Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 7 - Chapter 2

THE DEVIL PLUCKS A CAT OFF THE STREET 
A rogue cloud had chosen that certain day in midsummer to park itself over greater Tokyo and give the metropolis a little relief from the sun. Cracking the window open brought a pleasant breeze inside, keeping things amply comfortable within the main room. 
However, that wasn’t strictly necessary because the gaps in the plastic sheeting they were using to cover the gigantic hole in the wall let in air on a fairly constant basis. 
But beyond those light flapping noises, all was quiet this evening. And Shirou Ashiya, known—nay, feared—as “the Great Demon General Alciel” in another world, could sense that his master was back. He could hear it in the squeal of the brakes attached to Dullahan II, the two-wheeled steel horse his overlord commuted to work on. It was followed by the ruffle of him placing a cover over it, followed by hesitant steps up the common-use stairway, making sure he had ample traction at every pace. 
Wiping off his clothes, Ashiya took a couple of steps toward the front door to greet his master. The door opened, and… 
“…My liege.” 
There stood Devil King Satan, aka Sadao Maou in this world—Ashiya’s master, the leader of all able-bodied monsters of the demon realms, who once led his armies on a quest to conquer the land of Ente Isla and turn it into an all-inclusive resort for himself and his slavering peoples. He looked no older than his early twenties at most, and none of the awe-inspiring figure he once cut as Devil King remained. Were you to infuse his now-human body with a little demonic power, however, he would instantly regain his true, fearsome guise, capable of freezing mere mortals on the spot and sending them into paroxysms of despair. 
And inside the pocket of his well-worn UniClo jacket, he was carrying something that Ashiya had a little trouble comprehending at first. 
“…Meee,” it weakly cried as Maou fully removed it from his pocket—a kitten with a silvery sheen to its hair. 
“…” 
“…” 
Master and servant spent the next few moments staring at each other by the front door. Somehow, the master looked quite a bit more apologetic than the servant. 
“I, uh,” he meekly began, “it was shivering by the grease bin, so…” 
“Take it back to where you found it, please,” Ashiya promptly protested. 
“You demon!” 
“So I am. What of it?” 
“Ehhh-choo!” 
The third occupant of the apartment—Hanzou Urushihara, known and not at all feared as the fallen angel Lucifer in their home world—sneezed loudly, startling the kitten in Maou’s hands. 
 
The next morning, Suzuno Kamazuki—the next-door neighbor to Devil’s Castle, known on Ente Isla as high Church cleric and Reconciliation Panel board member Crestia Bell—found herself puzzled by an unfamiliar sound. 
“…What is that?” 
It sounded like the wailing of some animal, likely a cat, and it sounded frightfully close to her. 
The Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartment building had a back-alley space lined by concrete-brick walls, a rarity in this day and age. It was a favorite hangout spot for stray cats across the neighborhood, but ever since she’d moved in, Suzuno didn’t remember hearing any catfights within earshot of her apartment, and something about the grass in the backyard lawn seemed to deter their occasional visitors from relieving themselves all over it. 
Confused, Suzuno got up off her futon, changed into her everyday kimono, put the futon away in the closet, and began cooking breakfast. The meowing continued uninterrupted the entire time. She took a peek out the kitchen window. There was nothing too cat-shaped within sight. Maybe some stray had given birth to kittens inside the walls or something. It was a bit out of season for that, but anything was possible. 
There was a knock on the door. “Bell?” a familiar voice asked. “It’s me. Sorry for visiting so early.” 
“Emilia? What is it?” Suzuno asked, wiping her hands on her apron as she walked to the door. 
“Hey, sorry to bother you. I needed to deliver something.” 
“Deliver?” 
Beyond the door, carrying a paper bag, was the Hero of Ente Isla, Emilia Justina, currently calling herself Emi Yusa because of reasons too numerous to get into here. 
“Eme sent me a little extra holy energy drink, so I thought I’d freshen your supply a little.” 
“Well! I thank you.” 
Holy energy powered the magical skills that had safely ferried Emi and Suzuno through untold dangers up to this point. Unlike in Ente Isla, however, their bodies could not generate this force by themselves on Earth. It was thanks to the bottles of 5-Holy Energy ? sent on regular occasions by Emi’s former traveling partner, Emeralda Etuva, that the two girls could still tap their magic. 
“Are you leaving for work next?” 
“No,” a depressed-looking Emi said as she looked at the next door over. “Today’s a scheduled playdate with Alas Ramus’s ‘daddy.’” 
“…” 
It was enough to peeve Suzuno into silence as well, before she noticed that a certain important part of that playdate was missing. 
“Where is Alas Ramus herself?” 
“…She was looking forward to it so much, she got up before dawn and wound up falling asleep again.” 
Emi tapped her forehead for illustration. 
The holy sword fused within the Hero Emilia’s body had been further infused with the presence of Alas Ramus, a shard from one of the Sephirot jewels that formed seeds for new worlds within Ente Isla’s heavens. She had taken the form of a toddler in this world, and for reasons nobody could fathom, she thought the Devil King and Hero were her father and mother, respectively. 
Since bonding with Emi, Alas Ramus was no longer able to venture far from “Mommy” by herself. She still missed “Daddy,” however, and so Emi was forced to take her “daughter” on visits to Devil’s Castle on regular occasions. Otherwise, the child would bawl at her inside her brain, wailing in a voice only she could hear. It didn’t do much for her continued sanity. 
Having Alas Ramus present only within her mind was convenient at times—it saved on day-care costs, for one—but Emi figured that keeping her in her own toddler body was probably the best thing from a child-raising perspective. It distressed Suzuno, however. The idea of Emi being forced to deal with the Devil King like a single mother dealing with a dual-custody divorce wasn’t anyone’s idea of a happy time. 
“Aahh-choo!!” 
Both of the girls shivered a bit at the sudden elephantine roar. 
“…That was Lucifer, wasn’t it?” 
Emi winced. The sneeze had neatly swept away the refreshing morning atmosphere. 
“What’s going on in there, anyway? It sounds like they’re having a party or something.” 
The furor surrounding Alas Ramus’s arrival on Earth had ultimately led to a large hole being poked in the wall of Villa Rosa Sasazuka Room number 201. The sheet they used to cover it didn’t block sound leaking through to the adjacent apartment even on the best of days, but today was turning into a particularly loud one. 
“I don’t know,” Suzuno replied. “That act has continued anon since morning. Perhaps the chill air made him catch cold overnight.” 
Neither the Hero’s nor the Church cleric’s tone indicated they cared that much about the demons’ physical health. But the next sound made both of them exchange curious glances. 
“Meww!!” 
“Huh?” 
It was that cat again, the same one Suzuno had been listening to since she woke up. They were still trying to grasp the situation, but it sounded like it was only getting worse on the other side of the paper-thin wall. Before long, they could hear all three of them—the Devil King, the Demon General, and the fallen angel—like they were in the same room. 
“Dah! I lost him! Grab him, Urushihara!” 
“Dude, I can’t! Whoa, stay away from me! Nnnaaahh-choo!” 
“How…how dare you defy us, you puny animal! Come here at once!” 
“Mee! Meee! Mewwww!!” 
“What is going on in there?” 
Emi couldn’t guess why there was a cat in Devil’s Castle, but from what she could hear, this new pet wasn’t exactly a marvel of domestic obedience. 
Another few moments, and— 
“…Whew! Finally gotcha, you little sneak! Who’s your master now, huh?!” 
“You’re the one who let him jump out of your lap, my liege.” 
