve concealed it, but Kisaki’s ears noticed it nonetheless. 
“I’m guessing the reason you’re looking like that,” she said, back still turned, “isn’t because Sentucky’s sales are hurting, is it?” 
“N-no, um…erm…” 
She was talking to Sariel, whose voice remained tiny and imploring. He stammered, knowing that telling her the real reason would only disenchant her even more. But it was too late for that. 
“I heard that it’s mainly because I banned you from my restaurant.” 
“Mngh!” 
Kisaki must have known that from the start. Even Emi and Suzuno, originally hearing the story secondhand from Chiho, could see that. 
“You’re more sensible than I gave you credit for. I all but resigned myself to seeing those stupid red roses on the counter just like normal the next day.” 
“I-I figured that would go too far into stalker territory for your tastes,” Sariel timidly stated. 
Kisaki shrugged and chuckled to herself. “If I wasn’t as generous to you as I was, what you were doing before then was stalker-ish enough. I don’t know where you heard my age from, but giving a total stranger one rose for every year of her lifespan is grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit these days.” 
“You…you did that?” 
“Oh, man, you gotta be kidding me…” 
“Duuuude. See, this is exactly why we got such a bad rep these days.” 
There was little Sariel could do to counter this criticism. 
“I still believe I’m justified in banning you. You’re the one acting creepy around all the women you see—it’s completely your fault. …But.” Kisaki turned just a little toward Sariel, eyebrows still lowered. “I feel like I’m using your whacked-out love to bring down Sentucky, and that doesn’t make me feel good. No real barman would defeat their business competition with dirty tricks.” 
“Then…you’ll…?” 
With a hefty sigh, Kisaki turned her face away from him. 
“If I have to watch you mope around on the street and have dogs piss on you, it’d be better for everyone if you’re happy and sane inside my dining area instead. You can come back starting tomorrow.” 
It is difficult to describe the transformation in Sariel’s facial expression. Imagine a penguin chick, surviving a brutal winter’s blizzard, sighting the first blessed ray of sunshine spreading out from between the clouds. The very color of his soul had changed. 
“ But! ” Kisaki snapped. “No more roses. Please. I have to get permission from my regional manager to put plants in the restaurant space, and I’m sure you do, too. It’s a pain in the butt to deal with. Also, this is your final warning. If I ever catch you making trouble for my staff or customers again, you can expect a permanent ban and maybe a court summons if I’m in a bad mood.” 
Then she sauntered off into the Hatagaya evening cityscape, not bothering to wait for a response. 
“…That sure worked out well, didn’t it?” 
“I suppose so,” Maou blankly replied. 
“Mm…? L-Lord Sariel?!” 
“Sariel! Sariel, snap out of it! You’re f-floating in the air!” 
The happiness within Sariel, a dreamy, doll-like smile on his face as he watched Kisaki leave, must have been made of helium. His body was bathed in an angelic light as his feet left the sidewalk. The street was deserted, luckily, but it still took ten minutes to get him grounded again—emotionally and physically. 
 
Saturday. The day of the MgRonald Barista seminar was almost tragically beautiful. 
As far as Maou could tell, Chiho’s skill with holy force hadn’t improved all that much in the few days since Kisaki had lifted the ban on Sariel. Work prevented Maou (and Emi, too) from being around her for very long, but that was the impression Ashiya and Suzuno gave him, at least. Farfarello and Erone remained incommunicado, so it appeared to everyone that this was going to be a drawn-out battle. 
Maou sweated it out at nine AM as he waited for Chiho at Sasazuka station, cursing the sun for this final blast of summer heat but still finding himself oddly anticipating the upcoming seminar. 
Even during summer break, the ever-diligent Chiho remained busy. Between her club activities, her part-time job, and her alien-world magic training, there wasn’t much free time left. She more or less wrapped up all her summer school projects in mid-July—that was so classically Chiho of her—but considering all the trouble these visitors from Ente Isla had caused her this summer, Maou felt that he owed her a trip out somewhere after the workshop was over. 
Then, inside a pocket of the tote bag he was using to bring writing materials and such along, his phone vibrated. 
“Huh?” he said to himself as he brought it to his ear. “That’s odd. Is she late or something?” 
{“I’m right behind you, Maou.”} 
“Waggh?!” 
The sudden voice in his head made Maou jump on the spot. 
“Um, sorry if I scared you!” 
She was right there, clad in a robin’s-egg blue dress and hefting a large shoulder bag, looking a little despondent upon realizing that she gave Maou heart palpitations with her act. “Are you all right? I thought I’d surprise you a little, but…sorry.” 
“Oh, uh… No, it’s fine, but… that , just now…” Maou blinked, noticing that Chiho had no cell phone in her hand. 
“Uh-huh! That was an Idea Link.” 
“Y-you mastered that?” 
She seemed completely serene, the act of activating her holy force not taxing her strength at all. The voice that spooked him had a direct link to his brain, no doubt about it. 
“Not quite yet, actually. Your phone rang just now, didn’t it?” 
“Yeah.” Maou peered at his phone’s screen and bought up his call history. “…No caller ID? I thought I had anonymous calls blocked on this thing.” 
He didn’t check before picking up, figuring it had to be Chiho calling him, but the only word in the call log was “Restricted.” 
“I still can’t get it to work unless I have an amplifier to work with. I don’t need to have anything on me, but I can’t get other people to pick up on my messages unless they have a phone on them.” 
“Huh. Kind of a roundabout way of doing it, isn’t it? That’d actually be harder for me than just linking up directly.” 
Chiho chuckled. “Suzuno and Sariel said the same thing.” 
“You’re pretty much just making a phone call with holy magic, aren’t you? That’s kind of a convoluted way to keep from using up your minutes.” 
“Well, I just can’t quite picture linking into someone’s mind like that yet. But I know you can talk to someone by sending a message to a phone number at the right wavelength or whatever, so I tried memorizing Suzuno’s number, and…it just kind of worked.” 
Chiho made it sound simple enough, but not even Emi could have come up with that idea, and she used a phone to Idea Link with Emeralda all the time. The way holy magic worked, it was the spellcaster, not the receiver, who needed to have an amplifier. What was the science, so to speak, behind this approach? 
“…Wow. Even if I wanted to try doing it that way, I’m pretty limited in terms of dark power, so…” 
Even now, Maou still had no idea how Emi and Suzuno were recharging their holy force. Urushihara seemed to be in on the secret, but he refused to tell him—“it wouldn’t help us anyway,” as he put it. If Chiho was tapping into the same supply as the other two, maybe Maou would have a chance to see that in action today. 
“Well, either way, I’m glad you can send out an SOS when you need to now. What kind of range do you have?” 
“As far as we could tell during practice yesterday, I can manage a radius of three hundred feet or so.” 
“Three hundred feet?” Maou’s face soured a bit. “That’s pretty damn good for a beginner, but it’s hard to say if that’s gonna be good enough or not. I guess phone signals can’t break through Erone’s barrier, either. I doubt your power’s affected by that much, but I wouldn’t rely too much on the maximum end of that range, either. ’Course, I guess we’ll spend all day together anyway, so it doesn’t matter too much.” 
“…!” 
The way Maou said “all day together” so naturally made Chiho gasp a little. 
“I…I guess it’s been a while, hasn’t it? You and I together, alone, for a while…” 
Maou reflected thoughtfully on this for a moment. “Ummm…yeah, you’re right. Not since that whole deal underground at Shinjuku. Hard to believe that was only three months ago.” 
“…………Yeah.” 
Chiho expected that tepid reply. But, inside, she wanted the topic to last at least a bit longer than that . 
“Well, shall we, then?” Maou said as he took out the ticket he already bought and headed for the turnstile. 
“…Sure,” Chiho said glumly. “Oh, wait a sec, I need to go buy a ticket.” Maou waited for her to buy a one-stop ticket before joining her through the gate. 
Three pairs of eyes stared at them from behind a nearby column. 
“Why do we have to stalk her like a bunch of Peeping Toms?” 
“We must. Chiho may have acquired the knack for sending Idea Links, but the Devil King himself has practically no ability to fight.” 
“I am prepared to sacrifice everything I have to protect the crew of my goddess!” 
“Oof. Talk about the leopard changing its spots. Are you cutting work today?” 
“Say what you will. My goddess told us herself: No matter how old a man becomes, he must always keep sprinting toward his dreams! And I am not cutting work, thank you. I would never shame my goddess in such fashion! I took a vacation day!” 
Emi, Suzuno, and Sariel all agreed long ago that they needed to tail Chiho today. What surprised the girls was how sincere Sariel was in his zest to keep the girl safe. They were concerned that Kisaki’s softened stance toward him would make him break his promise to help with her training, but if anything, he was more passionate about it than ever before. The courtesy he now showed Maou and Emi was almost sickeningly cloying, and he even offered to cover all the training-space rental fees until Chiho mastered amplifier-based spellcasting. Now, even though nobody asked him—or even told him that Maou and Chiho were attending a MgRonald training seminar—here he was, following them around since morning. 
“Well, as long as you don’t get in our way… Let’s go before we lose them.” 
The trio went through the gate and spoke in hushed voices as they watched Maou and Chiho line up for the front car of the next train to Shinjuku. 
