THE DEVIL HAS AN ENCOUNTER
Chofu Station was one of the main nerve centers of the Keio rail line, one where every type of train—from express to local—always made a stop. Keio trains going westward from Tokyo ended their journey either at Hachiouji and Mount Takao, or Hashimoto Station in the Kanagawa Prefecture city of Sagamihara—and Chofu was the point where they split toward one direction or the other. The front of the station housed a large bus terminal, offering connections between all of the local rail lines run by Keio, JR, and Odakyu.
It was still short-sleeves weather, but an advancing cold front in the afternoon meant there was a 60 percent chance of rain called for on this weekday.
Maou was there, departing the station through its northern exit.
“Umm… I think my stop’s a little farther ahead…”
He searched for a certain bus stop—one he was at just the other day—only to find a line already forming at the spot he needed to wait at. The sign at the end read KEIO BUS: FOR TEST SITE FRONT GATE AND JR MUSASHI-KOGANEI STATION. He was just about to take a study guide out from his tote bag for some final brushing-up before the bus arrived, when:
“Mommy!”
Maou blinked, then instantly whirled around toward the voice. There, he saw a young girl, hands extended out to grab the attention of her mother, who was studying a station map.
“…”
Maou didn’t know them at all, but he still spent a moment staring at the pair. The mother traced a finger along the map a few times, then picked up her daughter. “All right, I’m sorry,” she said. “Doing okay? Not too hot?” He could hear her continuing to speak as they quickly disappeared.
It was crowded around Chofu Station, but the vision of the mother and child remained on Maou’s mind as he sighed and took his hand out of the tote bag. He knew there was no point to studying. He had already memorized every sample question in the Conquering the Motor Scooter Exam guidebook he’d purchased.
“Well, try number two, I guess…”
Maou shrugged as he grumbled to himself. He was headed for the Fuchu License Examination Center. Within the city of Tokyo, potential two-wheel drivers had their choice of three test sites, located in the Fuchu, Samezu, and Koto neighborhoods respectively. Today marked Maou’s second visit to Fuchu this month.
“…Dammit, Emi,” he whined.
As if on cue, the bus chose that moment to arrive. The line—either commuters or test takers like Maou, it seemed—filed into the vehicle and took their seats here and there, Maou being lucky enough to grab a free one near the door. He found himself reading through the exam-prep textbook again, despite himself. He couldn’t afford to make another mistake. Not after he’d blown it last time.
A few days back, he had taken off one of his shifts, paid the city 300 yen for a certificate of residence, paid the local pharmacy 700 yen for the first ID photos he had shot since applying to MgRonald, paid Keio 170 yen for the one-way train ticket and a further 220 yen for the bus fare, and then capped it all off by failing the written exam.
When he realized his number wasn’t on the electronic board showing the test results, he was gripped by a shock he hadn’t felt since the news arrived that the Hero’s group had laid waste to Lucifer’s army on the Western Island. A shock perhaps more powerful than that, even. He thought he’d had every question perfect. He had studied to the point where he could rattle off the exact wording of every law related to two-wheeled vehicles. He couldn’t figure out where he went wrong.
Then he made the most pathetic little noise of his life.
“…Auh.”
His superior memory skills, backed by his natural talent, effort, and demonic strength, reminded him of the cold truth.
“I put my answers in the wrong columns, didn’t I…?”
The test was a basic true-false affair, with a couple of columns to the left of each question for marking in your answer. And while marking all your answers off by one column in a true-false exam would still earn you some correct answers, a passing grade in this one involved getting forty-five out of fifty questions right. There was simply no chance.
Thus, Maou’s first attempt at scoring a driver’s license was met with utter defeat. MgRonald added the costs of earning the license to your paycheck after you sent a request with a copy of the license—but, as was likely proper anyway, they only covered one exam. The abject sadness on Ashiya’s face when Maou told him he’d have to pay 5,700 yen out of pocket instead of having the company cover it reminded him of the heartbreak when the Demon General advised him to abandon the Eastern Island following the humans’ counterattack.
“…It’s all that idiot Emi’s fault,” he muttered just as the bus’s engines sprang into action, sending it softly forward after the driver issued one final “Everyone hang on, please” into the microphone.
“Why,” he continued to himself, “does she have to get in my way all the time…?”
The past half month could be described in two simple words: Couldn’t focus. Neither Maou, nor Ashiya, nor Chiho, nor Suzuno, nor anyone else. Urushihara, he couldn’t tell.
Emi had departed for Ente Isla two weeks ago, on that Monday. Maou had work, Chiho had school, and Ashiya and Urushihara had no particular motivation to see Emi off. Suzuno said she was there, and around midafternoon she sent a simple text over to report that she was safely on her way.
Where she was headed was nowhere near Earth. And, of course, Emi had no obligation or reason to keep Maou and his demon cohorts abreast of her activities. Maou didn’t bother doing anything on his end, figuring that Chiho or Suzuno were probably keeping tabs. He was too busy worrying about the upcoming driver’s exam to pay too much attention to the people around him.
Things were peaceful. Mitsuki Sarue, manager of the Sentucky Fried Chicken across the street, was firmly devoted to his work. He was still eternally in love with Kisaki, manager at the MgRonald, and thanks to helping Chiho with her magical training, he was now able to interact with her on a regular basis again. A great leap forward—in his mind, at least—and he had been much friendlier with Maou and Chiho as of late.
Not having Emi griping at him all hours of the day was also doing wonders for Maou’s work (and study) ethic. The sense of release was even affecting Ashiya’s tight grip on their purse strings, to the point where there was always an additional item on the menu for dinner each night, and he didn’t yell at Urushihara for ordering random crap from the Internet again.
Chiho was worried about Emi, of course. But, thinking logically about it, she was the strongest human being in the universe. It was clear that she’d be back soon and that it was useless dwelling on the subject, so Maou didn’t bother trying.
Things had started to change on Saturday that week.
“Has Emilia returned, Devil King?”
That was the question Suzuno had for Maou at the door to his apartment, asked before he departed for work.
“Uh? What’re you talking about?”
“Oh, I just…wanted to see if she was back,” she repeated before falling silent.
“I dunno,” Maou said, a bit annoyed at being asked this. “She isn’t?”
There would be no reason for Emi to notify him about her return. If Suzuno or Chiho didn’t know, there was no way he’d know, either. He tried to explain this to Suzuno.
“Oh,” she replied, her face a little troubled. “I see. I apologize for occupying your time.”
“Mm?”
Maou and Ashiya exchanged confused glances with each other, while Urushihara was too passed out in front of the computer desk to respond. Suzuno went out to the hallway, pacing back and forth for a bit before finally summoning up enough resolve…to call Chiho.
“…Chiho? I apologize for calling so early,” the demons could hear her say. As the conversation faded in and out of earshot, Maou took a glance at the shift schedule pinned to the refrigerator. It was Saturday, September 11, and if Maou’s memory wasn’t mistaken, Emi should have come home yesterday. The square for the twelfth had “Happy Birthday, Yusa!” written over it in Chiho’s cutesy handwriting.
Suzuno’s voice was no longer audible from outside. Just as he realized that, Maou’s phone started ringing from the corner of the room he had tossed it to. It was from Chiho. She sounded ready to cry at any moment.
There was still no contact the next day. Maou had spent the previous day assuaging Chiho’s worst fears, but even he was starting to think this was weird. Emi’s personality was such that even if she didn’t mind leaving Maou to stew in his own juices, she’d never do anything to make Chiho fret over her. Plus, today was the twelfth, Chiho’s makeup birthday. Emi was a willing participant in that party, even if she didn’t like Maou’s presence there much. No way would she blow off that promise without so much as a “sorry.”
Suzuno was back at Devil’s Castle that afternoon, checking up on Emi’s status. “Emeralda hasn’t contacted you or anything?” Maou asked her.
“I am worried,” she stated in a low voice from the hallway, “precisely because I cannot contact Emeralda, either.”
On the roof of Emi’s apartment building, when the Gate opened up two weeks ago, Suzuno had personally traded phone numbers and e-mail addresses with Emeralda Etuva, the most powerful sorceress on Ente Isla. They couldn’t help but crack a smile about it—a Saint Aile court magician and a Reconciliation Panel cleric, two people who’d normally have zero contact with each other, using alien technology from Japan to do exactly that. Emi had used her own phone to send an Idea Link from Ente Isla indicating she was safe and sound at first arrival, which made her and Emeralda’s current silence all the eerier.
Things on Ente Isla had gotten, if nothing else, much more complicated than back when it was simply mankind versus demondom. It was a huge mess of conflicting motives and power struggles, and it was nothing if not ironic that Emi’s bringing peace back to the land was the trigger for it. For one thing, the world had fallen into a state of war between the Eastern Island and the other four landmasses that made up the planet. A group from the Malebranche tribe had infiltrated the island, hoping to resurrect the Devil King’s Army, and they were being guided by Olba Meiyer, the Hero’s former friend and someone who had once fought hard against demonkind.
That would make things knotty enough, but now the Malebranche were using an embodiment of a Sephirah—one of the core building blocks of the world and something the angels would do anything to recover. Secret maneuvering was taking place up in heaven, and only now was it bubbling to the surface.