“Dude, would you please just do something about him already—ah, ahh-choo!!” 
“Do you think…!” 
Emi and Suzuno gave each other another look. The same thought had popped into both of their minds. Right now, Maou and his cohorts were, to put it charitably, in a distressed financial state. They still seemed adamant about following the social norms of Japan and finding a legitimate way to eke out a bare livelihood, but they definitely had little in the way of wiggle room right now. 
Were Maou and his demons about to commit one of the greatest taboos Japanese urban culture had to offer? Trapping stray animals on the street and using them to stave off their hunger? The image in Suzuno’s mind was, at least, quite a bit more demonic than the way they had been acting up to now. There was no way Devil’s Castle could support anything like a house pet at the moment—and none of its residents had ever demonstrated interest in the idea until now. 
It took the tandem image of Maou, in demon form, chewing on a kitten’s skull for both Suzuno and Emi to hurry out the door. 
“Devil King!!” bellowed Suzuno in front of the Room 201 door, taking out her hairpin and deploying the Light of Iron magic. The moment she did, it transformed into a massive warhammer, one that could easily tear the entire apartment building down to its bare frame. 
“S-Suzuno?!” Maou shouted. 
“Open this door at once, Devil King! I refuse to allow this tragedy to continue any further! Feasting on the poor, homeless animals of this city…and yet you dare call yourself a king?!” 
“N-no! What are you… Geez, keep it down…!” 
“Open up! Release the cat at once!” 
Suzuno jiggled the doorknob, ignoring Maou’s protests. It was locked. 
“I’m going in, Bell!” Emi shouted as she returned to Suzuno’s room and leaned out her window. She was actually trying to make it into Devil’s Castle by shimmying across the outer wall. If any passersby saw her, a police visit would seem pretty likely. 
“Face thy divine punishment!!” With a mighty roar, Emi made it across and through the window to Devil’s Castle. 
“Whoa! E-Emi?! How’d you get in?!” 
There, seated on the ground, was Sadao Maou, holding a kitten. 
“Shut up! How could any Devil King capture and consume a poor, innocent stray cat?! That’s just pathetic!” 
Emi raised her sword of justice into the air, took a deep breath as she mentally prepared to stop this great injustice, then noticed something. 
“All right!” Maou shouted. “I see it now! You’ve got the wrong idea, okay? But this guy’s finally chilled out and everything! Keep quiet for a sec!” 
She was all but expecting to come in and see Filet-O-Cat in the frying pan. Instead she was looking at Maou trying to get a feeding syringe into the kitten’s mouth, Ashiya trying frantically to get some sticky, sweet-smelling white powder off the floor, and Urushihara sitting in a corner, watery-eyed and rubbing the reddened tip of his nose. 
“What…are you…?” 
Emi had trouble parsing all of it at once. 
“Is it not obvious?!” a peeved Ashiya shouted, rubbing a wet washcloth against the floor. 
“Um,” Emi answered, holy sword still thrust into the sky. “You were trying to give milk to that kitten, it jumped out of your lap and knocked over the powdered milk container, and now you’re trying to syringe-feed him? …Maybe that?” 
She had a decent hunch she was right. 
“If you can see that, then get out of here!” Ashiya screeched. “We do not have the time to deal with you right now!” 
“Ashiya, inside voice, okay? You’re gonna make him panic again… Oh, I think he’s having some.” 
The silvery kitten in Maou’s hands, finally admitting surrender, began nursing on the cap of the feeding syringe. 
“There we go! See? Just be a good cat and drink up, and there’s nothing to be scared of! Eesh…” 
Maou continued to gripe as he pushed down on the plunger, making sure none of the milk spilled out of his patient’s mouth. 
“Awesome. We’re done. Okay, back you go!” 
He then placed the kitten back inside a fairly large cardboard box in another corner of the room. 
“Um…so what’s that kitten about, anyway? You’re really not gonna eat him?” 
“…Look, Emi, who do you think we are, anyway?” 
“Demons?” 
“Indeed, my liege.” 
“Yeah, I—ahhh-choo!” 
The sneezing seemed to be gaining in volume. It was drowned out by a pounding on the door. 
“Emilia! Emilia, what is happening in there? I demand to know! Tell me!” 
“I’m up way too early for this crap,” Maou whined as he rushed to the door before it got knocked off its hinges. 
“M-my liege, watch where you—!!” 
Ashiya’s warning came an instant too late for Maou to avoid stepping right on the milk powder he hadn’t wiped up yet. He groaned in defeat. 
Maou, realizing the need to placate the still-suspicious Suzuno, decided it was high time to explain the events of the previous night to the two human girls. 
“So you know how cold it was overnight last night, right? I figured a little guy like this would die out there unless he had some shelter ’n’ stuff. There wasn’t anyone else I could take him to back there, either, so… It’s just human decency, you know, Alas Ramus?” 
“Meow Meow!” 
His eyes were pointed at the child seated in Emi’s lap. 
Emi swinging her holy sword around Devil’s Castle was enough to wake Alas Ramus up, but the sight of the kitten made any annoyance at the rude awakening quickly forgotten. 
“Meow Meow! Meowwwww? Lemme look!” 
It took a herculean effort from Emi to keep the intensely curious Alas Ramus from running right up to the box. Restraint wasn’t in her dictionary yet, which could leave either her or the kitten or both with scars, so Emi decided to err on the side of caution. 
“Don’t talk to me about human decency, you,” an irritated Emi growled as she played an ever-evolving game of grab-the-toddler with Alas Ramus. 
“But,” Suzuno said as she peered into the box, her hair already set back in place, “perhaps we should not blame him.” 
Inside the simple, towel-lined shelter was a small, furry ball of silver, his tiny legs propelling him as he sniffed around the walls. Sometimes he would dart his nose into a corner, seeking to answer some question only he could perceive; sometimes he would stop dead and stare at an empty point in the air. It was completely unpredictable, and every move was more endearingly cute than the last one. 
“Your mouth’s open, Suzuno.” 
“Agh!!” 
Suzuno, enthralled, snapped out of it and looked back up. 
“Hmph,” Ashiya snorted, taking care of the last of the spilled powder. “The high and mighty Church cleric rendered dumb by such a juvenile sight. Why, how are you any different from Alas Ramus, I ask?” 
Suzuno ignored him, cheeks flushed. “Well,” she grumbled at Maou, “at least I know you are unwilling to prey upon defenseless animals for your nefarious schemes, at the very least.” 
“Come on.” 
“Daddy! No eating Meow Meow!” 
Maou rolled his eyes at the both of them. “See? Now you got Alas Ramus thinking I’m the villain here.” 
“…I apologize. But!” Suzuno paused for breath, looking around at Devil’s Castle, arranged identically to her own room. “What do you intend to do with it? Villa Rosa Sasazuka explicitly bans pets from the premises.” 
“…Yeah, about that.” 
Judging by Maou’s facial reaction, it was a bitter pill to swallow. That, after all, was the central point of most of his and Ashiya’s arguing last night. Even in a place like Villa Rosa whose motto was essentially total freedom—no deposit, no key money, no maintenance fees, essentially no building-upgrade fees, a landlord who was never on premises—the rental contract said “no pets,” just like a lot of shared apartment buildings. 
In cases like these, exactly what “no pets” means is often up to the discretion of the landlord. Sometimes they would allow animals like small birds or fish. But with anything whose noise or smell would bother other tenants, or otherwise affected the condition of the building—it was a given that those were off-limits. It wasn’t exactly a deep, dark secret that cats love sharpening their claws on whatever’s handy, either. 