“You said, ‘no matter how old a man becomes,’” Emi asked Sariel, “but are you guys really…just people , in the end?” 
Gabriel had suggested as much to her. That “divinity,” at least as it applied to the angels above Ente Isla, didn’t really exist—that they were more human than not. She wanted confirmation, and now that Sariel was on friendly terms with her—who would’ve thought a MgRonald manager could’ve engineered that miracle? Truth really was stranger than fiction—she figured there was no time to waste. 
“You must’ve made Gabriel confess to it, hm?” 
Not only did Sariel not deny it, but he even knew the source of the leak. 
“So you’re not, like, immortal or…?” 
“No. At least, I don’t see myself as some sort of supernatural being. People call us angels, but really, we’re just people, too. The only difference is that we live longer, we’re more intelligent, we’re stronger, we have more capacity for holy force, we’re prettier, and we’ve got scads of holy charisma.” 
“God help me,” Suzuno moaned behind them, “I can hear my faith disintegrating in my soul…” 
“I didn’t ask you to brag about it like that, but… Okay, one question.” 
“What? Wait. Before you say it, let me remind you: There’s one woman in my life, and that shall forever be my goddess.” 
“I know that. She told you to knock that off, remember? I wish you wouldn’t keep reminding me.” 
Emi wiped the sweat from her brow as she asked, “How is society, like, set up in heaven?” 
“Hmm,” Sariel replied, eyes turned upward. “Kind of a vague question, isn’t it? We could take the next train from here to Hachiouji and back by the time I finished answering it.” 
The western Tokyo suburb of Hachiouji was the last stop on the opposite end of the Keio Line, thirty stops and a good twenty-five miles away. Not exactly a quick ride, in other words. 
“Right,” Suzuno said. “So how about the Heavenly Regiment?” 
“Hmm?” 
“They were equipped with shoddy weapons, mere toys compared to your scythe or Gabriel’s Durandal sword. They are clearly different from angels or archangels, but what is their position in heaven, exactly?” 
Inside a box in her apartment, Suzuno still kept a few broken pieces of the Regiment’s weaponry she’d picked up from their battle at Dokodemo Tower in Yoyogi. They were of unusually poor make, forged from metal so brittle that a single kick of Suzuno’s foot was enough to shatter them. Hardly weapons worthy of being wielded by an angel, in other words. 
“Ah. Yeah, those are all originally Ente Islan, actually. I don’t know about their weapons. Maybe they made ’em themselves? Or maybe they brought ’em with them.” 
“Whaat?!” 
Emi couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise as well. 
“The Heavenly Regiment is all people from Ente Isla?!” 
“Sure is,” Sariel briskly replied, striking the two women dumb. “You know how there’s all that scripture and mythology about people being called for by angels? Well, a lot of that’s pretty true.” 
“B-but not even the loftiest of Church clerics… Some of them were canonized after death, yes, but summoned by the angels themselves? Not a one…” 
The next train to Shinjuku chose that moment to arrive. The conversation continued inside the air-conditioned rail car. 
“Hey, it’s our choice to make, isn’t it? What’s the benefit to us, picking up some old geezer who spent the last X number of decades lusting after power, wasting his life on stupid Church politics, and cultivating a vast knowledge of things that matter to absolutely no one? Did you think that’s the kind of person we’d welcome in? He’d rebel against us in half a second. We make our selections from the general public.” 
“The what…?” 
“You know—tortured slaves, war orphans, that sort of thing. That’s who we use to fill the Regiment ranks. They’re really important to us! They take care of a lot of the little things for us in heaven, you know, and since these are people with a truly pure faith in the Church and all, they’re never going to betray us. If you guys want to make it up there, I’d recommend going back to secular life, pronto.” 
He couldn’t have been blunter. It was a complete damnation of the Church and all it stood for. 
“It’s not like the Church is totally useless to us, though. There’s no more effective way out there to build faith in us, after all.” 
Even Suzuno, capable of compartmentalizing the Church’s dual purposes as a beacon of faith and a de facto government, had trouble wrapping her mind around this. 
“And plus, we sometimes pick people up from there if we think they’d be useful, even if there’s a few skeletons in their closets. Not a lot, but some. I’m guessing that’s the retirement Olba Meiyer’s aiming for.” 
“That’s crazy!” Emi exclaimed, face stiff. “What Olba’s doing right now is making him accomplice to a completely new tragedy in Ente Isla. If that’s the kind of person who’s allowed into heaven, I’d say heaven’s in sore need of a revolution!” 
Sariel shrugged his shoulders. “Ooooh, you’re a scary lady.” 
Their train, which started its journey on elevated rails, soon descended into a tunnel. Shinjuku was just a few moments away. 
“Although…there’s a pretty big information gap between the first-genners like Gabriel and the second-genners like me and Raguel. I guess you could say the first-genners aren’t very big fans of keeping all of that on the down low.” 
“First-genner…?” 
“Oh, didn’t you notice? There’s two types of angels you guys have seen.” 
“…Oh.” 
Suzuno clapped her hands in realization and looked into the eyes of Sariel, seated adjacent to him. 
“Angels with purple eyes, and angels with red eyes…” 
“Yeah, that. Red’s the first generation, and purple’s the second one. Ignoring the Heavenly Regiment, you can pretty much divide us into two groups like that.” 
“So Lucifer is in the second generation? And even then, he was equal in ranking to Gabriel?” 
“Welllll…” Sariel shook his head. “There’s a lot about Lucifer that not even I know about. He was always apparently kind of a lazy bum, though. Ever since I remember, he was always a fallen angel, out of heaven. But I’m one of the oldest of the second-genners, too, so who knows what’s up with him?” 
“What is the difference between the two generations, my lord? Do you see them as your parents or whatnot?” 
Sariel nodded eagerly. “Ah, yeah, I better explain that first. The boundary’s right when—” 
Just then, the train shuddered loudly as it navigated the rail switches just before Shinjuku station. 
“We’re almost here.” 
The two women wanted to hear more, but they also needed to keep an eye on Maou and Chiho. The three of them sidled up to the door of the largely uncrowded car. And Sariel’s last revelation, delivered alongside the conductor’s station announcement, was something difficult for Emi and Suzuno to digest at the time. 
“The boundary’s right when the Cataclysm of the Devil Overlord took place. The first generation was born before it; the second generation afterward. That’s how it was explained to me, anyway.” 
Ten shiny new coffee servers were lined up against one wall of a large conference room. 
The part-time crew and salaried employees gathered here, at MgRonald’s Japan headquarters near Shinjuku station’s west exit, numbered about a hundred or so. The sight of all these employees looking to polish their MagCafé skills filled Maou with excited anticipation. 
“Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend this MgRonald Barista workshop. First off, I’d like everyone to make sure the number on their registration forms matches the one on their desks. After that, you’ll want to go over your handouts to make sure everything’s in order…” 
The product-management staffer hosting the seminar politely guided the attendees through the preliminary paperwork. 
“Now, to start out, we’re going to watch a twenty-minute DVD that goes over what the MagCafé concept is all about. We’ll get hands-on with the workshop after that.” 
The room lights dimmed as the video sprang to life on the large screen against another wall. Maou had seen more than a few training videos like this one. He always liked how detached from reality they always seemed, edited in such a different way from the corporate TV ad campaigns. 
“…What’s that?” came a voice from the side. Maou, distracted from his notetaking, looked in its direction—only to realize that he was now the only person in the conference room. 
Chiho, seated a bit away from him thanks to drawing a later number, was gone. Next to him now, in the adjacent seat, was Erone in his samurai armor. 
“…Farfarello is not here,” he said calmly to assuage the agitated Maou. “He is monitoring me from a nearby building, but I am the only one in here.” 
“Were…were you sneaking around here under this barrier?” 
“I was told to search for an opening we could use to kidnap you. But I can’t. You’re surrounded by too many people.” 
The reply was as unaffected as it was disturbing. The training DVD kept playing on-screen. The surrealness of the scene forced Maou to laugh a little. 
“Farfarello told me to find out for sure what you’re doing in order to conquer the world. What kind of…image is this we’re seeing? Do you need it to conquer the world?” 
The screen depicted a MgRonald crewmember from the United States or somewhere constructing a MagCafé menu in a location far larger than the Hatagaya one Maou darted around in. The MagCafé format was originally conceived in Australia, apparently, before being exported back to the American HQ and expanding out to Japan. Then it showed a brawny Anglo-Saxon man, one Maou had trouble picturing as an actual MgRonald part-timer, using latte bubbles to draw hearts and leaf designs on cups of cappuccino. Comical, but impressive. 
“I totally do. In fact, everything I’m doing here right now…it’s all completely required if I’m gonna take over this world.” 
“Huh. That’s neat,” Erone remarked, watching the screen. 
“…Y’know, you’re a lot friendlier than I thought,” Maou replied. Erone’s admiration was throwing him off his game. 
“Farfarello and the others said the only right way to conquer the world is through power and fear. Is that man creating a potion to boost your powers?” 
A lot chattier than he thought, too. Maou took that as a sign that Farfarello really wasn’t nearby after all. 