Very few people know about all of that, but no matter how things turned out, Ente Isla’s problems were definitely no longer the sort of thing that could be sewed up with a simple war or two.
“I fear relying on the Idea Link to contact Ente Isla too often. The waves of thought might attract the attention of the Church. That is why I hesitate to do anything too hasty.”
The secret mission Suzuno had been tasked with was still technically in effect, even if she was no longer making any progress on it. Here, in Japan, she was taking the initiative to help the Church return to the just and proper organization it used to be, which meant she was now defying orders. Those orders commanded her to cover up Olba’s activities—declaring to the world that the Hero was dead and even allowing the Devil King to do what he pleased. If that wasn’t possible, she was to defeat both Emi and Maou, turning Olba’s lies into a form of the truth.
Considering the two years it took for Emi to travel across the length and breadth of Ente Isla, no one at the Church nerve center expected Suzuno to fulfill her mission in the space of just over three months. But just because she wasn’t the target of suspicion didn’t mean she wanted them to know she was currently plotting against their will. The Malebranche on the Eastern Island, for all she knew, firmly believed that Crestia Bell was now a Great Demon General. Olba was apparently disengaged from the Church, so demon intel wouldn’t fall into Church hands that easily, but either way, Suzuno’s current position was quite a bit more unsteady than Emi’s.
“There is every chance,” she continued, “that people similar to how I used to be might be sent to Japan. People who would not hesitate to cause harm to Japan in order to dispose of the sorry truth behind Church doings.”
“Yeah,” Urushihara added. “Even before we came here, Olba was talkin’ to me about how Emilia being alive was kinda a thorn in the Church’s side, y’know?”
“Bell,” intoned Ashiya, “listening to you speak, it sounds as though you decided to shelve that issue rather quickly after reaching Japan, did you not?”
“Perhaps,” the unaffected Suzuno replied. “I have no defense for what Lord Sariel did…but, if I may be honest, you all bear the brunt of the blame for what happened.”
“What?”
“…Or should I say, it was all your fault, truly.”
“Now, I’m gonna have to object to that, lady…”
Suzuno was starting to get a little too arrogant for Maou’s tastes. She simply shrugged at the jab.
“For me,” she said, “the ideal resolution to all this would have been for Emilia to slay the Devil King in the world he fled to, bringing true peace to Ente Isla and guiding the Church back to something worthy of the faith after it heaped scorn upon the Hero’s good name. But look at our Hero now.” She let out a derisive sniff as she stared Maou down. “She truly believes you incapable of doing anything evil. Not only does she let you live, but she’s even returned to her family home. At this rate, nothing will ever change with my current…situation.”
Maou averted his eyes and clicked his tongue. This was getting awkward for him. Ashiya, for his part, let out a grumbling moan. Neither of them could counter her assessment.
“Things would change, of course, if I were allowed to smash all of you down. Right here, and right now.” Suzuno squinted at Maou as he gritted his teeth. “…But, ah, now is no time for idle talk like that. Our problem right now is Emilia, and right now, there is nothing we can do from here. And if Emilia is incapable of returning home, it might be safer to assume that something’s happened to Emeralda, not Emilia.”
“Emeralda?”
“Indeed. Emilia is incapable of casting Gate magic, and neither can Emeralda, for that matter. Much of it comes down to the angel’s-feather pens they have.”
Maou’s face wrinkled at the mention of the term. Nobody else noticed.
“It is Emeralda who takes care of those pens, so perhaps something has happened to her and Emilia is trying to do something about it… That is what I think, anyway.”
Suzuno’s hesitance was thanks to the fact that even she knew this was just idle speculation. It didn’t take much of an effort from Maou to deflate it.
“Okay, so why isn’t Emi telling you or Chi anything about this? She was chatting with Emeralda via Idea Link this whole time, wasn’t she? It shouldn’t be this hard for her to contact us. What’s with the silence?”
“…If I knew the answer to that, I would not be in such a state right now.” There was more than a twinge of frustration to her voice. “But what kind of trouble could have possibly befallen her? Because I am being quite honest when I say I cannot imagine what could possibly paint Emilia, of all people, into a corner like this. She is the Hero! Someone who flicked the Devil King’s Army and an archangel away like so many flies! If we can no longer make contact with her, the only thing I could imagine is that the entire world was destroyed.”
She was right: By both Earth and Ente Isla standards, there was no one that could be described as her equal. Much of that had to do with her holy force and the angelic blood in her, but even without that, it’d take a lot more than, say, an auto wreck to faze her. Even if she were faced with a foe on the level of the Church’s order of knights, it wouldn’t be close. Even against several of them. Even if they snuck up on her, and then bound and gagged her, too. Her holy force alone meant she could crush them without batting an eye.
“Hey, can I ask you something? Is it really that tough for human beings to conjure up Gates?”
Suzuno raised an eyebrow at Maou’s sudden query. “What?”
“I mean, I know me, Ashiya, and Urushihara all look like this right now, but we all had the innate power to use Gates whenever we wanted. I guess Olba can, too, so I don’t get why it’s so impossible for you and Emi.”
“Is that your way of bragging about your strength?” Suzuno closed her eyes, not appreciating the way Maou phrased it. “I can use Gates, technically speaking. And I suppose Emilia could as well, if she were trained for it. But it consumes such a vast amount of holy force, and it requires an extremely intricate spell to cast. Without that spell, and a suitable amplifier to harness it… Well, even if I could open a Gate, I’d be unable to venture through it, or be very sure of its destination.”
“Oh, so it’s a holy energy issue?”
“Quite. That is why Lord Olba is…extraordinary, in his own way. Summoning a Gate without so much as an amplifier is simply amazing. Even the six Bishops of the Church would hardly be a match for him—I suppose Lord Cervantes would have the best chance, thanks to his youth. Though whether even he has studied any Gate skills, I cannot say. It is not a spell that is called upon all that often.”
“Yeah, I guess not…”
“There are several of us in the Church’s diplomatic and missionary team capable of handling Gates, including myself, but Lord Olba is the only one I know of who can conjure them without an amplifier. And when I say ‘amplifier,’ I am speaking of enormous structures—Sankt Ignoreido, for example, the ‘Stairs of Heaven’ located at the assorted prelate sites on the Western Island. One would need to travel to one of those sites to access them, which is another reason why Gates are only rarely used by us.”
“Huh.”
“Of course, I have my doubts whether even someone like Lord Olba can form a complete Gate and perfectly define its destination through his own strength alone. If his real intention was to eliminate Emilia, after all, why would he send her to a human world with nations as rich as this one? He would not do that deliberately, no.”
It made sense enough to Maou, at least.
“I should also note that opening a Gate is quite a different matter from stabilizing it and going through it. I could probably manage the opening process with no external aids, but no further. I would not be able to guarantee the safety of whoever went through. And were I the one doing the traveling, I would need to keep it stable while I journeyed onward. I have no idea how long that would take, but I would need to continually pump power into the Gate, or else it would destabilize and send me to who knows where.”
“Oh…”
Maou and Ashiya turned and nodded to each other. They had to admit that it made sense. Losing control of their own Gate was the entire reason why they fell into Japan in the first place.
“Okay,” Urushihara suddenly blurted out, “so if Maou here becomes the Devil King again, he can hop right back to Ente Isla, right? Like, we’ve already proven that he can convert holy force into demonic if you overload him with enough of it. Then he can open all the Gates he wants to, yeah?”
“Hmm,” an astonished Ashiya said. “A surprisingly constructive observation coming from you, Lucifer.”
Suzuno looked less impressed.
“Probably not, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so, either,” Maou added. “Emi was with us all last time. Now, it’d just be Suzuno. And she could probably drill all her holy force into me and it wouldn’t make the demon force come back. It’d just make me feel a little sick to my stomach.”
“I hate to admit it, but you are right. I have perhaps half of Emi’s holy strength at best—our capacities are on a completely different scale from each other. If I put that into you and poisoned your demonic side with holy force, you would no doubt fall ill, lose your job, and be homeless within a month, no?”
“Oof,” Ashiya said, newly concerned.
“Aw, I thought that was a pretty good idea, too,” Urushihara whined as he leaned back on his legless chair.
“…Well, hang on a second.” Maou waved his hand in the air. “Why are we treating it as a given that Emi’s in trouble and I have to swing in to rescue her? ’Cause maybe you forgot, but I’m the Devil King, y’know? Her mortal enemy. I don’t give a crap if Ente Isla starts a war with itself or whatever. Hell, that’s great for me, actually. Plus, Emi knew the risk she was taking going back there, right? It’s her problem now. Yours, too, I guess? I don’t care. I feel kinda bad for Chi, but…”
Maou shot a glance at the schedule on the refrigerator, recalling Chiho as she wrote her message on it a couple weeks back.
“Not even the entire Devil King’s Army could stop Emi,” he continued, picking up his usual conversational speed. “And now that she’s back in Ente Isla, her body’s naturally recharging its holy force. She’s gotta be several times stronger now than she was here, even. Isn’t it kinda pointless worrying about her safety? And if you can’t do anything, we really can’t, either. The only difference is that we have no reason to care about how Emi’s doing. She went there on her own volition.”