“But you don’t have any idea where your landlord is right now, do you? You could probably get away with it for a little while.” 
The rather non-Heroic insinuation from Emi was greeted with Maou bitterly turning toward the plastic-covered hole in the wall. “Yeah,” he said, “but thanks to that, the property management guy’s been here a few times.” 
“Oh…” 
Right. That, Emi thought. Half-wrecking your apartment probably would get management involved, wouldn’t it? In fact, quite a lot about the demons’ current housing situation relied completely on the good graces of their mysterious landlord. A breach of contract wouldn’t be the best way to remain in said graces. 
“That, and there’s that problem.” 
“What problem?” 
Maou pointed at the Devil’s Castle closet. Emi and Suzuno realized that Urushihara, seated on the floor just a moment ago, was gone. 
“Indeed,” Ashiya caustically moaned. “We already have one loud freeloader eating us out of house and home. With this in the household, he will be several times louder still.” 
“…ksh,” came the muffled sneeze from behind the closet door. 
“I guess Urushihara’s allergic to cats or something.” 
“What?!” 
The thought never occurred to Emi, despite the near-comical amounts of sniffling. “Demons can have allergies?” Emi asked, honestly curious. 
“Of course they can,” Suzuno countered. “We did not call it as such in the Church hospitals, but the study of epidemiology is well on its way within our confines. People in Ente Isla have even died from anaphylactic shock brought about by a bee sting.” 
“Huh. Maybe we should keep a cat on hand for the next time Lucifer hatches some kind of diabolical plan.” 
“Dude, no!” came the closet-based protest. “This really sucks, okay?” 
Emi, instead of replying, tried pushing the box toward the closet, slowly so as to keep from startling the kitten. Maou gently stopped her. 
“So basically, we can’t keep him here, but it’s not like our landlord’s a monster or anything. If we say we’re keeping him here until we find an owner, I’m pretty sure she’s not gonna say no to that, you know?” 
“Dude, instead of currying favor with a landlord who isn’t here, think about the health of someone who is here, okay? Koff koff…” 
Maou ignored the voice from the closet. 
“So, yeah—do you know anyone interested in adopting that guy?” 
“…Who would I know?” Suzuno indignantly replied. Maou then turned his expectant eyes to Emi, who kept her eyebrows low and tensed. 
“I’m pretty sure you know this, but I can’t have pets in my building, either.” 
She was referring to her own apartment in Eifukucho, three train stops away from Maou’s home base in Sasazuka. 
“Yeah, I know, but you’re a call-center lady, right? You think anyone in your office is in the market?” 
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Emi said, “and before that, I’m the Hero, all right? Not just a ‘call-center lady.’” 
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Maou said with a sigh. “Guess I’ll ask around my work, then.” 
“He doesn’t look that young, though,” a dejected Emi observed. “Especially with that full coat of silver fur and everything. Who’d dump him on the street at this point?” 
“Yeah, no kidding,” Maou nodded. “Like, he was shivering all by himself out by the garbage bins. I felt kinda…bad about it.” 
“You what?” Emi shot back. 
“Uh, never mind. So,” Maou anxiously said, attempting to bounce the conversation off Suzuno instead, “I guess you’re gonna get some more noise from your neighbors for a bit, but I promise it’s temporary, all right?” 
“Hmph. You were hardly ever quiet neighbors in the first place.” 
“Lemme pet Meow Meow!” 
Alas Ramus could wait no longer. Her legs began to flail in the air. 
“Hey, let her pet the guy a little bit.” 
“Oh, all right,” Emi droned. “She’s probably gonna be clinging to him all day, you realize.” 
Then she released Alas Ramus, both her and Maou keeping a close eye on her to prevent too much stimulation for either party. 
“…Do not say anything,” Ashiya told Suzuno as they watched the trio. 
“I am not. I was just marveling at what a nice, tranquil family they have become.” 
“I told you not to say anything.” 
 
The next day: 
“It was abandoned out back? Oh, that’s terrible!” 
Chiho Sasaki, Maou’s shift coworker at the MgRonald in front of Hatagaya rail station they both worked part-time at, sounded legitimately resentful as he walked with her, pushing his bicycle along on one side. As the only person in Japan who knew about Maou, Ente Isla, and why Emi had so many hang-ups about him, she was accompanying the Devil King on the way to his castle. 
Getting to play with a kitten was always fun, yes…but there was something else she was trying to bring across to him. 
“Yeah, I was pretty freaked out, too.” Maou sighed. “It never really comes when you expect it, y’know? I dunno if me picking him up was the right thing or not, but it’s gotta beat being under the grease bin, at least.” 
“Ha-ha-ha…” 
Maou let out an even deeper sigh when they reached the apartment building. Chiho, for her part, smiled blankly as she looked up at the frail sheet of hard plastic bravely attempting to cover up the cavernous hole in the wall. 
The gloom continued on the way up the stairs and through the door. 
“Yo, I’m back—huh?” 
Quite outside his expectations, the room was completely quiet. Maou swiveled his head around for an explanation. 
“Oh, is nobody here?” Chiho asked from behind his shoulder. 
“…Ashiya’s oud shobbing,” said a voice out of nowhere. 
“Agh!” 
Chiho leaped into the air in surprise, not expecting Urushihara in the closet. 
“Shopping? What about the cat?” 
“I’unno. He wuz dalkin’uh Bell ’boud id, tho.” 
“Um, do you have a cold, Urushihara?” 
Before the nasal voice could answer, Ashiya arrived at the door, shopping bag in hand. 
“Ah, Your Demonic Highness…and Ms. Sasaki as well.” 
“Hello, Ashiya!” 
“Are you here to look at the kitten?” 
Chiho nodded. “Yeah, I thought maybe somebody at school would want it, so…” 
“Oh! Well, superb, then… I apologize, my liege. There were a few items I needed to pick up, so I left the kitten under Bell’s watch.” 
“Oh, was that it?” 
It was the logical choice. Urushihara didn’t want to go near the thing, but the kitten was still young enough that he could no doubt find hundreds of ways to maim himself while Ashiya was gone. 
“Well, here, let’s get ’im back. We’re borrowing her kitchen already—I don’t wanna owe her even more.” 
“Yes, my liege.” Ashiya placed the bag on the center table, then knocked on the door to Room 202. “Bell, it’s me. We are ready for the cat now.” 
“…?” 
A few moments passed. No response. 
“Where is she?” 
“Perhaps Suzuno took a nap.” 
“It couldn’t have been more than half an hour, though… Hmm?” 
Then Ashiya noticed that Suzuno had absentmindedly left the door unlocked. Not that he cared about the cleric’s safety. The cat would always take first priority. He gave the door another knock. 
“Bell? I’m coming in. Do you have the—” 
Once the door was fully open, he stopped. 
“……………………………” 
“Meww, meww, rrrrr…” 
There, before him… 
“……………………………” 
“Rrrrroowwww…” 
…was Suzuno, eyes deadly serious and breathing heavily through her nose as she poked at the cat’s stomach and paws. 
“Um, Suzuno?” 
“……………………………Oh.” 
It took Chiho’s question to stop Suzuno from propping the kitten up and scratching his neck a little. Realizing she and the two demons were there, her face reddened for more reasons than simply the pink and orange of twilight that filled the room. 
“Um, I… No! This is not what it looks like! I, I was merely…” 
“Mew?” protested the cat as Suzuno hurriedly trundled him back into the cardboard box and turned her back to it. 