“Yeahhh…I guess that’s what it is, if you get down to it. Um, do you know what ‘industry’ is? Industry is all about taking a whole bunch of different things and putting them together so they all work in unison. Making good coffee contributes to people’s productivity, boosts their morale, and…um, creates higher-quality weapons for people to use, more or less.” 
“Industry…?” Erone raised an eyebrow. “I don’t get it.” 
“Well, neither do I, really. That’s why I’m here to study it.” 
“Study?” This seemed to confuse him even more. Understanding the concept of world domination but failing to know what studying was concerned Maou a little. 
“Hummm…I don’t know how to explain it. It’s, like, too simple a concept.” 
Fishing for words, Maou watched the screen as it depicted a coffee field somewhere in South America. 
“Uh, how about this? When you’re studying, you’re doing something in order to know something you didn’t know before.” 

“So you study this…industry?” Erone said, piecing the unfamiliar words together like Alas Ramus. “And that lets you conquer the world?” 
“Yeah. See, that’s the thing about those of us in the Devil King’s Army. We have no idea what it means for a country to rule over its people. So that’s why I’m here in this country. I’m preparing myself to conquer the world, and this is part of that. The—” 
The screen flashed over to a map depicting MgRonald’s plans for MagCafé expansion in Japan. 
“—the next step of my dream…to conquer the world in a whole new way.” 
“A new…dream?” Erone repeated the words slowly, sloshing them around in his mind. “Looks like fun.” And with that, he disappeared, and a conference room full of focused screen viewers replaced him. Judging by Chiho’s body language, she hadn’t noticed any of it, and Maou certainly hadn’t seen her inside the barrier. 
“Um, hey…” 
“Hmm? What is it?” 
Maou turned around to look at the person who just tapped his shoulder. It was a crewmember from a different location, the pallor to his face clear even in the darkness. 
“Were…were you always there, or…?” 
Ah. Right. Chiho hadn’t noticed, but to someone seated directly behind him, Erone’s visit must have looked like Maou disappearing and reappearing like a ghost. Maou thought for a moment and whispered back. 
“Uh, I dropped my pen and I was having trouble finding it…” 
“…Oh. Yeah. All right. Sorry I’m acting all weird.” The man settled back down, his face still more than a bit dubious. 
“Yeah, not like I got a lot of say in it,” Maou said to himself as he focused on the video. 
“Oh! That must be them.” 
“Oof. Finally over. I was about to die of boredom.” 
“Uggh, we have to go outside again…?” 
The Hero, the Church cleric, and the archangel were approaching hour four of their awkward kaffeeklatsch at a Moonbucks near MgRonald’s Tokyo headquarters when they noticed a large crowd of people exiting the building. Given that most were in street clothes, it seemed safe to assume they were from the workshop. 
“Where are Chiho and the Devil King?” 
“Can’t really tell from here…” 
They were too far away to spot the pair out of the hundred-odd people streaming out, splitting into smaller groups and going each of their own ways. 
“Is that him?” Sariel pointed out a lone figure by the front door—Maou, apparently. They could see him nervously eye his surroundings and bring his cell phone to his ear. The sight made Emi’s and Suzuno’s blood run cold. This wasn’t just the face of someone wondering where his friend wandered off to. 
“Devil King!!” 
Emi, letting her worst fears dominate her mind, flew out and ran over to the dismayed-looking Maou. 
“Oh! Um, Emi!” 
He looked surprised at Emi’s sudden appearance, but not enough to ask what she was doing there. 
“Have you seen Chi at all?!” 
She knew it. Emi gnashed her teeth internally. 
“Chiho is gone?!” 
“What on earth were you even doing in there?” 
“Oh, all of you all with her, too?!” 
“When did you get separated from her?!” 
“It hasn’t even been ten minutes. She was right next to me when we left the conference room!” 
“And you are sure she’s not in the bathroom or the like?” 
“Ahhh, damn it! I wasn’t paying attention! This is totally my fault! I should’ve pressed that bastard for more info when I had the chance…” 
Maou looked honestly pained, but there would be time to assign blame later. 
“Now is no time for that! If neither of us spotted her, then chances are she was taken in by Erone’s barrier. And if she didn’t send an Idea Link to either of us, they might have knocked her unconscious.” 
Maou started to panic. Emi’s analysis seemed grimly accurate. 
“Crap… What’re we supposed to do now?!” 
“Calm down!” Emi grabbed Maou by the shoulders. “If you start cracking on us, we aren’t gonna accomplish anything!” 
It didn’t work at all. Maou was still in a panic. 
What could have possibly happened in that conference room? If Maou hadn’t been paying attention, did that mean he hadn’t even noticed Erone approaching them? 
“He was talking to me…” 
“What?!” Emi’s eyes burst open. She wasn’t expecting that close of a contact. “What is your problem , Devil King?! That’s totally not like you! He’s our enemy , for God’s sake!” 
Maou covered his face with his hands. “…He was so like her . He made me put my guard down. We talked, he disappeared, and then…” 
“So like whom?” 
Maou, face contorted in pain, looked Emi in the eye. “Like…Alas Ramus. He wanted to know more about the world. That’s what his face told me. …He doesn’t deserve to be used by people like us.” 
The sight of Erone smiling, saying Looks like fun , was the exact, same smile Alas Ramus displayed whenever a new surprise caught her eye. Maou had no basis for this, but seeing that smile convinced him that Erone was every bit the spawn of Sephirah Alas Ramus was. The moment he looked at his face, that was what he was instantly reminded of. 
“Well, like or not, he’s being used by those demons! It’s your fault that you forgot about that, but whether you’re right or not kind of depends on what we do next, okay?!” 
“Emi…” 
Her eyes were looking straight up at Maou. The straightforward encouragement, like nothing she ever gave to him before, helped calm his heart a little. 
“Yeah… You’re right.” His shallow breathing returned to normal as he analyzed the situation. “The workshop ended nine minutes ago. Assuming they didn’t run through a Gate, they’ve got to be somewhere in west Shinjuku, even if he was carrying her out.” 
“All right. Let me help you, then.” 
Sariel, of all people, nodded at Maou’s analysis. 
“Chiho Sasaki has a Yesod-fragment ring on her left hand, yes? Unless they’ve gone a fairly long distance away, I should be able to track that down.” 
“How?” 
“Did you forget, Emilia?” Sariel smirked at her. “How did you think I managed to track you down in the first place? I had some intel from Olba, but as long as holy force or Sephirah fragments are involved, I can track ’em down faster than a GPS app.” 
Sariel squinted at the midafternoon sun, looking for something in the sky. 
“Got it.” 
The rest of the group followed his gaze, using their hands to shade their eyes. There, amid the blue, they noticed something white and round floating in the air. It was the moon, just fading into sight in the late-summer afternoon. 
“…Huh. Using an amplifier at long range isn’t something your garden-variety spellcaster could ever do. With the right training, Chiho Sasaki could be one hell of a practitioner.” 
Sariel kept his eyes on the daylight moon in the sky. 
“Not as good as me, though.” 
Then, at that instant, a ray of purple light shot out of his eyes. The next moment, the moon Maou and the rest had their eyes on turned the same color as Sariel’s purple eyes and began to glow, eerily so. 
“Wh-whoa, what’re you doing?! People are gonna notice…” 
It wasn’t just a matter of Shinjuku. A purple moon was an event of international proportions. Emi couldn’t be blamed for worrying about this ridiculously brash move, but Sariel merely brushed her away. 
“The moon didn’t really change color. It’ll just look that way around Shinjuku for a bit.” 
“Oh,” said Emi. “Well, that’s fine, then—” 
“No, it’s not!!!” 
Maou was forced to snap her back to reality. A midday moon wasn’t something most people paid very close attention to, but in a district as densely populated as Shinjuku, someone had to spot it sooner or later. If that someone shot a pic and uploaded it to the Net, Maou couldn’t imagine what kind of furor it’d cause. 
“Ah, it won’t make for anything more than a couple of viral videos,” Sariel told the group. “Everybody knows there’s no way the moon can turn purple in the middle of the day. No one’s going to care that much about it. Now shut up for a second while I search around.” 
After completely failing to reassure his compatriots, Sariel raised a hand toward the moon and began to focus. Chiho’s whereabouts were on everyone’s mind, but the potential fallout they imagined if someone happened to pass by weighed even more heavily on them. Whether you knew what was going on or not, the sight of someone bringing a hand to the air and shooting light beams out of his eyes could easily earn them a free trip in the back of a cop car. Sariel, perhaps realizing this, took care to keep his voice down as he intoned a spell. 
“Moon Mirror.” 
The spell remained in effect for just two or three seconds before he shut it down. 
“Oh. Well, that was easy. They’re right near us.” 
“R-really?!” 
Sariel nodded at the frantic Maou and pointed up at a nearby building. 
“Ironically enough, there’s a barrier on that rooftop up there.” 
“Up… there ?!” 
Suzuno gasped. 
“This is so annoying. I really wish they wouldn’t steal my repertoire.” 
It was, of course, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, a place all four of them were intimately familiar with. 
“Well, what do you think? Because I think our demon friend’s up there, too. If we storm the roof, it’ll probably turn into a fight. A dimensional-phase barrier can keep people outside of it safe, but I can’t speak for the building itself. I’m willing to bet all four of us could handle that Erone kid well enough, but we’ll probably cause a hell of a lot of damage along the way.” 