“But…Devil King…”
“This conversation’s over, okay? I’m assuming we’re gonna cancel the party if she doesn’t show today, so I’m gonna study for my license test tomorrow. Get outta the way, Urushihara.”
Urushihara, unexpectedly for him, got the picture quick. He sidled away from the computer desk, giving Maou the space he needed to access a website with a selection of sample tests, giving every indication that he was done talking for now. Ashiya, Urushihara, and Suzuno gave him confused-looking stares.
“Devil King.”
“…What? Are we not done here?”
“Would you say the same if Chiho asked you for help?”
“I…” Maou fell silent for a moment. But it didn’t change his mind. “I’d phrase it a little softer than that,” he said, back still turned, “but it’s gonna be the same thing in the end. It’s not like I’m some omnipotent god who can do anything. And we’re talking about Emi, okay? Like I said, I don’t see the point of worrying about her.”
Ashiya and Urushihara found it impossible to reply. But someone else didn’t.
“Maou…”
It was a small voice, ringing out across Maou’s slumped back and his heart. It made him hold his breath as he turned around.
“M-Ms. Sasaki…”
“Oh, that’s nasty.”
Ashiya’s groaned reaction, and Urushihara’s pointed criticism of Suzuno, were both aimed at a small and clearly crestfallen Chiho. She was next to Suzuno, her eyes quivering with concern—and now she was turning them to Maou. That explained why Suzuno never actually entered the apartment—she wanted to be sure Chiho heard the whole thing.
“Chi…”
“Maou, I know you’re not the kind of person to go back on your word.”
“…Huh?”
It wasn’t what he expected to hear. What he did expect had already made a chill run down his spine.
“I know you’re the Devil King and she’s the Hero. I know you’re enemies and everything. And when you say that you don’t care what happens to Emilia the Hero, I’m sure that’s what you really think inside.”
Her voice was shaking, hands clasped in front of her chest. So much as a poke would have made her start crying.
“I’m sure there’s nothing we can do about the fact that the Devil King Satan and the Hero Emilia knew each other as enemies. I guess there wasn’t any way of avoiding that in the first place. But…Maou… I mean, didn’t you say it to me yourself? Didn’t you…give me a really great present?”
Emotions Chiho could no longer contain were now spreading across her face.
“I…I think Emi might not like it much…but you, you told me, didn’t you? You said that me…and Suzuno, and Yusa, were all your Demon Generals, didn’t you? You said we could be with you, and you’d show us this amazing new world…”
“…Ms. Sasaki.”
“Whoa, nobody told me about—ow!”
Ashiya, attempting to give Chiho’s pained plea the serious response it deserved, instead found himself slapping Urushihara, for once again failing to get the hint.
“And you, Urushihara,” Chiho continued as she watched him grasp his nose in pain. “You betrayed him once, but you’re still a Demon General…snif… And you said her name, Maou… You named her…and nobody made you do it…”
“…”
“If it’s pointless to…to worry about her, that’s fine. It’d be better that way, even…but Yusa’s so strong, and yet she’s still gone…and I’m so worried…”
“Chiho…” Suzuno gave her a shoulder for support. Chiho’s knees looked ready to collapse on her.
“And…and Alas Ramus is still with her, you know? How could you not be worried about her, at least…? I know you’re lying about that right now… Hooph.”
Chiho sighed, relieved that she managed to scale the mountain of her emotions before they fully got the best of her. She gave the room a polite bow.
“Uh…”
“…I’ll see you later.”
She gave another bow and was just about to step behind Suzuno and walk back home when Maou let out a single, lifeless syllable.
“Chi…”
Chiho stopped. She didn’t turn around. “…Yes?”
For a moment, Maou failed to understand why he had called for her. After a measured silence, he finally managed to get this out:
“…Don’t do anything dumb like try to contact Emi with an Idea Link, okay? ’Cause if she’s actually in trouble, that might put you in danger, too, Chi.”
He knew it was insipid, but that was all he could say. And of course he couldn’t see the human girl’s expression with her back turned.
“All right,” Chiho replied. Then she walked down the stairs and left Villa Rosa Sasazuka alone. Once the stair clanging ended and Maou saw Chiho round the corner with tottering, unsteady steps, he gave Suzuno a resentful glare.
“…Damn it, Suzuno…”
He had fallen straight into her trap. And Maou wanted to curse Suzuno for that, but he—and she—both knew how weak his facial expression was right now.
Suzuno all but chuckled in response. “It is what I had to do,” she said, “to make sure you truly cared not at all. I, after all, was very reluctantly named a Great Demon General in your revitalized army. Why shouldn’t I have my reporting general think about how to protect one of his top officers?”
“…Uh, does someone mind cluing me in on all this later?” the very peeved-sounding Urushihara said, as Suzuno watched him climb into the closet.
“No Great Demon General can rely completely on her commanding officer, of course. So, for now, all I want is a commitment.”
“If you’re gonna use your position only when it helps you, I’ll happily strip you of your post, y’know. I don’t see how I can make a commitment on any of this, besides.”
“You sat there, slack-jawed, and said nothing to counter Chiho’s words. That proved to us all that you are, indeed, concerned about Emilia and Alas Ramus’s safety. What more commitment could I possibly ask for?”
Maou glared at her. “…”
“I am off. I need time to think about what I can do. After all, Chiho put it best—it’d be best for all of us if all this concern is for nothing.”
Without another word, Suzuno departed from Devil’s Castle.
“…Shit…”
Maou slapped a fist against the computer desk.
“Your Demonic Highness,” said a voice from behind, “if I may…”
“What? Are you gonna bitch at me to think about her, too?”
“No, my liege. To be honest, my main concern regarded why you are still considering Emilia and Bell to be your Great Demon Generals…but I believe there is another, graver issue to consider.”
“Yeah?”
Maou could tell from his voice that Ashiya had kneeled down behind him.
“I know you dodged discussing the possibility just now, but I believe the thought fully occupies the minds of both Bell and Ms. Sasaki. It is too easy for them to believe Emilia is in trouble.”
“…”
A sample scooter-license test was still being displayed on the screen in front of Maou. It was on a picture of a road intersection from the viewpoint of a passing vehicle, next to some sort of question about predicting potential hazards. The test taker had to correctly answer a true-false question about what danger might ensue from the scene in the picture.
“It is true, my liege, that staging a full-frontal attack on Emilia ultimately led to the demise of the Devil King’s Army. But now, the flames of war crossing Ente Isla are being fanned by human hands. There is no guarantee that the ‘danger’ dulling Emilia’s blade and strength would be a sword stabbing at her from the front.”
“…” No, there wasn’t.
“Even after human society betrayed her, Emilia has still retained her pride as the Hero and savior of humanity. She has always attempted to pursue the path to true justice. If a fellow human wanted to restrain her powers, what would be the best approach to take?”
“…How should I know what humans are thinking?”
“Even now, my liege? After you resolved to stay in this world in order to investigate the human race’s thought process?”
Ashiya’s voice remained calm, but just like Chiho, he was poking right at the contradictions in Maou’s mind that the Demon King was doggedly clinging to. He was up to the task, because he knew Maou better than anyone else in the world. Few subordinates are more valuable to a boss than the one capable of giving things to him straight.
“Apart from Emeralda Etuva and Albert Ende, it is safe to say that Emilia can call not a single soul an ally in Ente Isla. The power brokers in the Church are against her, Barbariccia and his Malebranche horde are against her…even the very heavens are against her. And if they learned somehow that Emilia has ventured into their own territory, I am certain they would be watching with bated breath.”
Emeralda had undoubtedly done everything she could to keep a lid on it. But it was easy to imagine that both she and Albert were under constant surveillance by any number of forces. She herself had escaped confinement at the hands of the Church, publicly contesting them over their official position that Emilia the Hero was dead. That surveillance was going nowhere as long as Suzuno continued to fail to do the Church’s bidding. If someone had picked up on Emeralda’s movements and decided to act on them, what would happen if they set the sort of trap Suzuno was picturing in her mind?
“Well…I’d guess taking someone hostage would be easiest, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed, my liege. That may not necessarily be Emeralda Etuva. It does not matter who, really, as long as it makes Emilia hold her sword. If the person means enough to Emilia, they could serve as the perfect shield against her godlike force. Nothing could be more human, could it?”
“Yeah, no. The whole idea of a hostage didn’t exist in the demon realms before I unified it, and none of the humans were ever goofy enough to take a demon hostage. But why would someone on Ente Isla want to go that far against Emi? She’s still the savior of their world, isn’t she?”
It seemed to Maou that nobody on Ente Isla had any reason to actively oppose Emilia the Hero. She had insurmountable strength. And what would lobbing stones at the savior accomplish for anyone?
“There is little we can do about it now, but… Your Demonic Highness, I fear that naming Emilia and Bell your Demon Generals when Farfarello left us was something of a blunder.”
Maou gave Ashiya a look. It was a sore topic to him as well.
“When I heard about that,” Ashiya continued, voice taking an admonished tone, “I thought at first it was part of an attempt to eliminate Emilia and Bell from our lives…but that was not the case, was it?”
Here we go again, Maou, thought. Back into lecture mode. His face tightened.