“Suzuno, your sleeves are covered in cat hair.” 
“Ah, ahhh…” 
Maou pointed at one of them. It was, as he said, covered in a fine layer of silvery sheddings. 

 

“N-n-n-no! No, this is just, um…!” 
“If you like ’im that much, you could’ve just said so…” 
“He is yours, all right?! Take him back!!” 
She slammed the door on Maou—but only after ensuring the box was safely in his arms. 
“Oooh, look at that little guy!” 
The gasp was audible in Chiho’s voice as she sized up the silver kitten snuffling around in his box. 
“When you said silver, you weren’t kidding, huh? That’s pretty striking!” 
Maou had spent his previous shift at MgRonald asking around the staff on hand to see if anyone had a feline-shaped hole in their hearts that needed filling. He doubted anyone would bite immediately, and as he feared, both Chiho and Kisaki, his manager, hemmed and hawed at the idea, as did everyone else. Most everyone working at the Hatagaya location lived alone in cheap, pet-free rented apartments as well. 
“Boy, it’s too bad my dad’s allergic,” Chiho lamented as she peered into the box. Chiho’s family actually owned their place, for a change, and they didn’t have any pets a cat wouldn’t work with. But, she claimed, her father, Sen’ichi Sasaki, was just as allergic to them as Urushihara. 
“You don’t know anything about who could’ve owned him before?” 
“Nah. Hell, even if I did, I’m not about to return him to someone willing to abandon a kitten on the street.” 
“Yeah, good point. Ooh, he sure is cute, though…” 
Chiho couldn’t wipe the smile off her face if she tried. Especially now, in the light of the sunset making its way into Devil’s Castle, reflecting gold off the kitten’s silver fur. 
“Hmm?” 
It was then that Ashiya, in the kitchen, heard a knock at the door. 
“Alciel?” Suzuno’s hesitant voice mumbled. 
“What is it, you crazy cat lady?” the uncharacteristically sarcastic Ashiya replied. 
“…Emilia and Alas Ramus are here.” 
“…One second.” 
Ashiya winced to himself as he unlocked the door. He was a demon, a proud one at that, and now it had all but become the norm for him to entertain Heroes and Church clerics in his own home. 
“Meow Meow!” 
There he found Emi, still in what looked to be her work uniform, and Alas Ramus, not-so-obediently staying in her arms. 
“She really loves that guy,” Emi explained listlessly as she came in. “All day at work, it was just ‘meow meow meow meow’ the whole time…” 
“Yeah? Well, keep her on her best behavior, okay? He’s sleeping right now.” 
It was a perfectly normal conversation between a pair of perfectly normal parents. Too bad there was nothing normal about it at all. 
“Shhhh, okay?” Emi warned instead of issuing any protest at Maou. Alas Ramus responded by putting her index finger to her own lips, imitating her mommy. Then she added the middle finger for effect. 
“Meow Meow’s sleeping, all right? We can watch him, but we’ll have to be quiet.” 
“Okey! Shhhh, okay?” 
It was questionable how much she understood, but Chiho still surrendered her spot by the box so Alas Ramus could have a closer look. 
“Meow Meow sleepy?” the child asked after she peeked inside. 
“Mm-hmm,” replied Emi, finger back on her lips. “Don’t wake him up, all right?” 
“Hey, so was anyone at your work interested?” Maou asked. 
“Yeah, I asked around, but most of my coworkers are in rentals, so they couldn’t take him even if they wanted to. I haven’t asked everybody yet, but…” 
Emi’s career involved working at a customer-service call center for the Dokodemo cell phone provider downtown. 
“Oh.” Maou shrugged as he looked around the Devil’s Castle crowd. “Guess I can’t do much keeping this to friends and family, huh?” 
“…Who’re you calling friends?” Emi growled, a bit prickly that Maou counted her in that group. 
“Ahh, you know what I mean.” 
“I wish I didn’t.” 
Emi wanted to continue, but declined, bringing Alas Ramus and the sleeping kitten into consideration. “So…what, then? If you can’t find anyone, are you gonna just keep him?” 
“I can’t,” Maou sighed. “That’s the whole problem.” 
Emi sighed a little at the sight of the Devil King so easily brought to the end of his rope. “Well, if ‘friends and family’ aren’t enough, why don’t you ask someone else?” 
“Oh?” 
“You know, the usual way. There’re posters like that all over Ente Isla. They usually post them in front of churches or the village mayor’s house.” 
A flash of recognition crossed Maou’s face. 
“Posters, huh?” 
“Indeed, my liege,” Ashiya added, showing rare agreement with Emi. “A poster in a conspicuous location may attract the attention of quite a crowd.” 
“Yeah, I tried making one, actually.” 
“Agh!” 
Emi yelped at the sight of a hand extending out from the closet. She knew it had to be Urushihara, but there was still something classically horror-film about a disembodied hand with a single piece of paper, craning itself out of a closet in an old, beat-up apartment building at dusk. 
“L-Lucifer?! Don’t scare me like that!” 
Urushihara tossed the paper into the air and slid the door shut. Chiho picked it up. It was a very simple affair—a few lines of word-processor text with a digital-camera photo pasted in. 
“Since when did you guys have a camera and a printer?” Emi asked, shooting a glare at Maou. 
“Oh, uh, they were both supercheap,” Urushihara’s voice said. “I figured we should keep Alas Ramus’s pics around in as many formats as possible.” 
“I hope you got this old crap supercheap,” Maou countered, “or else you got totally ripped off.” 
Emi, for her part, was more concerned about why, if Devil’s Castle had this much discretionary income floating around, they weren’t willing to purchase so much as a futon for Alas Ramus during her stays here. She didn’t get a chance to verbalize it. 
“Umm…” 
Chiho apologetically turned to Maou. 
“What’s this ‘Silverfish’ thing here?” 
Maou took a look at the poster Chiho handed to her. Next to the photo was the line “NAME: Silverfish” in large print. 
“Ah,” Ashiya boasted, “Urushihara and I thought that up earlier.” 
“…Uh, could you think a little harder? This is a cat, man.” 
“Well, there is no saying how much longer we may have this kitten,” the completely serious Ashiya continued. “We have to be careful handling it, lest the landlord or the management company find out. Call it more of a code name than an actual one.” 
“Hell of a name,” Emi interjected. Considering they were counting on the general public to help with this, the idea of referring to the cat in code words seemed a little noncontributive. But even Maou was starting to have qualms about throwing the word cat around the apartment all the time. 
“Well, Silverfish or not,” he said, “does this look all right to you? We could add another photo or two, put up my phone number, and write ‘kitten for adoption’ or something on the top…” 
The poster itself, while clearly banged up in a few minutes on a home PC, was more than ample for the purpose. Emi disliked the idea of Urushihara taking the initiative here, but there was no point asking for much more. But: 
“Where would you put it, though?” 
Everyone had a general idea of likely locations. Everyone except Chiho, whose eyes darted between Maou and the poster. 
“Where? How ’bout just, like, a telephone pole or something?” 
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Emi added, failing to see what Chiho’s problem was. “That’s where you see lost-pet posters and stuff, don’t you?” 
“Ooh, that’s actually not too good of an idea,” Chiho diplomatically explained. “For one thing—and I know this is kind of overstating it—but stapling a poster or something on a pole like that is damaging public property. The city of Tokyo’s got all kinds of regulations about using telephone poles like that, and I heard the public safety board’s kind of serious about enforcement these days…” 
“Damaging public property? It’s just a pet adoption poster.” 