“I don’t care. If that’s where Chi and Farfarello are, I’m on my way.” 
“What are you gonna do?” Emi asked, concerned that Maou was planning another haphazard, strategy-free assault. 
The response went far beyond what she expected. 
“Emi…Suzuno…sorry to put this on you, but I’m gonna need your help.” 
“Uh?” 
“Wh-what?” 
Both were taken aback by the request—really more of a plea, actually. 
“Ashiya was right. Unless we can convince Farfarello to go back on his own volition, Chi’s just gonna get taken again and again. I need your help to keep that from happening.” 
Then Maou did something even more out of character. 
“Please.” 
He bowed his head to them. The king of all demons, bowing his head to the Hero and a Church cleric in order to protect a single human girl. 
“…I swear…” Emi sighed as he glared at the whorl of hair on the top of Maou’s head. “You don’t care at all about us or what we feel, do you?” The words were harsh, but her tone was surprisingly gentle. 
“Yeah, well, I’m the Devil King, remember. When it comes to not caring about what other people think, I’m pretty much world champion.” 
“Do not brag about it.” 
Suzuno found herself laughing at the way he put it. 
“So, how do you like your chances? Do you think you can pull that off?” 
“Yep,” Maou replied, head still down. “But like I said, I’m gonna need both of you to help me.” 
Emi and Suzuno looked at each other. 
“Don’t have much time to mull over it, huh?” 
“We have little choice. Chiho’s life may be at stake.” 
“I really appreciate this,” Maou said, raising his head and turning toward Sariel. “Can you put up another barrier on top of Erone’s, like you did last time?” 
“I could, but what are you trying to accomplish?” 
“Great. Make it as huge as you can, all right? I’ll take care of things after that.” 
With that, Maou took a jet-black ball out from his tote bag, gripping it tightly. 
 
“What is the meaning of this?” Farfarello asked the girl in front of him. 
The girl, who introduced herself as Chiho Sasaki, was proving suspiciously cooperative, not showing any resistance to Erone’s invitation. The boy managed to pull it off without attracting the Devil King’s attention chiefly because his intended victim was being so agreeable with him. 
“Well, I didn’t want you beating me up or putting me to sleep if I resisted.” 
“I see. You’re more collected than I thought you’d be.” 
“Oh, this isn’t my first rodeo, if you know what I mean!” 
The way Chiho chuckled to herself at this indicated exactly how collected she was. She would have to be, if she could take being carried by Erone’s sticklike arms from the ground floor of the MgRonald building to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in a single leap without losing her mind or her lunch along the way. 
“All right. How about this, then?” 
Farfarello, still in his retro salaryman outfit, tapped a finger against Erone’s armor. The moment he did, the armor disappeared into a black mist that descended upon him. 
“Agh!” 
Chiho unconsciously covered her eyes. In a single moment, the scrawny businessman transformed into an ominous, hideous demon. He had batlike wings and a single, gigantic talon curving out from each of his arms and legs, but his face remained unexpectedly humanlike. 
She couldn’t help but sneak a peek or two between her fingers. “…Oh,” she said, relieved at the sight of the rough, hemp-fabric underwear Erone had on as she removed her hands. “You had clothes on the whole time?” 
“… That was your concern? This demonic body of mine didn’t terrify you?” 
Having Chiho show more concern over his servant’s modesty than his own ghastly, foreboding form made Farfarello feel like he was being toyed with. As a human, she should have been on her knees, begging for her life by this point. This reaction wasn’t something they taught him in demon-chieftain college. 
“Um…I’m sorry. I just thought you were gonna transform into something kind of…crazier than that?” 
“……” 
Now Chiho began to feel somewhat endangered. Farfarello clearly didn’t enjoy that response. 
“…Um, I didn’t… I mean, it’s not like I don’t think you’re scary or anything! You look really mean and intimidating and stuff! It’s just that, like, I’ve already seen what Ma—um, what Satan and Alciel look like, so I think I’m just too accustomed to it.” 
“…Fine. Honestly, I’m starting to want to kill you now.” 
“Um, s-sorry?” Chiho tried to apologize honestly. She had her doubts over whether that would be enough, though. 
“Did you see His Demonic Highness’s visage…up close?” 
“Uhh, from about the same distance we’re at now.” 
“……” 
His expression remained unchanged, but inside his heart, this greatly troubled Farfarello. He had heard secondhand that the Devil King Satan was capable of reattaining his cloven-hoofed form, but he found it impossible to believe that this…this mere human girl viewed his liege in all his glory. Most people would faint on the spot, overwhelmed by the sheer nature of his dark force. 
“Wait…are you the one called Emeralda Etuva?” 
“Huh?!” 
Chiho’s eyes shot open at this wholly unexpected case of mistaken identity. 
“I understand that Etuva, assistant of the Hero Emilia and the most powerful of human spellcasters, is a woman of small size. Have you been living in this land of Japan, then, under the name Chiho Sasaki?” 
“What? No! I mean, I’ve met Emeralda a couple times, but I’m not her, no.” 
She didn’t appreciate being mistaken for her, but given that Farfarello couldn’t have directly crossed swords with Emi and her crew, she couldn’t blame him too much. 
“Regardless, you have forged friendships with both her and Emilia, and you are capable of resisting my liege’s demonic force. You are no rank-and-file soldier, no. I fear you must be one of the shackles that bind His Demonic Highness to this land, am I right?” 
There was nothing she could do to convince him otherwise now. God forbid she mention that she was in the midst of holy-magic training. He’d probably think Chiho had been appointed Planetary Defender by the King of Earth. 
“Well…I guess I might be, if you put it that way. Thanks to me, Satan and Yusa—I mean, Emilia—have had to go through a lot of bad stuff.” 
“…?” 
“Um, Foulfellow?” 
“It’s Farfarello!!” 
“I-I’m sorry, sir!” Chiho bowed in apology. “But Maou… Satan definitely hasn’t given up his dream of conquering the world. That much I can guarantee to you. He’s trying to learn a bunch of stuff in Japan that he can use to take everything over…” 
“Ah, this ‘studying,’ yes?” Erone eagerly interjected. 
“Um, yeah. That. He’s studying lots of different things, and he’s trying to do something with all of it. He doesn’t have any money, so a lot of his time gets eaten up by work, but even so, Satan’s always thinking about his people back home. I hope you’ll believe that, at least.” 
This mere girl, completely unfazed, looked toward the demon with supreme dedication. Farfarello, growing up in a world where humans were supposed to fall into panicked insanity at the sight of a demon, never thought one would dare approach him with this sort of honest thoughtfulness. Her eyes were like nothing he had seen before. 
“…I fervently wish that to be the case, yes. However—” 
“So that’s why I want to know…” Chiho interjected, “why did the Devil King’s Army invade Ente Isla?” 
“A ridiculous question,” Farfarello bit back. “Of what value is Ente Isla if it is not in our hands and—” 
“That’s what I’m saying! Why did you have to invade it?!” 
“……” 
“I remember what you said earlier, Farfanilla. Something like, ‘the more lives at stake, the longer the demon realms may yet survive.’ Does that have something to do with it?” 
“Far-fa- rel-lo !!” The demon lord wearily heaved his shoulders back. “What value would there be to you knowing?” 
“Oh, that’s obvious.” Chiho resolutely stretched her back up high, her voice ringing out loudly. “I’d use that info to figure out what went wrong so I can help Satan make his dream come true!” 
“Chi?!” 
Maou’s phone rang just as he was climbing the stairs leading up to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. “Restricted,” the screen said. It must have been Chiho’s Idea Link. 
“She’s all right, guys! C’mon, move it! Let’s show that Farfarello bastard what we’re really —” 
“Wait, Devil King!” 
“Halt!” 
“—What…?” 
Maou’s annoyance at being cut off dissipated quickly, as he noticed both women staring at their own phones. All three of them had “Restricted” on-screen. They took a look at each other and pressed their respective Answer buttons. 
Chiho’s voice boomed out from all three of them at once. 
{“…so I can help Satan make his dream come true!”} 
“What?” 
Farfarello eyed Chiho quizzically, unsure what the girl meant. 
“Satan’s been telling me this all the time lately. That the way he did things before was all wrong. But I don’t think he’s really figured out what he should be doing instead yet. If I could, I’d do whatever it takes to help him out. I might be kind of a wimp; I might not be very useful in a fight, but there’s got to be something I can do for him!” 
“…Are you not human?” 
“Of course I am!” 
“Then why are you going on about helping us, the demons…?” 
To Chiho, who believed beyond any doubt that Maou and Emi were both vital to her life, none of that mattered. 
“It’s all the same! Humans, demons…that doesn’t factor into it!” 
{“Humans, demons…that doesn’t factor into it!”} 
The thought broadcast itself not into their phones, but directly into their minds. 
“Uh, is Chi dropping multiple Idea Links on each of us…?” 
“Impossible.” A clearly confused Suzuno shook her head. “That is a far more complex spell than one-on-one communication. She only just managed to link with me for several seconds yesterday.” 
“So do you think Chiho’s doing this unconsciously, somehow?” 
“That is all I can surmise…” 
Suzuno swallowed nervously as the Idea Link continued. 