“Look, I know I was kinda caught up in the feeling and all back there, but I kinda had to, in a way. It guaranteed Chiho would stay safe, and it’d keep the demons from screwing around in Japan any longer. I mean, once Barbariccia knew Emi was alive, he was ready to attack Earth pretty much immediately.”
Ashiya nodded.
Maou had enough respect for his demon citizens that he never wanted them to waste their lives in pointless wars. The encounter with Ciriatto in Choshi proved to the Malebranche’s leaders that a face-to-face struggle against Emi would end in failure, whether she had all her force back or not. No matter what was motivating Barbariccia to step away from the demon-realm mainstream, neither Emi nor Suzuno would be willing to have him actively meddle with Japan any further.
In order to eliminate that cause, Maou had to prove that the demon enemies of the past were no longer enemies. It was something he could only show him in Devil King form. And it was the correct approach. It was correct, but…
“Do you realize, Your Demonic Highness, that naming these three new Great Demon Generals comes at the expense of the safety of Japan and Ms. Sasaki, as well as the safety of Emilia and Bell in Ente Isla?”
Maou gamely opened his mouth.
“Um, what? We’ve got Suzuno and Emi here… Farfarello would’ve reported back to Efzahan about it… Barbariccia’s firmly established in the Eastern Island…”
He waggled a finger into the air as he organized his thoughts.
“……Oh.”
Then he brought a hand to his face.
“Ohhhhh, the humans are gonna be so pissed! They think Emi and Suzuno did a heel turn on them!”
“You truly did…not understand that?”
Ashiya sighed.
“I doubt they would believe it immediately, no,” he continued. “The rumor would come from demon mouths, Emilia is supposed to be dead, and Bell’s mission remains a secret one, as far as we know. But it would be more than enough to make the more doubtful of them take action.”
Just like Suzuno said. A new assassin, perhaps, or a large army of humans. He thought he was rid of the demon threat, and instead he had inadvertently put Emi and Suzuno in danger.
“Okay, but…but in that case, why did they…?”
Suzuno had just called herself a Demon General, albeit half-jokingly. And apart from the first day, it seemed like Emi tolerated it, too, in order to keep Chiho safe.
“They accepted it, I am sure. They accepted the danger, too, I imagine, as a suitable risk in exchange for Ms. Sasaki’s safety. Emilia resolved to return home, after all, because of the concerns she voiced about having to be more proactive, did she not?”
“…Well.”
“They were both aware of those risks, and they said nothing about it. Out of respect for Ms. Sasaki, to some extent…but perhaps, I think, they wanted the status quo between us to be sustained. We remain in conflict, of course, but now we share our evening meals around the same table.”
“And what do you think of that?”
“At this point, my liege, as long as you can fulfill your ultimate ambition to take over the world, it no longer greatly matters to me what approach you deign to take. I do find the idea of aligning with our bitterest of enemies rather disdainful, yes, but…”
Maou gave an annoyed look at Ashiya’s barefaced rebuttal. Ashiya looked on with a half smile before quickly growing stern again.
“And I have been thinking, Your Demonic Highness… Which one of these forces is clearly seeking Emilia’s physical body?”
“Huh?”
“Emilia possesses a strong body and an indomitable spirit. No regular human could force her to submit in any conceivable way. She would immediately seize the first opportunity available and slash right through it.”
“What’re you getting at?”
“Which one of the players here, my liege, sees value to Emilia apart from her strength in battle?”
“…Wait, are you kidding me?”
The faces of the many angels who had confronted him in their search for Emi’s sword, Alas Ramus, and the Yesod fragments flashed back into Maou’s mind. If her suspicion was right and Emilia was in trouble after all, the repercussions might even affect their adopted child.
“But that’s all just speculation, isn’t it?”
Suddenly, they heard a sliding door open. Urushihara popped out of the closet, carrying a drawer from the miniature chest he had installed in there without permission.
“I dunno if Ente Isla’s and Earth’s calendars are running at the same speed or whatever. And it’s not like the horse wagons always come on schedule like the trains in Japan, y’know? Emeralda Etuva had to get the schedule aligned to make this visit work, so maybe they’re just having a hard time getting the timing right.”
Urushihara placed the drawer on the ground and fumbled through its contents.
“Not that we’re ones to talk, but it’s not like there’s gonna be a ton of working infrastructure where they are. Not after our armies destroyed most of it. So maybe she’s too used to things in Japan, so she wound up getting delayed over there.”
“…Sounds pretty optimistic to me.”
“Yeah, but Chiho Sasaki’s being way too pessimistic. The day’s not even over yet and she’s probably crying her eyes out back home, dude. And you talked about never taking hostages, but my Western Island forces took a crapload of Saint Aile officials hostage. I mean, geez, we had Emeralda Etuva for a while. But that sure as hell didn’t stop Emilia from saving them all and beating the crap out of us, y’know? It’s kinda hard to think that, like, there’s a hostage that’s keeping her from acting at all.”
There was something convincing about the argument, given that it came from someone who took on Emi twice and lost majorly both times. Emi certainly had enough pure strength to smash through whatever devious tricks someone might play on her.
“So, like, let’s just try waiting a bit, okay? I get that you’re worried about Alas Ramus, but you know she’s gonna be fine as long as Emilia’s still alive. At the very least, you know there’s nobody here or on Ente Isla who could kill her right now.”
Urushihara picked up the drawer, never removing anything from it in the end, and took it back to the closet before bringing out another drawer.
“Let’s just wait and see what Bell tries to do. You know Emilia wouldn’t want you to do anything for her anyway, right, Maou? Like, no matter how bad off she was.”
It was true. If anything, doing too much for her would just make her all angry again.
“…Ashiya. Urushihara.”
“Yes, my liege?”
“Mmm?”
Maou grinned a bit as he took a breath.
“Sorry about before. I’m a little calmer now.”
Then he turned back toward the computer.
“For now, I’m just gonna focus on what’s in front of me. Once she comes back, I’m gonna shove my license in her face and pick on her about being late. As much as I can ’til she snaps, y’know?”
“…”
“Sounds great to me, dude… Damn, where did I put it? He left it here last time… I don’t think I threw it out.”
Ashiya gave a silent bow behind Maou’s back as Urushihara took out a third drawer, apparently searching for something.
Emi never made it back that day, either, but—on the surface, at least—it was just another day in Devil’s Castle.
Thus, in the end, Maou found himself forced to take the exam a second time. He didn’t want to play the blame game too much, but Ashiya’s and Chiho’s words for him had thrown off his concentration.
He had named Emi a Great Demon General, yes, and he also declared that he would help her find a new calling in life. And Ashiya wasn’t just idly speculating, either. The heavens wanted Emi’s body, and if they found out what she was up to, it was a given that they’d take a rather predictable strategy.
But after he attempted to wrest Emi’s holy sword from her, Sariel’s love for Maou’s boss had turned him completely into a typical Japanese man. There was no sign he was staying in contact with the heavens at all. And Gabriel, just as powerful as Sariel, was no match at all for Emi. A tandem archangel strike might be one thing—but if they pulled something like that off, they’d have heard of it, whether it was in Japan or not. Ente Islans would be able to pick up on their holy force, which made it all the more perplexing that Emi wasn’t back yet.
That was what dominated Maou’s mind to the point that he put his test answers one column off from where they should have been. And now it was exactly two weeks since the day Emi was supposed to return home.
Suzuno had been working out her plans the whole time, evidently. She was in the midst of procuring an amplifier in Japan strong enough for the complex spell she had concocted to send an untraceable Idea Link. She had tried a few experimental sonar transmissions, and she was also trying to track down Albert, Emi’s other friend. About everything she could do from Japan, Maou supposed. The effort meant that Suzuno’s room was filled with strange-looking objects serving as amplifiers, as well as pages upon pages of magical incantations. It looked like she had signed on for some kind of cult, and so far, it had provided zero results.
The only thing they were reasonably sure about was that Emi and Emeralda were not back in Japan. The last Gate opened between Japan and Ente Isla was the one Emeralda showed up to control and Emi used to make her travels.
Chiho had grown increasingly taciturn during her work shifts. Kisaki, unaware of what had happened, even voiced concerns that Maou had made an indelicate pass at her again. And between the failed exam and the general weirdness of a life without Emi in it, Maou must have been acting differently as well.
“If you need to talk to me about something,” Kisaki told him, “I’m right here, you know.”
He shouldn’t have had anything to discuss. His sworn enemy was gone. It was so freeing to them that Ashiya seriously suggested going out for yakiniku.
“Look, no,” Maou told himself, recalling the results of the last test. “I’m just worried about Alas Ramus, is all.”
A truly gifted liar lies only about the most important of matters. Otherwise, he tries his best to tell the truth and avoid suspicion. Telling a lie to someone else is bad enough, but sometimes, the lies you tell yourself can be even more deceitful in nature. They eat at your soul, making it retreat inward.
It was true that he was worried about Alas Ramus. But Maou himself knew that it was more than that. And trying to weasel out of that with logic—feeling the need to weasel out of it at all—annoyed him.
“Next stop, Observatoryyyy,” the bus driver said through the PA in the classic drone all public transit employees in the world use. The bus glided to a stop. They were about halfway between Chofu Station’s north exit and the test center; this stop served the entrance to the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, stationed in the city of Mitaka.