Everyone else in the room couldn’t hide their surprise. 
“Well, sure, if it’s just a poster like this, a policeman would probably just tear it down. Maybe give you a verbal warning, at worst. But the way my dad put it, that’s not the issue so much as the kinds of trouble you run into if you print your phone number on it.” 
“Oh…that sort of thing?” 
Harmless prank calls were one thing, as Chiho put it, but there had apparently been cases of stalker activity, people posing as the pet’s owner to extort the other party, even home invaders who called the number first to ensure no one was home. 
“You’re the only one with a phone number you can post up, right, Maou? I probably wouldn’t do that if I were you. Those creepy door-to-door salesmen might still have their eye on you, for all we know.” 
“Pardon?” Ashiya asked. “There were some salesmen?” 
“…Uh, right! Gotcha! Loud and clear, Chiho! No posters on telephone poles! I sure ain’t falling for that trick!” 

It hadn’t been that long ago—not long after Suzuno arrived—that Urushihara fell victim to just such a pushy salesman at their home. The resulting chaos almost ruined the Devil’s Castle finances. They had solved the issue without Ashiya becoming aware of it, and Maou wanted to make damn sure it stayed that way. 
“Sorry for raining on your parade after you made this and all, though… You too, Urushihara.” 
“Ah, it’s fine,” Maou replied as he folded up the poster and tossed it in the trash bin. “Besides, Chi, you’re right. It’s my associate here’s fault for wanting to post my number all over the place.” 
“Aw, dude, I got all these pet forums open and stuff, too… Agh!” 
Maou kicked the closet door before Urushihara could continue. 
“Yeah,” Emi said, “I guess this isn’t like the kind of countryside I grew up in. It’s been nothing but good people around me ever since I showed up here, so I kinda forgot about that. There’s no telling who you’ll run into, really.” 
“Emilia?” 
Suzuno gave her a surprised look. 
“Hmm? What?” 
“…No. It is nothing.” 
The Hero’s reply came so naturally that Suzuno was unable to pursue it further. 
“So,” Emi continued as she lifted up the feline-enthralled Alas Ramus, “I guess we’ll have to keep pounding the pavement, huh?” 
“Ah! More Meow Meow!” 
“You’re going home?” 
“I got work tomorrow. I’ll keep asking around the office, but don’t expect any miracles.” 
“Sure. Um, thanks.” 
“Well, see you later, Chiho.” 
“Bye-bye, Meow Meow! Bye-bye!” 
“Have a good one, Emi!” 
“…Also, Devil King?” 
“What?” 
Emi glanced at the cat, then Maou. “You know,” she said softly, “it’s gonna be awful hard to give him up once you feed him for a couple days. You’ve already given him a name and everything. Don’t come crying to me if it winds up becoming a big tearful good-bye tomorrow.” 
“…Huh?” 
“Anyway, see you.” 
Emi took Alas Ramus and went out the door. 
“What was that about?” Maou asked, scratching his neck. Chiho gave him a worried look. Maybe something about it had hit home with her, too. 
What it was, although Maou had no way of knowing it, was this: Without any kitten to take care of, and without Maou aware of the fact that Alas Ramus had fused with Emi, what would there be left to keep him here on Earth? 
“Try not to get too depressed if someone shows up to adopt him, okay, Maou?” 
“Geez, you too, Chi?” 
“Mew.” 
The kitten chose the perfect time to get a word in edgewise. 
“Wish someone would clue me in on what you’re talking about. Huh, Silverfish?” 
Silverfish didn’t answer. 
 
Three days passed. They tried everything. Emi and Chiho called upon everyone they could think of, but both of them reported no particular leads. 
“I asked around the neighborhood, too,” Maou lamented. “Now what?” He had gone so far as to call upon Hirose, proprietor at the bike shop where he purchased his beloved Dullahan II fixie, as well as Mr. Watanabe, the elderly local who stopped by MgRonald more days than not for a little something or other. The results were always the same. 
If this kept up, they might really have to keep Silverfish hidden from the landlord for God knew how long. 
“Mewww…” 
Something about Silverfish’s meowing sounded despondent to them. Maou took a look inside the box. Maybe, he found himself thinking, I should’ve just taken him back where I found him. Like Ashiya told me to. 
One of his roommates was allergic, after all—though he had no way of knowing that beforehand—and he wasn’t allowed to keep pets in here anyway. 
Given Silverfish’s unusual coloring, Maou had figured anyone actually capable of keeping cats would’ve taken him home in a heartbeat. 
Then again, though, it was really cold that night. He had found him in the wee hours, with few people around, meowing weakly. To Maou’s eyes, he sounded ready to die at any moment. Even he knew it was downright weird of him to be concerned about the fate of a single abandoned kitten, given his post as Lord of All Demons and everything. If it were Ashiya or Urushihara there by that grease bin, they wouldn’t have given him a second glance. And Maou wouldn’t have blamed them. 
Still: 
“Guess I’m getting soft… Thinking I oughta come up to you just because of that.” 
He couldn’t help but see a bit of himself in Silverfish. His younger self, clad in rags, thrown to the ground, simply waiting for death to come along. 
“Your Demonic Highness? Did you say something?” 
Ashiya, fresh from making some warm milk for Silverfish over in Suzuno’s room, chose that moment to come back. Maou shook his head. 
The Great Demon General was used to the milk process by this point. He picked up Silverfish by the scruff. He responded by naturally opening his mouth. 
“It is your meal time, Silverfish,” Ashiya said as he brought the feeding syringe to his mouth. But… 
“…Silverfish?” 
“What? What is it?” 
Ashiya sounded annoyed about something. “It doesn’t seem to want to drink, my liege… Come on, Silverfish, do you want it to get—” 
“Whoa! Ashiya!” Maou, noticing their pet was not his normal self, grabbed Ashiya by the shoulder. “Ain’t he shivering?” 
“You…you are right. Best to return it to the box, then.” 
He did. Silverfish responded by taking two or three unsteady steps, then cowering to the ground, bereft of strength. 
“Meww…” 
“Silverfish!” 
“Geh,” Maou groaned. 
Still in his crouched position, Silverfish then relieved himself. It was watery, nothing like the solid performance from yesterday. 
“That…that’s not good, is it, Ashiya?!” 
“Diarrhea, perhaps? I am fairly sure I gave the milk to him at a suitably warm temperature…” 
“…Raoww.” 
“Gahh!!” 
Now both of them were in a panic. Silverfish had just spat a glob of something or other out of his mouth. 
“Wh-wh-what the hell? He threw up?!” 
“I, I swear to you that I did not give it anything inappropriate, my liege!” 
The diarrhea was one thing. Now he was throwing up…something. 
“Wha-what should we do?! Was I too late or something?! Did he, like, get the flu on the night I found him?!” 
Neither Maou nor Ashiya, seeing Silverfish in this sorry state, had any idea what to do. 
“Ahhhh-choo!!” 
“Aghh!!” 
The sudden sneeze from the closet sent both of them flying into the air. The closet door was a crack open. 
“U-Urushihara?!” 
“Stop scaring us like that!” 
“Ngh, duuude,” came the stuffed-up reply as he ran another printout through the slit of the door. “Don’t juzt go into a banig or nuffin’. Call a bro.” 
“A bro?” 
“A p-p-pro,” Urushihara clarified as he flung the paper out and slammed the door shut. Maou picked it up. 
“…The Aurora Animal Clinic?” 
It was a map to the nearest veterinarian. 
 
“Okay, we’ll give your kitty a quick examination, so sit tight, okay?” 