{“We’re making it work now…and if we can do that, I’m sure we can keep doing it!”} 
“We’re making it work now…and if we can do that, I’m sure we can keep doing it! We can conquer the world and have the Hero and Devil King at peace with each other!” 
“…Perhaps I am not as well versed in the Japanese language as I should be. I am struggling to understand anything you say.” 
“Listen, Satan’s definitely going to conquer the world, all right? He’s working hard to make that happen every day. But it’s not exactly the kind of conquering the ‘Devil King Satan’ was thinking of when he first came here…to Japan.” 
Chiho smiled cheerfully under the summer sun. 
“He’s working to create a world where the Devil King and the Hero…where demons and humans can work together to keep food on the table.” 
“…Absurd.” 
This girl’s incomprehensible rantings were sorely testing Farfarello’s patience. He began to wonder why he was bothering to humor her at all. But whether she knew that or not, Chiho kept going. 
“Is it? ’Cause that’s pretty much how it is right now. There’s no reason why it can’t stay that way!” 
“You utter fool. The very idea of demons and humans living in harmony is absolutely prepost—” 
“It’s happening right now !” 
Thus, for the first time in history, a teenage girl managed to shout down a Malebranche chieftain. The chastised Farfarello stared blankly downward. 
“The Devil King and the Hero, two people who should be at each other’s throats right now, are making it happen every day. They can even go out on playdates with the child they’re taking care of. So why can they do it, but normal humans and normal demons can’t?” 
Because it came down to the individual people involved. Chiho knew that. But: 
“And if they say they can’t, I’ll make them! I guess Maou and Yusa feel kind of bad for getting me wrapped up in all this Ente Isla drama, but there’s no reason for them to think that way. Besides…” 
Chiho smiled the boldest smile she could as she stared Farfarello in the eye. 
“…I’ve got every intention of getting Maou and the others wrapped up in my own drama! I want all of them—Satan, Emilia, Alas Ramus, Crestia, Alciel, Lucifer—I want all of them to keep eating dinner with us, keep arguing with us, and keep saying ‘see you tomorrow’ after all is said and done. That’s the kind of conquering I want to do, and that’s what I’m going to help make happen!” 
{“…And that’s what I’m going to help make happen!”} 
“……” 
The three of them removed their ears from their phones, unable to withstand any more and too red in the face to look at each other. 
“Jeez, Chiho,” Emi muttered, trying to break the silence. “She’s, like…even crazier than we thought.” 
“I can feel my faith being rebuilt into something far more twisted than before…” 
“Ugh…for real? For real, Chi…?” Maou moaned. 
“…Okay, so, what are we up to?” ventured Sariel, observing them from one side. “Are we doing this, or not? Judging by your reactions, am I to assume Chiho Sasaki is all right?” 
“You were there ?!” spat the blushing Maou as he stared up at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. “…Get that barrier up for me. Emi, Suzuno…if you want to make this happen, you’re both gonna have to be pretty damn persuasive up there.” 
“I-I’m not sure I’ll be able to look Chiho in the face.” 
“I might start worshiping her, myself.” 
“…All right, all right,” Maou grumbled, “let’s just do this! Get moving!” Then, out of nowhere, he went down on all fours. 
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more pathetic way to give an order,” laughed Sariel, as the daylight moon erected a barrier over the heart of downtown Tokyo for him. 
“So that’s why I want to know. Why did Satan have to sacrifice all those demons and humans in order to hurry along his world conquest…? If I knew that, I think we could maybe try a different direction next time.” 
Farfarello, chieftain for the Malebranche force, found himself averting his eyes, unable to withstand the forceful Chiho’s gaze upon him. The concept was completely beyond him. He couldn’t imagine even a sliver of the world Chiho pictured. There was no way a single, powerless girl could achieve that—but here he was, letting her overpower him. 
Mentally beaten down, he slowly opened his mouth. 
“…That…” 
“Farfarello!” Erone shouted, looking upward. “The barrier!” Chiho, following his eyes, spotted a hazy, purple-tinted moon in the air. 
“They’re here…rather quicker than expected. How did they know…?” 
Farfarello looked up as well, savoring the respite from Chiho’s unrelenting stare. He was greeted with a sight unlike anything he expected. 
“What on…?” 
“Maou!” Chiho shouted, spotting the same thing in the air. “Yusa! Suzuno!” 
She couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time her prince came to her rescue here, with nothing but a mop and a pair of underpants. This time around, her prince—or king, perhaps—was flying in, his collar and belt being grabbed by a pair of women. Maybe not flying so much as hanging in the air, actually. Somehow, he still had the mental fortitude to glare at Farfarello. In one hand, he had his black sphere, the ball of concentrated dark force the demon had given him. 
In Chiho’s mind, she had accepted Erone’s invitation in order to clear up the questions she had about him. To Maou, she now realized, it must have looked like Farfarello had impulsively snatched her away from him. Oh, great. They aren’t gonna fight up here now, are they? Alarmed by the very real possibility, Chiho shouted at Maou. 
“Wait! No! This is my fault, too! Fargobubble didn’t do anything to me!” 
The demon she attempted to name-check rolled his eyes. “…Ah, what does it matter?” 
Keeping their eyes squarely upon the errant demon, Emi and Suzuno dropped the hanging Maou onto the roof as they descended. Maou made a nimble landing, then noticed his shirt. “Dahh,” he said, “the collar got all stretched out! Ashiya’s gonna kill me.” 
Then, he turned to Chiho. 
“…You okay?” 
“Y-yeah, but…um…?” 
Maou left his eyes on Farfarello in order to keep Chiho away from his line of vision. Setting eyes on the massive, hulking body kept his mind free of other distractions. “I guess Chi wants to defend you,” he said coldly, “but you’re definitely here to kidnap her, aren’t you? Why?” 
“Forgive me, Your Demonic Highness. I simply wanted to hear about the time you spent in this world from a third party…” 
Farfarello wound up hearing a lot more about Chiho’s plans for world domination than anyone else’s, although neither he nor Chiho knew that Maou had been listening in the whole time. 
“So what about you, Chi? How is this ‘your’ fault?” 
“Uh, um, I-I just wanted to know why you had to invade Ente Isla in the first place, Maou. I kind of doubted you or Ashiya would tell me, so—” 
“Ughh…that’s it?” 
That topic wasn’t part of the Idea Link the trio picked up. Perhaps they covered it after he shut off the link out of pure embarrassment. Maou scratched his head distractedly as he surveyed Chiho and Farfarello. 
“Listen, guys,” he said as he thrust a thumb against his chest. “If you wanna ask about that stuff, ask me ! I’m right here! I got nothing to hide from either of you!” 
“Okay…I’m sorry.” Chiho bowed despondently. 
“Chi, there’s…a few things I’d like to say to you. But for now…” 
Maou recalled the Idea Link one more time as he approached Chiho and gave her a light, playful bap on the head. 
“Ow!” 
“I’ll make time for the lecture later.” 
“Ooh, all right…” 
Chiho ran over to Emi and Suzuno, hand covering the spot Maou had tapped. Maou, watching them each give Chiho chastizing bap s of their own from the corner of his eye, turned back toward Farfarello. 
“Okay, now for you. Now that you’ve debriefed Chiho, what’s your final take?” 
“…To be honest with you, I find the evidence difficult to judge. A lot of what she said was quite a surprise to me. However, I cannot think this country has anything to offer my liege in terms of fulfilling his conquest.” 
“Yes, it does,” Erone’s childish voice warbled. “Satan is studying. About industry.” 
“You make it sound like I was taking some pretty damn shoddy notes,” Maou chuckled. Then he reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. “But let me show you two. This country…this world, really, is full of things we can harness to save the demon realms from the mess it’s currently in. Something you don’t have to sacrifice blood or kill yourself for. And this is it.” 
He took out a single piece of paper from the plastic wallet he bought at the hundred-yen shop. 
“…Could you at least buy a wallet where you don’t have to wad up your bills to cram them in there?” Emi groaned, recalling when Maou used some of those pieces of paper to save her own hide once. “You could try to act like a grown-up sooner or later, you know.” 
“Do you know what this is? Here’s a hint: They have this all over Ente Isla, too.” 
To Farfarello’s eyes, all it looked like was a thin slip of paper with a portrait of some human being and a bunch of frilly characters written on it. 
“What is it…?” 
“All you need is some of this,” Maou replied, “and you don’t have to deal with crap like this any longer.” Then he took his ball of demonic force, which he had tucked under an armpit in order to fetch his wallet, and halfheartedly tossed it at him. 
“What? A single piece of paper that has more strength than dark magic itself?” 
“It doesn’t have it. People give it that strength.” 
Maou held the thousand-yen note up high, its portrait of turn-of-the-century bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi shining proudly in the sun. 
“If we have the will, we have the power to change the way the world works. And this is how we’ll do it. With money. A valuable asset we can circulate around the demon realms in place of the dark force that’ll dwindle away in the ensuing peace. If you change the way you look at things, the world and everything in it will change for you. That’s what I’ve learned in this world.” 
“Money…I am aware of it, my liege. The paper and metal pieces humans use for commerce. But what meaning does it have in the face of power?” 