“Phew! We have made it!” said a haggard-sounding voice from the bus’s rear entrance. Maou looked behind him to find a small woman in a pair of khaki overalls and a newsboy cap that almost covered her eyes being joined by a man in a business suit.
“C’mon, Pop, hurry!”
“Yes, yes… Oof.”
They must have been father and daughter.
It hadn’t occurred to him before now, but it turned out the name of the bus stop was pretty accurate. A gate was perched on top of a small, tree-lined hill, giving the area a university-like feel.
“Huh. So that’s what’s up there?”
Considering all the light pollution in Tokyo, the presence of an observatory so close by came as a surprise to him. Mitaka was a pretty big town, a bedroom community for Tokyo—something it had been for ages. He doubted anyone could see too many stars with the naked eye from here, at least…
That was about the extent to which Maou’s brain could keep itself occupied with this new, unusual-looking presence. He decided to spend the rest of the trip studying.
“All aboard, please…”
With a jolt, the bus sprang forward. This bus stop was on a hill, and the resulting rocky start caused the study book to fall right out of Maou’s hand.
“Oop.”
“Oh?” said one of the passengers standing by him. The book had fallen right on her foot.
“S-sorry.”
“Oh, no, it is good!”
It was the girl in the newsboy cap. For a moment, Maou felt a little awkward about reaching out to her body in a public area. The girl came to his rescue, deftly bending over without touching anyone else and handing the book back to Maou.
“Here!”
“Oh, thanks.”
The cap was down enough over her face that Maou couldn’t get a clear look at it, but she didn’t sound angry, at least. In fact, she was smiling at him, hand outstretched. But…
“…”
“Ummm…”
Why was she staring so intently at the hand Maou was using to take the book? He grasped it now, but she refused to loosen her own grip on it. A little tug-of-war game was starting to ensue.
“Ummmmm…”
“…snif.”
Did she not hear him? No, she had to have. But she was still in that same position, hand on the book. After a moment:
“…snif.”
“Um, hey…”
She was trying to take Maou’s hand, book and all, and bring it to her face. He was unable to surrender his book, but equally unable to accept this loony behavior, either.
“Hey, what’re…?”
He pulled his hand back, only to have it grabbed by her own. Maou wasn’t the type of young man to derive pleasure from this. They were in public, besides. He tried to wrest his hand back, instinctively trying to defend himself.
“I just need one of the moments.”
“Huuuh?”
The girl refused to let go. Then—
“…snif.”
She was smelling his hand?
“H-hey!”
This was getting too creepy even for Maou. He gave his arm another tug, this one stronger. This one was successful, although it meant giving up the book. Maou gave the girl a puzzled look, while she flashed a dissatisfied frown.
“Look, uh…the book, please?”
Maou really didn’t want to talk to this disaster any longer, but he couldn’t just give up something he bought with his own money. He had memorized every word of the book by now, so it had no value to him, but it was the principle of the thing.
Then…
“…Tsubasa.”
A new voice called out to the girl.
“Yes, Pop!”
It was the man in the suit who joined her on the bus. Oh, right—they were related to each other. Looking at the presumable father, Maou could tell he definitely took good care of himself, although he clearly wasn’t Japanese by race. Come to think of it, there was something a bit weird about the girl’s vocabulary here and there. Maybe they’d immigrated here.
The father took the book from the girl he called Tsubasa and offered it to Maou again.
“Pardon us for the troubles.”
“Oh, n-no…”
This guy seemed normal, at least, although Maou still wanted him out of his life ASAP. Maou opened the book and took his eyes away from the two of them, not bothering with politeness any longer. But:
“You apologize to young man, too, Tsubasa.”
“Yes, Pop!”
In response to the father’s misguided kindness, Tsubasa stretched her back straight and lowered her head to the point that it almost butted Maou’s.
“I am sorry!”
She had a reason to be—but then again, this all got started because Maou dropped a book on her. “Nah, it’s all right” seemed to be the right thing to say. The father nodded in response and turned away from Maou.
“…”
But the girl, after righting herself, stayed right there. He face was turned to him, as if watching his every move.
…This is so uncomfortable, Maou thought to himself. How much time was there until the test center? He scowled at the thirty-kilometers-per-hour speed limit sign out the window.
“Hey! Hey, sir!”
They weren’t even at the next stop, much less the test center, and now this Tsubasa girl was talking to him! Why did this have to happen?! Maou couldn’t hide the discomfort on his face any longer.
“Are you going to receive the license, too?”
“Uh, yeah… Yeah, I am, but…”
He was about to tell her off when he remembered her father was right next to him. It forced him to maintain at least a token effort at decorum. It sounded like they were headed to the same spot he was. Maou felt dizzy for a moment.
“How many failures?”
“Huh?” Maou turned his eyes way, not understanding the question.
“This is my and Pop’s tenth test. World record!”
“T-tenth…”
Maou didn’t know how to respond. That was a shockingly high number. As Kisaki and the rest of the licensed MgRonald employees told him, the written exam was a tad tricky and easily failable if you didn’t know what you were getting into. Failing it nine times in a row, however, was hard to swallow. It probably was a world record, albeit one nobody would want published in a book.
“Um, could you quiet down a little…?”
Her father, the bearer of this record, was still right there. He might be a total stranger to Maou, but having this dishonor blared out for all the world to hear before they even reached the test site wasn’t an auspicious way to kick things off.
“Yes, yes. So it goes, so it goes. Pop, he is not so good with the kanji yet…”
Maou didn’t know if he was gunning for a regular automobile license or a scooter one like he was, but something told him that learning how to drive was the least of his problems. “So it goes” wasn’t the half of it. And as for the father being so publicly put upon right now:
“…!”
“…”
Maou looked out the corner of his eye at him. Their eyes met for a moment, and once they did, Maou averted his and looked out the window. Or pretended to.
“…” If you’re listening, Maou pleaded to himself, at least say something.
“So how many for you, sir?”
“Uh, this’s my second time…”
“Wow! Cool. Just twenty percent of Pop!”
She was right, but to Maou, it sounded like the girl was comparing her father to him and finding the results severely lacking. He had to find a way to keep Tsubasa from slamming her father’s good name.
“Uh, s-so are you taking a test, too?”
“Uh-uh. I’m his manager. Uh, his attendant? I’m attending Pop.”
This was getting nowhere. What was she talking about? Was this girl going to stand next to her father during the whole exam? Wasn’t it usually the other way around, if anything? That would be unusual enough, but…
“So…um, you aren’t taking it…?”
“Oh, I was thinking about the taking!”
She could’ve just said that first, Maou thought. Test takers didn’t need to reserve a spot in advance; it was open to anyone who showed up and filled out the application on time. Maou prayed internally that he wouldn’t be sharing a test room with this pair.
“But I didn’t study, so maybe I won’t. Just attend Pop instead.”
Maou began to feel fatigued. They were at least conversant in the Japanese language, but if he had failed the written exam nine times in a row, “Pop” must not be too good with the reading-and-writing part of things yet. Japan’s DMV didn’t just give out licenses to people off the street like this.
“Well, better luck next time…?” was the only thing Maou could come up with to say.
“I will do my best!” Tsubasa shouted, hands in the air. It would’ve been nice if that ended the conversation, but after a moment of silence and a single left turn from the bus:
“Hey! Hey, sir? Sir?”
“…What?”
She spoke up again.
Maou had given up on any further study on the bus, but thinking about how much longer this ordeal had to go on made him despair inside.
“What is your name, sir?”
“Umm…”
Maou’s hesitation was wholly deliberate. Friendliness was fine and all, but this was not a relationship he wanted to foster at all. He honestly wondered whether giving a name would be a good thing or not.
“My name is A—er, Tsubasa Sato.”
Don’t mess up your own name, lady. Maou slumped in his seat.
“Oh. Well, my name’s Maou.”
“Maou?” The head under the newsboy cap tilted to the side a bit. Then:
“The king of the devils?”
Something in the pit of his stomach froze.
“Wha…?”
Maou was at a loss for words. Not a single human being had ever started a conversation with him like this. They made fun of him sometimes for how it sounded a bit like “devil king” in Japanese, but Maou made an effort to use a different intonation from that when stating his family name.
“Yes,” Tsubasa Sato quizzically continued, taking Maou’s hesitation as a denial, “like what final boss is called in the video games…”
“Not that,” Maou replied, exhaling deeply. That intonation must not have come across to her. Tsubasa Sato sounded like a suitably Japanese name to him, but if she spent her childhood overseas up to now, that might explain her lack of practice with the language.
“Oh. Not a devil king, huh?” Tsubasa hung her head down. Apparently this came as a disappointment. But then she lifted it back up, suddenly realizing something. That cap over her forehead made it impossible to gauge her eyes, but there was a grin on her face.
“Oh! But, you know? My pop’s name is Hiroshi Sato!”
“Huh?”
Maou took a look back at the father, wondering why this news was meant to be so monumental. The man lifted his head from his own book and met Maou’s gaze.
“Hiroshi Sato, yes,” he stated with a nod.