Maou gave Silverfish’s box to the nurse at the front desk and sat on the waiting room bench, fatigue written deeply around his eyes. He had never been anywhere near a vet’s office before, but looking at Urushihara’s map, there were actually quite a few of them right near Devil’s Castle. He called one of them, explained the symptoms, and they agreed to see him immediately. With extreme care, Maou fastened Silverfish’s box to Dullahan II and pedaled off to the Aurora Animal Clinic. 
From what he could see in the waiting room, the clinic dealt in all kinds of animals. Cats, of course, but also dogs, birds, even a chameleon, of all things. The room was done up in warm pastel colors, which made it feel different from a hospital, and pet magazines lined the shelves for visitors. 
Maou picked one about cats at random, but he couldn’t get himself to focus on any of the articles. He took a look toward the examination room door, but nothing was visible from the waiting room. Instead, he spotted a bulletin board with reminders about rabies shots, notices about new medications, and advertisements for the latest and greatest in pet products. It was a world unlike any Maou had interacted with before. 
But what struck his interest the most was a photo of a certain dog. 
“‘Forever Homes Found’…?” 
It was a little celebratory piece about all the homes a recent litter of puppies was adopted by. The photo showed a large-breed dog nursing several puppies, a little stick-it note with “ADOPTED!” on it by the head of each one. Maou studied it intently. 
“Mr. Maou? We’re all ready!” said a short, well-fed man in glasses as he leaned out from the exam room. Maou looked up and tore through the door. 
“Silverfish! …Huh?” 
There he saw his cat on an examination table, the perfect picture of health, munching on some pet food. 
“Huhhh?” 
“Yep. I’d say he’s perfectly fine.” 
It hadn’t been twenty minutes since he was taken into the room, but Silverfish was now fully walking and eating by himself. 
The man, wearing a name plate that read YOSHIMURA: VETERINARIAN on it, waved at Maou. “You can have a seat if you like. I’d still say you made the right move bringing him here, though.” 
“Oh…?” 
“Not to get too nosy,” Dr. Yoshimura said as he looked at the cat’s medical chart in his hand, “but this cat, umm…” 
“Silverfish.” 
“Silll-verfish. Um, were you raising this cat in your own home, Mr. Maou?” 
“Hmm?” 
“Did you get him from someone, or did you find him out on the street, maybe?” 
Maou’s eyebrows arched upward at Dr. Yoshimura’s clairvoyance. 
“H-how did you know?” 
Instead of answering the question, the vet scrutinized Silverfish’s chart. “I think you said on the phone that you were giving him kitten formula…but was there anything else? Like, some of the flakey kitten food he’s eating right now?” 
“No… He still looked pretty small, so.” 
“Ah, that’s probably why he wasn’t feeling too well. It looks to me like Silverfish is old enough that he’ll need to start eating solid food. That happens at around the two-month mark, usually. Most adopters would know that, but since you didn’t, I thought maybe this was a street rescue of some sort…” 
Huh, Maou thought. It’s that obvious to pet owners? 
“He probably got sick because the milk wasn’t giving him all the nutrients he needed,” Dr. Yoshimura continued. “To put it another way, his diet was so watery that it upset his stomach and gave him that diarrhea.” 
“Oh…I see,” Maou said as he stared blankly at Silverfish’s ongoing feast. 
“That silver coat of his is pretty uncommon, but judging by those green eyes, it’s likely Silverfish is a Russian Blue. Cats in this breed are usually pretty wary of people until they get used to them. He was probably with his mother up to now, but if he got abandoned after that, I’d imagine he’s still finding his new environment a little stressful as well.” 
“Cats can get stressed out…?” Maou had trouble imagining it, but Dr. Yoshimura didn’t look like he was joking. 
“Oh, it’s more likely than you think! Stress can cause stomach ulcers in people, too. Besides, for an immature animal that’s gone through a lot of environment changes and maybe without food for a while, it can happen pretty quickly.” 
Silverfish edged away from the dish, apparently satiated, and began grooming himself. 
“By the way, the mass he threw up was a hairball. It’s made up of the hair he swallowed while grooming himself like that.” 
“A hairball?!” 
“Yes. Adults usually spit up two or three hairballs a week, on the average. It’s totally normal for a cat to do.” 
“…” 
Maou was starting to keenly realize exactly how little he knew about the cats of planet Earth. Silverfish, for his part, was starting to wonder what lay beyond the examination table, so Yoshimura used his practiced hands to place him back in the box Maou provided, keeping them on the lid to keep the suddenly healthy cat from bounding out the top. 
“…I never realized he was so healthy,” the dejected Maou said. “I think he got a little better once I brought him home, but he never jumped around like that.” 
“Oh? Was he that weak?” 
Prodded by Dr. Yoshimura, Maou went ahead and summarized the events of the past few days to him, as they related to Silverfish. 
“I guess this was kind of irresponsible of me, wasn’t it?” 
The vet gave Maou a puzzled look. 
“I mean, picking him up even though I was in no shape to care for him. And then he was like that, you know? I’d be pretty hopeless if I wound up making him starve to death…” 
Ever since he first planted his flag in the ground in the demon realms, Maou always held the philosophy that anyone who joined his force would be fairly treated and generously taken care of. But, without his demonic force, he couldn’t even take care of a domesticated animal off the street correctly. He hadn’t felt this powerless in at least a century or so. 
“Mr. Maou,” Dr. Yoshimura replied as he watched Silverfish paw at the walls and chew on the towel inside the box, “you haven’t done anything irresponsible at all. I mean, maybe your landlord won’t be too impressed…but you’re feeding him, you’re trying to find a home for him, and you brought him here when you realized something was wrong. If you hadn’t picked him up, he might’ve died before you could even name him, much less have me look at him. You don’t have a single thing to regret, I don’t think. If anyone’s acting irresponsible here, it’s definitely the person who abandoned Silverfish in the first place.” 
Receiving this mental encouragement from a human veterinarian made Maou feel even more hopeless than before. “Yeah,” he protested, “but I still haven’t found anyone to take him in…” 
There was no way he could dump Silverfish on the road now. But after tapping all the (rather meager) social resources he had, nobody stepped up. 
Dr. Yoshimura thought for a minute. “Mr. Maou,” he began, “did you notice the bulletin board in the waiting room?” 
“Oh, about the rabies shots and stuff? …Oh!” 
Along with all those medical notices, he recalled, there was a piece celebrating that recent puppy adoption blitz. 
“I can’t guarantee we’d find anyone immediately, but would you like to maybe put up a notice on that board? I think Silverfish’s got a lot of attractive features, and you don’t see a silver cat this pretty too often at all. I’m willing to bet one of our regular visitors would love to take a look at him. You’ll have to keep him in your home for a little while longer—we don’t have a boarding service here, I’m afraid—but I can promise you that we’ll refer any qualified candidates over to you.” 
“Mewww!!” 
Silverfish accepted the unexpected offer before Maou could even nod. 
“Hmm,” Ashiya mused as he looked through his paperwork. “So this is no longer considered a child?” 
It took something of a dedicated effort to get Silverfish home safe without him clawing the box to shreds in the process. 
“They’re fully grown after a year, is what he told me. I thought I was gonna need a new box on the way home!” 
Even as they spoke, Silverfish was playfully bounding across the tatami mats that lined their room. It was doubtful a cardboard box could do much to confine him any longer. 
“All right. So…” 
Ashiya warily eyed the other merchandise Maou brought home with Silverfish. 