“None right now. But we’ll start to build meaning for it. And once we do, we could build anything. We can even have a world where the Hero helps me out instead of tries to kill me! We can create a dark, sinister force we can freely harness without having to kill anybody!” 
Emi approached Maou from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. “Um, could you stop framing it like I’m helping you out because I need the money?” 
“I know how human civilization runs on the core tenet that people need to be rewarded in order to take action,” Suzuno said as she clutched his other shoulder, “but this is not the way I want it explained.” 
“Chi?” 
Chiho remained behind him, unsure what was about to happen. 
“Better start singing. Emi and Suzuno aren’t gonna be able to cover for you, so you’re gonna have to activate your own protection this time.” 
That was all the cuing she needed. Rubbing her eyes—still a bit teary at being scolded—she took a deep breath to calm herself down. 
“It’s time to earn your thousand yen, ladies.” 
“I really don’t think we’re getting market value for this…but I guess we have no choice.” 
“Indeed. This may not be quite what we imagined ourselves doing, once upon a time…but so be it. I want both of us to emerge from this alive, do you understand?” 
With that, Emi and Suzuno began to transfer a vast quantity of holy force into Maou’s body, through his shoulders. 
“Wh-what are you doing?!” a dumbfounded Farfarello shouted. The amount of force flowing into Maou was completely uncapped, a torrent of holy wrath. In his current weakened human form, it could very well evaporate him. 
“Stay there!!” 
But he was stopped by Maou himself, the pain clearly evident on his face. 
“Heh…heh-heh… Don’t…don’t get nervous. Wait’ll you see what happens next.” 
“Are…are you sure about this?” 
Maou seemed supremely confident, but he never got around to explaining what the point of it was to Emi or Suzuno. They reluctantly agreed to it, figuring he’d never do anything to put Chiho in danger. But all this looked like was them beating the tar out of Maou. 
“Gaaahhhhh!!” 
And before the magic torrent went on for very long… 
“…………!” 
“Wh-whoa!” 
“Hey!” 
Maou’s eyes rolled upward as he fainted. 
No one watching him knew what the point of this torture was. No one except Chiho. 
“Shining trees rustling under the new morning…” 
Suddenly, she began singing the MHK radio-calisthenics theme. The effort started to activate the holy force in her own body just as Maou limply fell to his knees. Emi lifted him back up, her face clearly concerned for his safety. 
“Open your heart up to the joy around youuuuu…” 
Then, out of nowhere, things began to happen. 
“And reach for the stars !” 
Maou’s body crumpled, as if someone had gone at him with a baseball bat. 
“Agh!” 
“Whoa!!” 
Emi and Suzuno, trying to keep him upright, were blown away by the same force. A dark light began to glow from within Maou’s body. 
“Build a healthy body with MHK Radio 1…” 
The light grew brighter and brighter, eventually cloaking Sadao Maou’s whole body in inky blackness. 
“Is that… It couldn’t…!” 
Farfarello shielded his eyes against the stream of dark light, but he still couldn’t dare shy away from the sight. 
“Open yourself to the fragrant wind—one!” 
The first thing to emerge from the cloud was a pair of beastly legs. 
“Two!” 
Then his gigantic body. 
“Three!” 
Then a pair of horns, one notably blunted by Emi’s sword. 
“Daaaamn, that was close. Nearly lost it for a sec there.” 
Then a dopey remark that completely ruined the whole atmosphere he just built. 
“What…what-what the hell?!” 
Emi was the most surprised out of all of them. How could injecting him with a stream of holy force create the Devil King out of thin air? Suzuno remained dazed on the floor, incapable of anything but looking up at the monster looming above her. 
“Jeez, guys, stop freaking out. …You get what’s going on, right, Chi?” 
Even with her newfound skills in activating holy magic, it still pained Chiho to be near the Devil King’s demonic force without any protection. Still, she flashed Satan a bold smile. 
“I…think so.” 
Before their confrontation at Tokyo Tower, Chiho herself was poisoned by dark force created by her own body, a reaction to the holy-power overdose she’d received. So what would happen if you did that to Sadao Maou, everyday human? The answer, clad in a hideously overstretched UniClo T-shirt and pair of denim jeans, was right in front of them. 
“Wow, you’re big,” Erone marveled, looking up at Satan with a light smile. Clearly he was the only one really enjoying the sight. 
“My…my liege…” 
Farfarello immediately fell to one knee. Having ascended to chieftain after the Devil King’s Army was destroyed, he had never enjoyed a direct audience with Satan before. But having him, in all his gory glory, thrust upon him like this filled his heart with shame and regret. Satan, the Devil King, was alive and well, tapping into reserves of power completely beyond Farfarello’s comprehension and preparing to seize the world for himself. And now he even had his old enemies on his side! 
“Well? You got any more complaints now?” 
The booming voice from on high immediately chided Farfarello’s soul into obeisance. He fell prostrate before his lord. 
“This…this is all due to my own imprudence. I am willing to accept any punishment you deem proper for ever doubting your heart, my liege.” 
A moment of silence ensued. Farfarello, on his hands and knees, was prepared to have his life snuffed out at any moment. But: 
“Who the hell said anything about that?” 
The reply was far more casual than he expected. 
“It’s just like I’ve been telling you this whole time. Just go back home, all right? I got my plan in action here, and I’m not gonna do anything stupid to mess it up. And get Barbariccia and his troops out of the Eastern Island already. I’m here in this new world, obtaining new power for myself, and paving a path to conquer the world with. As long as we’re clear on that, it’s all good.” 
“…I cherish your grace, my liege…” 
“’Course, it’s probably gonna take more than that to convince Barbariccia. Once you get home, I got a message I want you to give him. Tell him that I’ll introduce him to the four Great Demon Generals of the real New Devil King’s Army. I got ’em here on Earth.” 
“Uh?” 
“Huh?” 
“What?” 
The existence of this force was news to all the humans in attendance. 
“Alciel and Lucifer you probably remember. To that, you can add the Hero Emilia. She’s an expert fighter, and she might even be stronger than I am.” 
“Hey!!” 
“And over there is Crestia Bell, the ‘Scythe of Death’ from the Reconciliation Panel. She’s a brilliant strategist with a background in Church diplomacy and an encyclopedic knowledge of the geopolitical situation in Ente Isla.” 
“What are you…!!” 
“Finally, we have Chiho Sasaki, MgRonald barista and my personal assistant. Her mind-control skills are what it took to take these two former foes of mine and win them over to my side. These are the four Great Demon Generals of the new army I am assembling.” 
“That’s five !!” 
Emi and Suzuno couldn’t help but shout it out in unison. 
“Wait! That doesn’t matter! You can’t just make me a Great Demon General or whatever! I got a say in this, too!” 
“Of all the nonsense I have ever heard from you… This is nothing short of defamation! I demand an immediate correction, retraction, and self-immolation!!” 
“And what do you mean ‘MgRonald barista’?! We can’t put Chiho in any more danger than she already—” 
“MgRonald…ballista…?” 
“Huh?” 
“Hmm?” 
Maou made a point of introducing the Hero, the Reconciliation Panel enforcer, and the MgRonald barista as titles of apparently equal class. Farfarello actually bought it. 
“A MgRonald ballista…a royal bishop defender? Are you a talented archer?” 
“Where’d you get that from?!” 
For reasons Emi couldn’t fathom, he was mistaking a piece of résumé padding as some kind of elaborate military appellation. 
“Wow…me, a general…?” 
“Look!” Suzuno involuntarily exclaimed. “She is enjoying this!” 
Chiho was ignoring them entirely, practically exuding holy force as she fell into reverie, the power of Satan’s dark strength no longer any bother to her. Suzuno, at least, had a better idea of what was going on than Emi. 
“ Magur on Alde… A bishop in service of the King… Is his brain made of mush?!” 
Farfarello ignored her. “I promise you,” he proclaimed, “that I will join your new Devil King’s Army and do whatever it takes to conquer both this world and the demon realms. From now on, I will never view the humans before me as my enemy!” 
“Well said!” 
“No, please do ! ’Cause we are , all right?!” 
Not even Emi screaming at Farfarello could snap him out of it. Maou nodded at him, convinced that he would no longer offer him any resistance. 
“All right,” he said, picking up the ball of dark magic on the ground with two gnarled fingers. “You can have this back. Oop!” 
With a moment’s concentration, Satan’s body disappeared into a pyre of dark flame. 
“My-my liege?!” Farfarello shouted in panic. 
“…Take this with you.” 
In the blink of an eye, the Devil King Satan—his overwhelming power, his body, his royal majesty—was back in the form of a young man, his now completely stretched-out T-shirt hanging limply from halfway down his shoulders. 
“This oughta help fill your coffers a little,” Sadao Maou said. “Bring it back home and eat it, or pass it around, or whatever. Your choice.” Then he tossed the ball of dark force at Farfarello. 
It looked like little more than a cannonball, but the force imbued within was almost the entirety of the Devil King Satan’s internal powers, reawakened by an overload of holy magic. 
“But…but then, my liege…” 
Now Satan was a weakling again, one with only the barest sliver of magic force. Farfarello failed to see how disposing of this power would help his liege on his conquest. 
“Didn’t you see?” Maou said. “I can pull that trick anytime I want to get that form back. Besides…” He chuckled as he turned toward Emi and Suzuno, seething silently at him from behind. “I better keep it cool around these ladies for a little while. You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.” 