“Oh?” Maou said, a half smile on his face. He knew it was rude of him, but he just couldn’t help it. The man wasn’t exotically foreign—no blond hair or chiseled chin or anything—but his looks still indicated that “Hiroshi Sato” couldn’t have been any less appropriate a name.
Ah, but it wasn’t fair to have such preconceived notions about people, was it? Even if his face looked purely European to Maou, maybe he had some Japanese blood from his ancestors. Maybe his parents just liked Japan a lot. Or maybe he was a naturalized citizen who decided to adopt a Japan-style name. It was entirely possible.
“…”
They looked at each other for a moment or two longer before Hiroshi Sato averted his eyes, just like before. Maou couldn’t guess what he was thinking.
Then the PA system sprang into action. “Next stop, Test Site Front Gaaaaate, Test Site Front Gaaaaate. Disembark here for the Metropolitan Department of Motor Vehicles, Fuchu Test Center…”
The ordeal was over. Maou was finally freed from this tragedy of a family. He reached out for the Stop button on a nearby safety rail. But then:
“Agh!”
Something pulled his hand back, keeping his finger away from the button by a few inches. Tsubasa had grabbed his arm again, and now:
“…snif.”
“What are you doing?!”
She was sniffing the back of Maou’s hand, head close enough that she could almost kiss it.
“Tsubasa!” chided her father, face scrunched in frustration. Tsubasa, meanwhile, was inspecting Maou’s hand closely, her face the pinnacle of earnestness.
“…I do not understand.”
“That’s what I wanna say!”
No point acting restrained now. He flung his arm away from her.
“What’s with both of you guys?!”
If the genders were switched in this situation, it almost certainly would’ve been treated as a criminal matter by now. Maou wasn’t interested in pushing the issue, but Tsubasa’s behavior went far beyond what manners allowed on the bus.
“I do not know. The good scent is blocking it.”
“Huhh?!”
“Maou’s hand smells good.”
What is she saying?
Maou was an earnest hand washer, a habit he had picked up from work. But today he had only done it once, after visiting the bathroom in the morning, washing with a cheap eighty-yen soap bar from the pharmacy that barely foamed up at all.
As this went on, the bus finally came to a halt at the stop in front of the Fuchu Test Center.
“Okay, um, bye!”
Tsubasa’s bizarre behavior was concerning to Maou—but more than that, he just wanted to get away. He shot to his feet, headed past Tsubasa’s side toward the front of the bus, and bailed out the door. The bus stop was across the street from the test site, so he half-jogged up the nearby pedestrian bridge and stormed past the front gate, praying he could file his papers before that wacky pair could exit the bus.
Hiroshi and Tsubasa wound up being the last out of the line of people exiting the bus. The fare from Chofu Station’s north exit was 220 yen and they had to get change for a thousand-yen bill first. Predictably, it took a while.
“You must stop the standing out so much, Tsubasa,” Hiroshi weakly warned.
“Aw, but this is first time!” Tsubasa replied, not at all cowed by this. “There is something with the man. His hand smelled.”
“Smelled? …Gack! Koff koff…”
Hiroshi gagged a bit at the exhaust from the bus as it rolled away.
“Yeah.”
“It smelled how?”
“Hmm… I wonder where Maou is?” Tsubasa ignored the question as her eyes darted around the bus stop in search of Maou.
“…We need to take the test. I can pass it today.”
“Good luck,” Tsubasa blithely replied to her father’s irresolute oath. After a few moments of fruitless searching, she joined Hiroshi up the stairs. “So, uh, this smell…”
“You do enjoy changing subjects, no?” Hiroshi marveled as he turned back toward the girl.
“You know what his hand was like?” she replied, ignoring him yet again, just as another bus arrived at the stop on the other side of the street. From above, they could see it eject another throng of test takers once the doors opened. Now Hiroshi had a hefty wait in line ahead before he could fill out the application. He sighed, expression unchanged, as Tsubasa prattled on.
“It smelled like oil, and potatoes, and…and something from long ago.”
“Long ago?”
Hiroshi didn’t know where the oil and potatoes came from, but Tsubasa’s behavior indicated she found it important. She stood in place and, out of nowhere, began spinning around like a ballerina. Then, just as suddenly, she stopped, eyes turned toward the test site front gate.
“From long ago,” she said in a low voice. “A place I was, long ago. A warm place.”
“Hey, do you smell something funny?”
Urushihara, seated at the computer desk, wrinkled his nose as he looked around the room.
“Bell’s room,” Ashiya replied, not bothering to take his eyes off whatever he was writing on the basic kotatsu heated table he was seated by.
Urushihara turned around. “Huh?”
What he smelled was something pungent, a sweet concoction that stimulated every nerve in his nose, like someone was burning or boiling a random assortment of herbs and spices.
“She is burning some kind of incense. She said she could use it to build an amplifier or something.”
“…What’s she doing in there?”
“I don’t know. It still beats the pink smoke I saw seeping out from under her entryway yesterday. That came as quite the surprise, let me tell you. I suppose she’s taking the kitchen-sink approach to her experiments.”
“Well, if it comes out the windows,” Urushihara said as he held his nose and turned to Suzuno’s room, “isn’t someone gonna report it as a fire or something? I mean, I guess she’s searching for a way to figure out where Emilia is, but…”
“Who can say?” Ashiya listlessly replied as he continued taking a pencil to the paper on his table. Ever since the day of the scheduled birthday party for Chiho and Emi, Ashiya had been spending a lot of his free time writing like this. Urushihara figured he was doing some home accounting at first, but he was filling out five or so standard pieces of letter paper a day.
“You wanna borrow the computer?” he had offered once, in a rare fit of thoughtfulness.
“I don’t know how to use it” came the blunt refusal.
This put Urushihara off enough that he vowed to ignore his behavior after that, but given that he began this habit right after everything that happened, he figured he was making a few Emilia-related efforts of his own. It was too extensive to be any standard sort of home bookkeeping.
But just then…
“Whoa!”
“Mgh?!”
The apartment shook a little.
There was an impact from Suzuno’s room, one large enough to safely term an explosion. Both of them yelped in surprise.
“Ooooh…koff koff…”
From out their open window, they heard Suzuno opening up her own window and coughing out of it.
Urushihara and Ashiya exchanged a glance for a moment. Then they both leaned out the window, dodging the morning’s laundry hanging out to dry right now, and tried to gain a better look.
“Whoa! Dude, what’re you doing in there? What’s with all that smoke?”
Suzuno had pushed the window fully open in order to escape from what were now billowing clouds of white smoke from her room. She held her face out as far as she could, tearing up as she coughed.
“L-Lucifer… I apologize…koff koff…but I think I failed the incantation a little…”
“If failing it means you’re gonna level the apartment, could you do it outside, dude?”
“N-no,” came the raspy reply. “I had gone around old antique shops for items that might serve as amplifiers, but the spiritual corpus instilled within them all clashed with each other… Koff koff koff!”
Urushihara shook his head in exasperation. Ashiya took his position at the window.
“What is the meaning of this, Bell? Because this is not very neighborly behavior, I don’t think! What if all our clothes start smelling like whatever it is you’re brewing in there?”
Even as he griped at this, he was rapidly plucking laundry off the lines outside. Devil’s Castle was slightly downwind from Suzuno’s room at the moment. She, meanwhile, was taking deep breaths outside, most of her weight now placed on the window frame.
“This, this should not be terribly difficult as long as I have access to the right tools… Here I am, declaring myself Chiho’s ‘instructor,’ and just look at this pathetic display…”
Although it was nowhere near the level of Chiho’s, Suzuno’s own morale had clearly flagged over the past two weeks.
“So, not too much progress yet?”
“No, sad to say,” Suzuno said, breathing a sigh of relief as the mystery smoke finally dissipated.
“Look,” Ashiya shouted as he moved the laundry over to the other window, “I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but please ventilate your room a little more before cooking again. It will be the end of us all if you start a fire in there.”
Suzuno, still draped over the window frame like a comforter hung out to dry, weakly waved a hand. “I just wish,” she moaned, “there was someone on Ente Isla we could trust apart from Emeralda and Albert…”
“If there were,” Ashiya spat back, “would you have to go through these ridiculous incantations of yours?”
Silence met the accusation. Suzuno knew full well he was right. “So be it,” she said. “I will wait a while, then try another approach…after I clean my room.”
Just imagining the state of her room right now made them shudder. Between the smoke, explosions, and general state of clutter, it couldn’t have been the neatly organized space it used to be.
“Apart from Emeralda, huh?” Urushihara pondered for a bit. “Hey, Bell?”
“Mm? What?”
Urushihara didn’t respond immediately, still fumbling with something in his mind. After a moment, he took out a piece of paper, about the size of a business card. It was hard to say where he got it, considering he almost never left Devil’s Castle—and with all the scuffs and folds on it, it was in pretty poor condition.
“Outside of Emeralda and Albert,” he said as he looked at the slip of paper, “I don’t know about who you can trust, really…but I can think of someone who’d know about something if you asked—”
“Ahh!!”
Before Urushihara could finish, there was a shout from the road beneath both of their windows.
“Hm?”
“Ah!”
“…Who’s that?”
But that wasn’t the problem. The real issue was her purple eyes. And her hair was silver, long at the sides and cut short behind them. Even under the dim fluorescent lighting, it still shone a bright, eye-opening color.