“He said I’d need this stuff as a bare minimum.” 
Lined up next to Silverfish’s box was a package of milk additive for cats, the solid flake-style weaning food the Aurora Animal Clinic recommended to him, a dish to place it in, some kitty litter, a beginner’s handbook to raising kittens, and so on. 
“It didn’t cost as much as it looks,” Maou explained. “Even with the admission fee, it was only around seven thousand yen.” 
Ashiya’s face tightened at the lofty figure, but: 
“Meww! Mewww!” 
His eyes met Silverfish’s round, beady ones as he sidled up to him, padding elegantly across the room, then stopping occasionally to look up at the ceiling. 
“Well,” he observed, “perhaps it is all for the best.” 
“Pssht! …Meww.” 
“Heh, um, ummm, so, how much of this weaning food should I give him per meal…?” Ashiya asked. 
It was the sensation of Silverfish’s fur against his leg that caused Ashiya to make that sequence of odd noises near the beginning of his question. He walked carefully to avoid stepping on him, but Silverfish remained constantly at his feet, refusing to retreat. The sight forced Maou to crack a smile, but then he went to his shopping bag again, remembering something. 
“Also, I went to the pharmacy and brought a pretty good-looking allergy mask. Make do with this for a little while, Urushihara.” 
“Come onnnnn, dude!!” 
“Meww! Meww! Meww!” 
The fallen angel’s complaint from the closet was half screamed. Silverfish left Ashiya’s feet and meowed at the door, as if teasing him. 
“It is utter chaos in there,” Suzuno remarked over in the other room—but if anything, her voice betrayed her relief that Silverfish was fine after all. 
More time passed. 
Silverfish, now fully used to the Devil’s Castle cast of characters, had regained his kitten-like playfulness, distracting the demons from their world-domination plans on a regular basis. Still, this was the Devil King and the best of his four top generals. They never deviated from Silverfish’s prescribed feeding plan, and they took steps to keep him from bashing into furniture during particularly heated play sessions. It was to the point that they could instinctively sense his potty breaks before he took them on the litter. 
Ever resourceful, the demons even took pains to replace the threadbare towels they placed in Silverfish’s box for extra comfort. The feline milk they purchased for emergency purposes was just about to run out. The jingly cat toy Maou bought at the hundred-yen shop was already a favorite of its target, to the point that Silverfish would thrash around on it without Maou having to wave it around for him. 
“…You seriously think you’ll be fine if an adopter shows up?” 
“Do not bother asking me.” 
“Aw, he’s so cute!” 
Emi, Suzuno, and Chiho could only watch as the two grown demons messed around with the silvery ball of fur. 
“Ahh-choo!!” 
Urushihara also provided his own commentary. 
A few more days passed. It was now nearly two weeks since Silverfish had entered their lives. 
“…!” 
Maou’s phone received a call from the Aurora Animal Clinic. It was right in the middle of his now customary evening kitty playtime, and it almost made him break out in a cold sweat. 
“Hi, Mr. Maou! This is Dr. Yoshimura. We had someone in here today who’s interested in adopting Silverfish.” 
“Oh…really?” 
“Mewww? Meww! Meww!” 
Silverfish, miffed at the sudden lack of play, started climbing up Maou to get his attention. Maou tried to shake him off as he kept up the phone conversation before he ripped up his shirt. Ashiya, looking on, was already feeling a wistful sense of passing in his brain. Urushihara held his breath…and sneezed. 
“…” 
By the time phone conversation ended, Silverfish was on Maou’s shoulder, forgetting his initial objective and trying frantically to scale his master to the very top. 
“We got an adopter.” 
“…So we do, my liege.” 
“The vet told me it’s a good one. He’s got a lot of experience with cats and stuff, and he said his last one lived a lot longer than average.” 
“…Well, what more could we ask for?” 
It was cause for celebration, but both Maou’s and Ashiya’s voices were gloomy and restrained. 
“It sounds like we can take him in tomorrow. We’re free to say no, of course, but…” 
“…I doubt we have any right to, my liege. The cat, sadly, has no right to be here.” 
The whole reason for the adopter search was because Silverfish couldn’t spend his life in this room. Now he had the ideal owner. They had no reason to refuse. 
Maou picked up Silverfish, who had just completed his epic journey to the top of his head, and brought him close to his face. 
“Great news, huh, Silverfish? You’ve got a new master.” 
Looking down at his oddly sullen temporary master, the young Silverfish opened his mouth wide, as if to yawn. 
“Roww…pfft.” 
“…Could you cough up a hairball some other time, please?” 
This was nowhere near as emotional a moment for Silverfish, as evidenced by the current frenzied flailing of all his legs. 
“We better let Emi and Chi know, too. They helped us out a lot with him. Tell ’em they don’t have to worry about us eating him from now on, huh?” 
By now, of course, it was far too late to go back. Maou and Ashiya both had developed a special, unique affinity for the kitten. 
“Meow Meow go to the doctor?” 
Alas Ramus looked up from the child seat installed on Dullahan II. 
“Yeah,” Maou nodded as he pushed the bike with him. “We’re gonna go meet his new owner.” 
Inside the box fastened to the front was Silverfish. It had been his first time out in a while, and that had put a dent on his usual frenzied playfulness. 
Emi, for whatever reason, had decided to show up with Alas Ramus after he gave her the news. She asked how far the vet’s office was, and after confirming it wasn’t a long distance, took the almost unheard-of step of letting Maou take the child over there. “She won’t have a chance like this again, after all,” she rationalized. 
“Have you caught the kitty flu or something?” said Maou, a bit stunned by the non-Emi-like offer. 
“Well, I got to talking with Rika about it,” Emi replied with the casual, low-tension manner she had exhibited a lot of lately. “She said that when you give an animal up and you’re alone, it feels totally awful on the way back. Hey, why don’t you go out to eat somewhere with her, too? It’s still hot, though, so make sure she doesn’t get dehydrated.” 
“…You’re creeping me out even more now.” 
Not only did Emi figure out how broken up he was over Silverfish’s departure, she was virtually giving him a consolation gift. 
“Oh,” she chided, “so you’d prefer if one of us watched you bawl your eyes out after you give the cat up?” 
Maou had little answer to that. 
“If you wanna go by yourself, then fine,” she continued. “Did you hear that, Alas Ramus? Daddy doesn’t want to be seen with you in public anymore. What do you think about—” 
“All right! I’ll take her!!” 
Brushing off the ever-malicious Emi, Maou pedaled off to the Aurora Animal Clinic, Ashiya, Suzuno, and Chiho seeing him off with eyes full of regret. 
Alas Ramus swung her arms in the air as she walked, singing a bizarre melody of “Meow meow, meow meowwww” in no particular key. Maou smiled at her and walked on, trying to keep the box steady as he slowly walked to the clinic, savoring the moment. 
He parked his bike by the building’s wall, removed Alas Ramus from her seat, then—with a word of warning to keep calm—unfastened the rope keeping Silverfish’s box in place. Alas Ramus toddled along beside him, holding both hands against her face for some reason. 
“Why’re you covering your mouth, Alas Ramus?” a curious Maou asked. 
“I’m a good girl. Ssshh!” 

 

In her mind, being a good girl apparently meant shutting up. Maou smiled at the effort, although her interpretation of those rules were still a tad childish. It made him feel at least a bit relieved as he opened the door to the clinic. 
“Oh, hello there, Mr.… Oh, is that your child, Mr. Maou?” 
Yoshimura the vet was already in the waiting room, eyes wide and round upon noticing Alas Ramus. 