Farfarello could do little more than stare in mute amazement at the trio. 
“Maaaaoooooouuuuu!!!!” 
Then, with a shout that evoked memories of the Devil King of a moment ago, Maou’s Great Demon Generals descended upon his back. 
“Devil King! Take it back at once! You cannot have five Demon Generals!” 
“Why not? Hell, how about I bring on two more? Then it could be Devil King and the Seven Demon Dwarfs.” 
“Oh, you want even more ?! That’s not even the problem !” 
“A new set of Great Demon Generals, and a new civilization engineered by His Demonic Highness… The people of the demon realms shall be very pleased to hear this!” 
“I told you, that’s not the friggin’ case !!” 
The voices of the frantic Emi and Suzuno, the emotionally overcome Farfarello, the holy-power-driven and practically airborne Chiho, and the artfully dodging Devil King Satan filled the Shinjuku air. 
“Wow! Wowwwww…!” 
Only Erone, witnessing the pandemonium from afar, was enjoying the scene, clapping in glee at it. 
“…What’re they even doing up there? If they don’t need the barrier, I’m taking it down.” 
And finally there was Sariel, who had traveled up to the roof to find out why there was no to-the-death struggle going on. He found himself shrugging his shoulders at the casual bickering he encountered instead. 
 
“Look, I told you a thousand times! If we don’t want to create any more enemies for ourselves, it’s easiest for all of us if we acted like we were allies!” 
Sadao Maou’s shouting echoed across the Shinjuku evening. 
Now back to human form, Maou was forced to sit down on the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building roof and take a verbal beating from Emi and Suzuno, both enraged at their recent promotions to Great Demon General. The proclamation Maou had for Farfarello impacted everyone on the scene so much, his promise to lecture Chiho about trying to extract information from the demon was completely forgotten. 
The thing that angered Emi the most was how he had appointed Chiho as a general, too. If Farfarello stepped through the Gate Erone had created to take him home and immediately reported that to Barbariccia, Chiho would no longer be a passing witness to events on Ente Isla—she’d be a full-fledged participant. Someone might see her as an enemy now; they might just pay her a visit, even. The whole point of teaching her holy magic was completely lost now, something the women nagged Maou about nonstop on the way home. But now he was sniping back at them, unable to withstand any more of it. 
“Look, they aren’t gonna mess with her that readily if she’s one of my Great Demon Generals, all right? That’d be like one of your knight corps taking on Barbariccia by themselves, and he wasn’t even a general in the first place.” 
“That’s not the issue! Now everyone on Ente Isla might see Chiho as some kind of menace to them, you see? Plus, you made her a general instead of any of the demons in your realm! What if some would-be demon officer from your ranks gets jealous and decides to take her down?” 
“My officers wouldn’t do that! They’re not that malicious!” 
“Oh, so you only hired kind and benevolent demons for your army?” 
“Oh, come on, Chi! Are you accusing me of being malicious here? You humans never believe a single word I tell you, but then you take my words out of context to make me the bad guy! If that isn’t being malicious, what is?!” 
“Well, if you weren’t being malicious, then you were just being stupid, all right? And either way, now Chiho’s in a completely new kind of danger thanks to you! You demonic moron!” 
“Hey, you wanna go? ’Cause I’ll go, man!” 
“Oh, bring it on!” 
“Will you please keep it down?!” Suzuno could bear it no longer. From the the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building all the way to the Hatsudai station on the Keio New Line, Maou and Emi had been endlessly griping at each other. “There is no use crying over spilled milk like this. This is our fault for not fully solving the problem while Farfarello and Erone were still here. This is a defeat for us!” 
“Suzu-Sis, don’t be mad!” 
Alas Ramus, sitting in Suzuno’s arms, hit her on the head a few times. Suzuno childishly batted the pudgy arm away. 
Just before Erone left with Farfarello, the child had sprung out from Emi’s body, once again against the Hero’s will. 
“…Erone.” 
“Alas Ramus… It’s been a long time.” 
“Mmm.” 
That conversation seemed to confirm it. Whatever Erone was, he was extremely close to Alas Ramus. 
“Erone…are they okeh?” 
“I’m sorry… I don’t know. I’m fine, though.” 
“Mmm.” 
That was enough to make Alas Ramus beam brightly. 
“Wanna play again later?” 
“Sure.” 
And thus the short encounter between the two seeds of Sephirah ended. Alas Ramus never took her eyes off of him until he stepped through the Gate with Farfarello and out of Japan. Emi and Maou’s arguing began immediately thereafter, and in the midst of it, the child was transferred over to Suzuno’s arms. 
“We failed to even ask where Erone came from before he left… You lose all of your brain power whenever Chiho is involved, do you not?” 
“…Sorry, did you say something to me, Suzuno?” 
Chiho, still half-floating in the air as she walked, was in a dreamlike state. 
“I did not. Chiho, let me remind you that your lecture awaits once we return.” 
“…All riiiiiiiight…” 
It was difficult to tell whether that reply meant Chiho was listening or not. 
“Dehhh! You people drive me to my wit’s end!” 
“Suzu-Sis! Don’t get mad!” 
“You may say that,” Suzuno sternly replied, “but someone needs to stay serene and consider things rationally at a time like this! Otherwise, none of us would be thinking about anything at all!” 
“Stay sreen an’ consider things rasshon’ly?” 
“…Ah. Little point telling you about it, I suppose.” 
There were still fairly severe limits on Alas Ramus’s vocabulary skills. She tried her best to keep up, but there was only so much she could do. 
“Ahh, let ’em gripe,” said Sariel, himself almost floating in the air. “All’s well that ends well. I’ve finally made up with my goddess. What more could anyone possibly ask for?” 
“Is there anyone here willing to see things from my point of view?!” Suzuno snapped back. 
“Ah! You scared me, Suzu-Sis!” 
“Huh,” Maou remarked as the cleric ran off in tears. “She’s really putting herself through a lot, huh?” 
“Whose fault do you think that is?” Emi replied. “And why’d you give that dark force to Farfarello anyway? Not that I mind, but…” 
“Oh, like you were gonna let me keep the ability to turn into the Devil King anytime I want on the shelf or something?” 
“Hey, I said I didn’t mind!” Emi barked back. 
“…Well, would you have, though? I mean, if I decided to stay Devil King, team up with Farfarello, and take over the world, that’d be a pretty darn good excuse for you to kill me.” 
“Do you think that’s what I wanted this whole time?!” 
“What do you mean, ‘that’? Me taking over Japan, or you having an excuse to kill me?” 
“……Are you just trying to rile me up, or what?” 
Maou laughed a very deliberate laugh in Emi’s face. “Haven’t you been doing that all night to me? I deserve a turn, too.” 
Emi gnashed her teeth and turned her back to him. 
“But to be serious for one second, considering Chi and all…” 
The two of them turned back toward Chiho, still almost literally walking on air. 
“Given everything she said to us, I wasn’t stupid enough to leave anything for you guys to get in a big snit about. Oh, and before I forget, here’s your fee.” 
Before she had the time to chew on that, Emi frowned at the ragged thousand-yen bill Maou dangled in front of her. 
“What, don’t you want it?” 
“No.” 
“What?!” 
She turned it down without any hesitation at all. Maou almost caught himself respecting her for that. 
“If I take that, then it really would be like we’ve got a business relationship going. Don’t get any weird ideas. I just helped you this time because I had to if we were gonna save Chiho.” 
“I wasn’t really thinking along those lines…but, but if you don’t need it, I seriously won’t give it to you, okay? You sure about that?” 
It was hard for Emi to imagine that Maou, sniveling to himself as he took back the money, was the same person as the Devil King who had just spoken regally about the future of the demon realms. 
“Don’t worry about it. But would you mind not telling Chiho that we heard her Idea Link, for me?” 
“Huh? Why?” Maou asked as he wadded the bill back into his wallet. 
“Well, I doubt she would’ve wanted us to hear that, and besides…” 
“Besides?” 
Emi’s eyes narrowed against the light of the setting sun as they darted between Maou and Chiho. 
“I don’t know. It seems so…convincing. I hate it.” 
“What?” 
The words from Emi’s lips were so soft, they were all but drowned out by the sounds of western Shinjuku traffic. 
“…Nothing. Just don’t tell Chiho! All right?” 
“Um, sure. Dunno why not, but…” 
Maou nodded, confused. Emi was back to her usual grumpy self, but something about her didn’t make sense. Must be hung up on something still , he supposed. 
“Oh, right. Hey, Chi! Chi!” 
“Yeahhh… Oh!” Chiho snapped out of her legal high. “Ummm, yeah?” 
“Hey, so we can save the lecturing for later, but you mind coming along with me a little bit? There’s a little side trip I wanna make.” 
“A side trip?” 
“Where are you taking her?” 
There was no way Emi would dare expose Chiho to more danger tonight. Depending on the location, she was prepared to tail them the entire way. 
“Oh, yeah, you oughta know, too. I heard your birthday was coming up, Chi, but when is it?” 
Chiho and Emi froze for a few moments. 
“Birth…day?” 
“Oh, um… Yeah, it’s September tenth,” Chiho replied meekly. 