And beyond all that…
“…Wait, are you…? That hair…?”
“Hmm…”
Tsubasa twirled her side hair around a finger. There was a whorl of purple to it. It nailed Maou to the spot, reducing him to broken sentences.
For her part, Tsubasa blithely nodded.
“I thought…from smell, maybe it was you?”
“The smell…?”
Maou recalled the handful of times she had gotten a whiff of his hand.
“I don’t know you, but my nose is right.” She rubbed her nose proudly with a single finger, smiled, and laid another salvo upon the foundering Demon King. “You know my sister Alas Ramus, yes, Maou?”
“………………………………………………………………………………Huh?”
This had already been flustering enough for Maou, but what Tsubasa just said sounded even stranger to him.
“Sister?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Um…?”
“Sister. Alas Ramus, I mean.”
“…Huuuh?”
There were a few things Maou needed to tell this pair. He knew there had to be. What’s with the hair? Are you two really father and daughter? You aren’t from Earth, much less Japan, are you? If you look like that and know Alas Ramus’s name, you must be born from a Sephirah, right? What have I got to do with you? And while he had them here, he needed to interrogate them about their lives in Japan and get their names, addresses, phone numbers, and maybe their IDs, too.
But beyond all those practicalities, there was something Maou absolutely had to get straight first.
“You mean…sisters by blood?”
“Uh-huh. If it is same Alas Ramus, Maou, she’s my elder sister.”
There couldn’t have possibly been many more children out there with the singularly inconvenient name Alas Ramus. If Tsubasa already knew it, there was no point dwelling on the question. But something else bothered him even more.
“If you’re saying she’s your elder sister, does that mean…you have that kind of close familial relation going on?”
“Close familial…what?”
“…Wait.”
Suddenly, Hiroshi—or whatever his real name was…the person provisionally being called Hiroshi—laid a heavy hand on Maou’s shoulder.
“I think…what you think, it is probably correct.”
“Could you explain a little more what you’re so positive about, please?”
All Maou was trying to do was figure out what sister meant here. To him, the question drove at the very creation myths that described how Earth and Ente Isla began. It made his head swim.
“Um… Her sister?”
“Agh, you guys are a pain to talk to!” Maou was about ready to pitch a fit. “Okay, let’s try it another way! Sir, I want you to be quiet for a moment or two, all right? Now, Tsubasa.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Are you saying,” Maou said, choosing his words carefully, “you’re Alas Ramus’s younger sister?”
“Uh-huh!” She brightly nodded.
“…Why?”
Tsubasa’s bodily structure, the silver hair with the purple whorl, was exactly the same as Alas Ramus—the telltale sign of a Sephirah-spawned creation. It couldn’t have been some fashion thing; not if she knew the term “Alas Ramus.”
Still…
“Hey! Don’t look! I know I am pretty!”
Tsubasa smiled as she chided Maou. He was currently scoping her out from head to toe.
“…I so want to hit you.”
Even in this era of equal rights between genders, Maou thought he was justified. He still somehow managed to bottle up his anger in the end.
As Maou reckoned earlier, Tsubasa was a bit younger—and certainly more childlike—than Chiho. But to put it another way, she looked like she was in middle school. Why would she call a toddler like Alas Ramus her elder sister? There was no way of telling how they grew and matured, certainly, considering their otherworldly origins. One grew more rapidly than the other, for reasons Maou couldn’t fathom—but this rapidly?
There was no doubting now, at least, that they were involved with Ente Isla.
Maou took a look around, then whispered into Hiroshi’s ear.
“You’re both from Ente Isla, aren’t you?”
Hiroshi’s eyes opened wide in surprise, unexpectedly. “How… Who are you…?!”
“You got a girl like this with you and you think nobody would notice?!”
Dealing with Hiroshi was starting to tire Maou out. He stood back up from the bench and motioned for the two of them to follow along. It wasn’t anything he didn’t want others to hear, but he didn’t want to be considered a weirdo, either (although it might’ve been too late for that).
They took position toward the service windows at the front of the building, shuttered now that testing was done for the day. A number of people walked to and fro through it, but none of them were interested in stopping to eavesdrop on random strangers. The only open window was on the other side, for people looking to renew their license.
“Right. First off, can I have your real names? Both of you.”
Tsubasa and Hiroshi exchanged glances with each other. Must be having trouble figuring out who I am, he thought.
Then Hiroshi’s accent started sounding greatly different. Or, to be more exact, his choice of language.
<“It might be strange to ask for confirmation at this point, but we have no indication that you are not our enemy yet. You know that we have come from Ente Isla, a world completely different from this one. Who are you?”>
Both Hiroshi’s speech and manner of presenting himself were now a far cry from the sluggish demeanor of the past. Maou didn’t detect any holy force within him, but between his eyes and his language skills, he knew he was more than just another middle-aged man.
<“…Common Vezian, is it?”> Maou said, matching his tongue. <“From the eastern part of the Western Island?”>
Apart from Holy Vezian, the language of choice on the westernmost section of that island—the part the Devil King had never managed to conquer—Maou didn’t need any demonic force to make himself understood in any language on Ente Isla.
<“Sorry,”> he continued, <“but lemme ask the questions first. I had thought I knew about everyone who came from Ente Isla or elsewhere. I want to know where you come from. Besides, you might be the first clue I’ve had yet.”>
<“Clue?”>
Maou nodded and turned to Tsubasa. <“I was too surprised earlier to ask you, but I think I better right now. Were you born from a Yesod fragment?”>
That, to him, seemed worth confirming first, before moving on to her “sister.” Maou could hardly contain his excitement at having this gift from Ente Isla appear out of nowhere for him. But Tsubasa’s reply was light and airy as always.
“Yes! I surely am!”
And she gave it in Japanese, too.
“Pop, you are sure you will say everything?”
“…” Hiroshi was still suspicious of Maou’s motives. Tsubasa apparently took that as her “go” sign.
“Well, okay, Pop. I think it is okay. Maou isn’t an ‘angel.’ I see that, too.”
She rubbed Hiroshi’s arm in an attempt to quell his fears, her purple eyes aimed right at Maou.
“My name is Acieth Alla. ‘Tsubasa,’ it is a fake name.”
Acieth Alla. Maou took a deep breath at the name, oxygen flowing through every vessel in his body.
<“‘Alla’…? Wing? Is that why you went with Tsubasa? The same word in Japanese?”>
“Uh-huh! I like sound of it!”
Maou simply nodded. <“So you and Acieth aren’t connected by blood, right? You made up that Sato name, too, didn’t you?”>
The idea of Hiroshi being his real name seemed ludicrous by now. He had to have another one, just as the Devil King Satan had the name Sadao Maou.
<“I took the name Sato from…a man I encountered, not long after I arrived in Japan.”>
<“Just a normal Japanese guy? You didn’t reveal who you were, did you?”>
Hiroshi (provisional name) shook his head. <“No. He was a strong, gifted man, and so kind to me despite my total lack of knowledge about Japan. No matter how many times I fell, I picked myself up and kept aiming for my dreams. I did whatever work I was offered. It was fun to me, every day.”>
Maou didn’t ask how hard it was for him. He wasn’t stupid enough to, because he knew that he himself was the main and most direct reason for all this.
<“You boarded the carriage from the observatory. Have you been living in Mitaka this whole time?”>
<“No. We were near Shinjuku at first, but we moved to Mitaka because Sato heard what Tsubasa…what Acieth dreamed of, and he made some introductions for us.”>
Maou groaned. They could have run into each other at any moment. For that matter, it wouldn’t have surprised him if they had picked up on Maou’s and Emi’s activities to some extent by now.
<“…Okay, so I don’t know your real name, but I think I might know the names of some of the people you’re involved with.”>
“Why is…talking like the merry-go-round like that?”
There was no telling how much longer Tsubasa—or Acieth Alla—was going to continue indifferently commenting on their conversation.
Then Maou realized something. <“Hang on. You can’t speak Common Vezian?”>
“Uh-uh. But I understand it! Like this…” Acieth pointed at her temple, then Maou’s forehead.
<“An Idea Link? Wait, so you can’t use it, though?”> he asked the man.
<“Regrettably, I have neither the knowledge nor the talent required to cast magic. It has…not been easy for me,”> Hiroshi stated.
Maou nodded. Hence the literacy issues, he supposed.
<“So, these people you say you might be familiar with…?”> Hiroshi asked.
<“Yeah…”> Maou fixed his gaze on Hiroshi again. <“But if I’m going to reveal it, I want to be sure you’re willing to work with me. I’ll help you and Acieth out as much as I can, too. So don’t run away on me, all right?”>
Hiroshi’s eyebrows lowered. <“I am not a child, either. Given the Common Vezian we are speaking, I hardly expect we can be strangers now. But you, as well—if you’re willing to go this far, you had best not do anything to oppose me. I am worthless with magic, but I think I am capable of defending myself well enough.”>
Maou noticed Hiroshi turning his eyes toward Acieth as he spoke. He opted against bringing it up. <“Well, you said it. I’m just saying, I don’t want you chickening out on me.”>
He paused a moment, grinning, before coming out with it.