“Yeah, she’s my daughter, pretty much.” 
“Oh, really?” 
“Woof woof!” 
Alas Ramus’s “sssh” dissipated rapidly at the sight of a large ceramic dog perched by the waiting room entrance. 
“Whoa, Alas Ramus! We’re in ‘shhh’ mode, remember?” 
“Shhh? Woof Woof shhh, too!” 
The ceramic retriever was too busy holding an OPEN sign in its mouth to respond. Alas Ramus placed a finger over her mouth at it anyway. 
“So who’s going to adopt Silverfish?” Maou asked. 
“Oh, let me introduce you. Right this way…” Dr. Yoshimura pointed at someone sitting on the bench. He stood up and made Maou’s heart skip a beat. 
“Whoa! Mr. Hirose?!” 
“Oh,” exclaimed the surprised Yoshimura, “do you two know each other?” 
It was Mr. Hirose, all right—proprietor of the bicycle shop Maou frequented. He had already turned down Maou’s kitten offer once, making his presence all the more of a surprise for him. 
“Hey, uh, sorry I disappointed you last time, Maou!” Hirose grinned nervously. “Didja hear from Dr. Yoshimura that I used to have a cat at home?” 
“Yeah, and…uh, it lived for a really long time?” 
“Uh-huh! Pretty much! Used to, anyway. She passed away two years ago.” 
“I’m sure Luna lived a very happy life with you, Mr. Hirose,” Yoshimura gently added. 
“Oh, her name was Luna?” 
“Ehh, more or less,” the ever-workmanlike Hirose confessed. “I had her since back before I got married, so she was actually older than my first kid. The whole family pretty much lost it when she died, I tell you. So I turned you down at first ’cause I didn’t think we had it in us to keep a cat besides Luna, but… Hey, you mind if I open the box?” 
His hand made for the lid once Maou nodded his approval. 
“Meww?” 
Silverfish, as if waiting for his cue, meowed with gusto. 
“Y’know, I didn’t realize it until I saw the pics, but this guy looks exactly like Luna did. She was a Russian Blue, too, and you wouldn’t believe how bright and silvery her hair was. I don’t think she was purebred or nothin’, but still, she was a sight to see, y’know? It’s almost the anniversary of Luna’s death, so I figured I’d call on Dr. Yoshimura and see how things are going, but then I saw your poster, and it felt kinda like…I dunno, destiny or something. What’s his name, anyway?” 
“Silverfish.” 
“Silver…?” 
The initial confusion quickly gave way to a broad smile. 
“Well, you mind if I take him? It’s not like I’m aimin’ to replace Luna or whatever—I just figure it’s about time we add a little one to our family again. I dunno what the kids’ll think of ‘Sil-verfish,’ but I’ll try to get ’em on my side.” 
“Ah, you can call him whatever you want, sir. Just take good care of him for me, okay?” Maou replied, smiling as he handed Hirose the box. 
“Oh, can I go and visit him now and then?” 
“Well, of course!” 
“Meww.” 
Silverfish had no objections. 
 
“Oh, he’s right here in the neighborhood?” 
“Yep! I totally know the guy, too.” 
“Woof Woof! Woof Wooooof!” 
Alas Ramus was carrying a small ceramic dog in her hand. 
Emi frowned at Maou, figuring he was spoiling her yet again. “Well, that’s too bad,” she observed. “I was hoping you’d come back here as brutally depressed as you were when Alas Ramus went away.” 
“…Thanks a lot.” 
Maou was more than a bit offput. It sounded like Emi was both razzing him and expressing concern for him at the same time. 
“So it was Mr. Hirose? The same Hirose who runs the bike store where all the shops are?” 
Chiho had just as clear a grasp of the local geography as Maou had. 
“Well, that’s great!” she continued. “That’s right nearby here! Now you and Silverfish don’t have to be lonely at all!” 
Somehow, the lack of ulterior motive behind Chiho’s encouragement made it feel all the more embarrassing for Maou. “Ahh, it’s nothing like that,” he countered. “I gotta get all this cat stuff over to Mr. Hirose later on anyway, so it’s not like we had some kinda tearful good-bye.” 
Since they had no more use for the remaining cat paraphernalia laid around Devil’s Castle, Maou agreed to give it to Hirose later. They figured having a few familiar toys and such on hand would make the transition easier for Silverfish. The entire kit fit into a pretty small bag by this point. It was only when he put the dangly cat toy inside, fresh bite marks still adorning it, that Maou felt a twinge of heartbreak. 
“Y’know, Emi…?” 
“What?” 
“…Thanks a lot for bringing Alas Ramus over.” 
“…” 
Emi was about to say See? You’re totally depressed after all, but quickly lost the chance when Maou averted his eyes. 
“…It is hard to explain, my liege. It feels like the energy has been sucked out of the room somehow.” 
That night, Ashiya sighed for what must have been the eight hundredth time. 
If anything, Ashiya was experiencing more separation anxiety than his boss. He had shared Silverfish feeding duties with Maou. It would take a while to shake the habit of looking at the clock, then the box in the corner. 
Maou, for his part, had made playing with Silverfish a must after every work shift for the past few days. Now he was lying on the tatami mats, nothing to while away the time with. 
Urushihara, meanwhile… 
“…” 
…still hadn’t left the closet. 
“Look, can you just come out of there already? Silverfish is gone, man. It’s gotta be like a sauna in there.” 
“…” 
Maou’s pleading made the door open just a sliver. Half of Urushihara’s face was visible through it. 
“Geez, you don’t have to act like a ghost…” 
“…Uh, not yet.” He shut the door before Maou could respond. “Ashiya, could you please vacuum this place for me? Tomorrow’s fine.” 
“Why are you ordering me to vacuum?” Ashiya sourly replied. 
“’Cause it’s still there, dude. Silverfish’s dander ’n’ smell ’n’ stuff. It’s still making my nose feel all itchy! Please, could you just do it first thing in the…heh…hahhh…” 
Urushihara’s breathing accelerated in volume for a moment before the big reveal came. 
“Hahhhh-choooo!!” 
“Someone’s sure got it rough,” Maou remarked. Unlike with Urushihara, there wasn’t a trace of Silverfish left on his body. 
“Funny to think there used to be a cat in here, huh?” he added. 
“Indeed…but, Your Demonic Highness, you are acting like Silverfish has passed away. Let us pray that he enjoys a long and fulfilling life in Mr. Hirose’s residence.” 
“…Yeah.” Maou nodded. 
“Dude, I’d appreciate it if my sneezing didn’t get you all nostalgic for… Behh-choo!” 
The sneeze made the closet walls shudder, further distressing Suzuno next door. 
“Pray for a long and fulfilling life, huh…?” 
“My liege?” 
“…That might not be such a dumb idea after all.” 
“Hmm?” 
“…Never mind. I’m going to bed. Yo, Urushihara! I’m opening the closet to get a blanket!” 
“Whoa! Wait, I don’t have the mask on… Dude, I told you to wait! Hahh…choo!” 
While disgusted at the goings-on in Devil’s Castle, Suzuno shared one thing in common with the demons: Prayer might be just the thing right now. 
“…The Devil King, rescuing a small animal’s life…” 
The god she was praying to wasn’t in the skies above Earth, but she scoped out the stars above her regardless. 
“If that virtue can establish even the tiniest of footholds in the Devil King’s mind, who can say what will build from there…?” 
The summer night rolled on, bringing the heat and the bustle of the city with it—not caring about the thoughts of anyone human or demon below it.