“Yeah? Well, I was just thinking…you know, I used to be Devil King and all, so I figure there’s no way I could come up with a birthday present you’d like by myself, so…like, I thought it’d be safer to just ask what kinda stuff you like when I had a chance.” 
It wasn’t exactly the smoothest move a man could make in a relationship. To Emi, the idea of a Devil King understanding the concept of celebrating birthdays seemed abhorrent in a way. 
“Like, I still don’t think I have much of an idea of what you’re into, but I don’t think you like all the cutesy girlie stuff Emi does, so…” 
“I am not into ‘girlie stuff’!” 
“Hey, you can call it what you want, but you’re still a grown woman carrying a Relax-a-Bear wallet around.” 
“That still beats your stupid hundred-yen-shop plastic thing! Plus, I’m only a year older than Chiho is!” 
“Yeah, well, anyway…as you can probably guess, I can’t spring for anything too fancy or expensive, but is there anything reasonably decent that you might like?” 
It was almost too point-blank a question, as if Maou was asking her whether she wanted any sauce to go with her chicken nuggets. Chiho looked up at Maou for just a moment. 
“I…I think I’ve already gotten it,” she said, smiling. 
“Oh? …Wait, what? Did I give something to you?” 
“You sure did. In fact, it might be the one thing I want the most right now.” 
“Um? Really?” Maou’s confused face betrayed no memory of this. “Well, huh. What was it, though?” 
Chiho was all but skipping down the sidewalk, a mysterious grin on her face. 
“Pfft. Not a care in the world, huh? You two probably deserve each other.” 
“Huh? Do you know, Emi?” 
“…I sure don’t want to.” 
“Wh-what?” 
“Hee-hee-hee! It’s a secret until you figure it out!” Chiho brought a finger to her lips to emphasize her point. “Oh! But your birthday’s in the fall too, isn’t it, Yusa?” 
“Me?” Emi blinked at the sudden subject change. 
“Oh, is it?” 
“I think Suzuno mentioned that to me one time or another…” 
“……” 
Emi glared dolefully at Maou as she nodded. 
“Well, yeah, my birthday’s in the early fall in the Western Island, but I don’t really have one on Japan’s calendar. It doesn’t really matter anyway, I don’t think.” 
“Aw, but you should!” Chiho excitedly grabbed Emi’s arm. “Maybe we could exchange presents!” 
“Oh, come onnnn, that’s just embarrassing!” Emi’s cheeks turned red at the extremely teenager-ish request. 
“Well, I still have to repay you somehow, don’t I? And you, too, Maou. If I don’t do a favor for you guys, too, someone might really kill me next time!” 
“Uh, jeez, Chiho…” Emi couldn’t tell how serious she was being. 
“But…yeah,” Maou said. “Looking at it that way, I guess maybe I do owe you guys a little, huh?” 
“Don’t be so serious about it. And I really don’t want you thinking about me like that anyway, all right?” 
Emi couldn’t bear the thought of, say, Chiho convincing Maou to buy her some sort of Relax-a-Bear merchandise. It would probably cause her to despise Relax-a-Bear forever. 
“You wouldn’t accept anything from me in the first place, would you?” 
“Of course not. So don’t think about it—” 
“Okay, so how about this?” 
“Huh?” 
Suddenly, Maou clapped his hands in the middle of the sidewalk. It filled Emi with a sense of dark foreboding. 
“I just named you one of my Great Demon Generals, right?” he began. 
“If you’re willing to let me resign as my present, I’d be willing to consider that a gift,” Emi retorted. 
“Not with Farfarello to worry about, I’m not. But instead of that, Emi, I want you to follow me around so you can keep watch over what I’m doing all the time.” 
Time stopped for a moment. 
“What?” Emi and Chiho echoed, their voices cracking. 
“Look, you’re at an impasse, aren’t you? Like, over whether you should keep treating me like your foe or not. So why don’t you take the time to give me a second evaluation? You’re in my inner circle of generals, you know; you could stab me in the back anytime you want. I’m not plannin’ on going down that easy, but if you don’t like what you see me getting up to, then let’s settle it, right then. As Hero and Devil King. What do you think?” 
“What do I—?” 
“It’ll be like starting with a blank slate. I’ll show you with my actions that I’m not the kind of Devil King you think I am. I guess you’re curious about what’s driving me to conquer the world, too, huh, Chi? Well, I’ll tell you everything from A to Z. And if you don’t like that, let’s duke it out one more time. So…” 
Maou smiled, satisfied at the sheer genius of the proposal he thought up. 
“…if you want to clear your mind, Emilia the Hero, then follow me. I’ve got a whole new world to show you. Once I conquer it, that is.” 
Chiho and Emi froze on the spot. 
“Huh,” observed Sariel, unaffected by this blip in the passage of time. “Quite the orator when you want to be, aren’t you?” 
Then: 
“……——!!!!!!!” 
“Huh? Wha? Huh?” 
Emi’s face burned red, as though someone had splashed gasoline on it and lit a match. 
At the same moment, Suzuno, who had arrived at Hatsudai station ahead of them, marveled in shock as Alas Ramus disappeared from her arms. Simultaneously, the Better Half, and all the power it represented, settled into Emi’s hand. 
“Wh-whoa! Emi?! There’s, there’s kind of a lot of people around—” 
She pointed it directly at Maou. 
“Heavenly Storm Fang!!” 
An unrelenting gale thrust its way toward him, plastering his all-too-human body against a nearby tree before dropping him into the bushes below. 
“Do, do, do you have any idea what, what, what you’re saying to me?!” 
Emi had little idea what she herself was saying. Maou had even less. 
“You idiot ! You complete idiot! Forget it! You are my enemy! My mortal enemy! My nemesis! I was so stupid for doubting myself! I-I-I dare you to say anything weird like that ever again! I don’t care what Alas Ramus and Chiho think—when that, that, that time comes, I’m gonna rip your neck off, you, you—” 
Tears welled in Emi’s eyes, her face flush with every emotion in the world. 
“—you thoughtless creep !!!” 
Then she stormed off, walking even faster than Suzuno before her. 
“Wh-what’s up with her…?” Maou mused as he crawled out from the bushes, still a little dazed as a shadow crossed his head. 
“H-hey, Chi, give me a hand… Huh?” 
In front of him, framed by the sunset behind her, Chiho grabbed Maou—not by the hand, but by his shirt collar. 

“Chi…?” 
“Maou, could you treat me to some cake, please?” 
“Huh?!” 
“You were going to celebrate my birthday, right? So treat me to some cake, right now !” 
“What? Hey, c’mon, why are you kind of angry, too…?” 
“I don’t know!!” 
“Um, um, Chi? I-I can walk just fine, so, uh, you can let go of my collar anytime you want, so…” 
Maou found himself being dragged back the way he came by the teenager. Sariel, left to himself, chuckled as he pictured what kind of high-end Shinjuku sweet shop they would wind up in. 
“Ah, friendship is a beautiful thing. I’d best think about dinner myself. My first trip to MagCafé!” 
“What is with all you people…?” 
Maou stared up at the setting sun as Chiho dragged him along. No matter how much he thought about it, he just couldn’t figure out what had made Emi’s face explode and cause Chiho to have such an outburst. “Too bad she couldn’t always look like that,” he said, smiling to himself. “That was kinda cute.” 
“What did you say?!” 
“Nothing, nothing.” 
Then he stopped thinking. He knew what would happen if he riled Chiho any further, although he didn’t know why it was riling her up. Turning around a little, he realized Chiho’s ears were just a little reddened. 
“Not exactly what I imagined,” Maou whispered to himself as he watched the red Tokyo sky, “but I guess dreams never turn out exactly the way you want them to, huh?” 
Kisaki had almost let her fantasies dupe her into committing to a bad property. Sariel had even more substantial obstacles in his way before he could have the kind of relationship with Kisaki that he wanted. Alas Ramus had finally reunited with one of her companions, but only for a few seconds. Ashiya was probably going to scream at him for tossing away his demonic power, and nothing about anything Urushihara did ever contributed in a positive fashion. And Suzuno, Chiho, and Emi—none of their realities were exactly what they wanted, but they were still trying to batter through those walls, trying to change it into the world of their respective dreams. 
And Maou, too… 
“Yeah, I kinda doubt a three-hour training session is gonna get me up to Ms. Kisaki’s level…” 
The MgRonald Barista workshop was a valuable experience for him, yes, but if he wanted the skills he needed to even approach Kisaki and her barman ethos, he would need to keep at it for a while to come. 
Still, Maou and everyone around him had definitely taken another step toward their dreams compared to yesterday—no matter how small it was. 
The heat still lingered after dark in late-summer Tokyo, but the evening sky was clearly beginning to show the telltale signs of autumn. 
Well, huh , Maou thought to himself as his jeans dragged along the sidewalk. Maybe a red sky ain’t so bad after all. It just depends on how you look at it. 
“I’d like to have a shortcake, all right? One with looooooots of strawberries on it!” 
“Um, strawberries are gonna be pretty expensive this time of year, aren’t they? I, uh, I don’t have that much to work with…” 
The Devil King, the Hero, the demons, the angels, and the people around them. Their hearts, their goals, even their pathways home—they were all so dizzyingly different from one another.