<“My allies and I are searching for Emilia Justina. She had been located here in Japan, but she returned to Ente Isla several weeks ago and we’ve lost contact with her since. Do you know anything about—”>
“Emilia?!”
The reaction was dramatic. The bold, defiant glare Hiroshi had been aiming at Maou up to now dissolved in an instant. The moment the name “Emilia” came up, it was like all of the blood immediately rushed up into his head.
With his two long, powerful arms, Hiroshi placed his hands on both of Maou’s shoulders. He brought his face up close to him, excited to the point of nearly hyperventilating.
<“Y-you know Emilia?! Do you know where Emilia is right now?! H-how could she possibly be in Japan?!”>
The voice was deep and booming enough to make passersby stop and give him strange looks. Hiroshi was in no position to care about them.
<“Calm down! Stop shouting like that! You’ll attract attention!”>
<“How…how can I calm down at a time like this?! Where is she?! Where is Emilia?!”>
“I told you, calm down!” Maou said, finding himself reverting to Japanese as he waved his hands at Hiroshi.
<“Come on already!”>
<“…All right. Listen to me. Emilia was definitely in Japan, all right? But certain things happened a few weeks ago that drove her to go back to Ente Isla for a bit.”>
<“Are you…kidding me?”>
<“But it’s now been two weeks since the date she said she’d return. We’re not capable of traveling to Ente Isla to look for her. It’s a long story. That’s why you’re the only lead we have right now on where she is. A complete stroke of luck!”>
“Luck? How rude!”
Hiroshi, ignoring Acieth, staggered over to the shuttered reception window, leaning against it before gradually dragging his body downward to the floor.
“Hey!” Maou extended a hand to support his arm, not wanting Hiroshi’s emotions to draw the attention of someone important. “Don’t make this any harder on us, all right?”
<“Emilia… Emilia’s…”>
“Great… So you know Emi, huh? I should’ve known, I guess…”
If Acieth was cut from the same cloth as Alas Ramus, that meant they were both linked by their Yesod connection. Perhaps with Emi’s holy sword, too. But this wasn’t the sort of reaction an involved party would make if they were aware of Maou’s and Emi’s activities over the past year or so. It must’ve been the case for Acieth as well.
And it gave Maou the inspiration to go back over all of his and Emi’s relations—all of the Hero’s and Devil King’s—over the past few months. His brain powered into overdrive, and before another moment elapsed, it arrived at a conclusion.
“Hang on, are you Emi’s… Emilia’s…?”
<“Emilia… Emilia is my daughter… My precious daughter!”>
<“…Oh.”>
“Pop’s real name is Nord. Nord Jus…Jus… Um, what was it?”
Acieth’s uninvited aside provided Maou all the confirmation he needed. So there they both were—Nord Justina, Emi’s father, and Acieth Alla, child of the Yesod Sephirah. It was a completely unexpected piece of luck. There’s no way I can let this pair disappear on me, Maou thought.
“Hmm?”
Then the mobile phone in his pocket started ringing. He couldn’t think of anyone who’d need to call him at this time of the day. Probably Ashiya, he supposed, using Urushihara’s computer to call him and find out whether he passed the test or not. Maou had much bigger fish to fry right now—two of them, in fact—and it couldn’t have possibly been anything more important. He decided to ignore it and interrogate the man in front of him while he had the chance.
He didn’t receive it.
“Pick up the phone now, you stupid Devil King!!”
“Wagh!”
“Aiggh?!”
The screamed command thundered across Maou’s mind like a sledgehammer. He nearly lost consciousness for a moment, but he still had the mental strength to take his phone out of his pocket. It was from an unlisted number—and before he could even push the “OK” button, the shouting came back.
“Devil King! I know I’m connecting to you. Answer me right now!”
“Wha… Suzuno?! What’s with you all of a sudden?”
It was definitely Suzuno’s voice, brought vividly to his mind via Idea Link.
“This is your fault for not picking up! This is an emergency! Come back to Sasazuka as soon as you possibly can!”
“Huuuh? Come back? What’re you…?”
Maou looked up at the two people in front of him. Nord, Hiroshi no longer, was sitting in a shattered heap on the ground. Acieth was staring goggle-eyed at Maou for some reason, in a state of total surprise over something or other.
“I’m kind of busy right now, okay?” Maou pleaded, bringing the phone to his ear—an unnecessary step for him, but one he made to avoid suspicion. “I still haven’t gotten my license yet, so it’s not like I can just wheel back home right now…”
But Suzuno wasn’t listening. She had reason not to.
“We received an SOS from Chiho!”
“What?!”
“Devil King! Is it raining where you are?!”
“Y-yeah, it’s comin’ down like a typhoon out there…”
“It’s centered right over Sasazuka! This typhoon-level storm descended into Tokyo from out of nowhere, and it’s blowing wind and rain all across the city! And it’s parked over Sasazuka…right on top of Chiho’s school!”
“Wh-what the hell?!”
This was crazy, and he had no idea what any of it meant. But there was no reason for Suzuno to lie about it. And, as if to back up her story, the building’s PA system squawked to life.
“Um, this is a notice to everyone inside the testing center. We are about ready to announce the results of the motor scooter licensing examination, but due to inclement weather, we will need to delay the start of the on-road exam. Please consult one of our staff at the test registration window for more details. All applicants renewing their automobile licenses should also—”
“A typhoon? That’s ridiculous…”
“Whether it is an angel, demon, or human, I cannot say, but someone is using today’s bad weather to deploy a massive incantation over the city! You need to come back here, now! I don’t know how long Lucifer and I can hold out! It is right over Chiho’s school!”
Then, having said her fill, Suzuno shut off the Idea Link.
Maou grabbed his head. “What in the hell, man? I—I can’t just run home now! I still got these guys to deal with!”
If Chiho was in danger, he wasn’t about to weigh that against the fate of his test score. But even if he shot out the door right now, he had a bus and a train to ride before he reached Sasazuka. It’d easily take an hour or so. Even if he shelled out for a taxi, the driver couldn’t go too quickly in this weather. And above everything else, he couldn’t simply abandon these two golden opportunities that just dropped in his lap.
I knew I should’ve kept some of the demonic force I gave back to Farfarello!
It had taken Maou a month to realize that, but it was approximately one month after he could do anything about it. He never imagined that Emi, by far the strongest out of them all, would disappear on him.
“…Guess it’s taxi or nothing!”
It was the only practical method to bring these two with him to Sasazuka. The potential fare waiting at the end physically pained him. He’d have to put it on the card and worry about the details later.
“Hey, uh, Maou?”
“What?!”
“Are you in the hurry, or something?” Acieth gingerly asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t even know what I should be doing right now. It’s driving me nuts!”
“That woman’s voice, it came from Idea Link, no?”
Maou eyes shot open. “You heard that just now?”
“Uh-huh! More or less.”
There wasn’t any “more or less” about it. But she was right. Maou recalled how Suzuno’s initial bellowing startled her as well.
“So what do you do? Because if you go now, that is not good for us.”
“Well, yeah, me too! If I could, I’d take you two with me and teleport our asses back to Sasazuka right now!”
“Sasazuka?”
“Yes! The neighborhood I live in! Goddammit! If I could still fly, I could get directly over there, too!”
He didn’t have much idea how much distance was involved as the crow flies, but a Devil King flying at full speed would probably reach Sasazuka in pretty short order. Besides, although he was too flustered to remember it right now, Satan also had the ability to open Gates whenever he wanted.
“So you want all of us to fly?”
“Yeah, and I can’t, all right?!”
“Me, Maou, and Pop, yes?”
“Yes! Look, we don’t have time to talk. I need to catch a taxi… And will you stop feeling sorry for yourself down there? Get up! We’re both gonna have to ditch the test again!”
Maou was trying to work the haggard Nord back to his feet when:
“Huff!”
He suddenly floated. Physically. Into the air. Inside the test center.
“Hey, whoaahh!!” Maou shouted, flailing in order to reach the ground again. But before he could:
“Maou, Pop, huff!”
Acieth gave them both a look, then lifted her body into the air, just like Ashiya in demon form.
“A-Acieth! We’re being too conspicuous! Way too conspicuous!”
They surely were. Three human beings, up in the air—physically, and emotionally to boot. Acieth ignored the chatting around them as she used her mind to pull Maou and Nord close to her, float out into the torrential downpour, and then soar into the dark, cloudy skies.
“Aaaaaagghh?!”
The sheer speed of their ascent made Maou scream out loud. Acieth paid it no mind. He could tell she was using some kind of telekinetic power to free them from the bonds of gravity, but since there was no magical barrier or other protection, he and Nord were rapidly soaked by the rain surrounding them.
“Maou, which way?!”
“Which what?! I have no idea where we are!”
“That lady, she said it was the weather magic, yes? It must be there!”
“Whoooooaaaaahhhh!!”
Before Maou could even gauge the geography beneath him, Acieth shot off toward the eastern skies, not bothering to keep either of them upright in the process.
“We need hurry, yes? Let’s go!”
“W-wait a sec! I need to get my body—gaaahhhh!!”
“Here we goooooooooo!!”
“……”
Accompanied by Maou’s scream and Nord’s voiceless groan, the three of them set off from the Fuchu Test Center eastward to points unknown.
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