“The truth?”
“Well…about Suzuno, about Urushihara, about Ashiya, about you…and, really, about Emi, most of all. Chiho said you were going off to someplace-or-other the day after tomorrow to search for her.”
“Oh… Why d’you ask about those other two, though?”
Maou flashed Chiho a glance. He had no way to gauge how much she’d told Rika. But Chiho just shook her head in response.
“I saw both of them disappear into that rain, jumping from roof to roof like they had superpowers or something…and then I saw you flying away from here, Maou. And then Ashiya told me that…that Emi wasn’t born on Earth. Then this weird group of people seized him and…went off somewhere.”
It was clear from this that neither Maou nor Crestia Bell—aka Suzuno Kamazuki, the Church cleric from Ente Isla who lived next door in Room 202 of Villa Rose Sasazuka—had rewired Rika’s brain to forget any of these memories. That was the whole reason she was here now.
“So if you know something…I’d really like you to tell me. About Emi, and about my friends.”
She was after the truth. The truth about Emi Yusa, her trusted friend. Maou looked at the wall separating him from Room 202 and let out a small sigh.
“All right, well…chill out a bit, all right? If you wanna know, I’d be happy to tell you. But you need to give me some time, okay? ’Cause I think it’d go a lot more smoothly if Suzuno and Amane…uh, if that girl who saved you were here, too. Once they get back, I mean.”
Rika gave a resolute nod. “…Okay. I’ll wait.” Then she entered the room, settling down next to the low table in the middle.
“Man, nothing flaps you, huh?” Maou offered with a smile.
“Uh, hello?” Rika fired back, half-chuckling. “It was kind of traumatic. I had a fever for forty-eight hours straight once I was back home.”
Maou could tell her smile was half-forced, but he figured pointing that out would be cruel.
“Is Suzuno out right now?” Chiho asked, notably less serene than Rika at the moment.
“Hmm? Yeah, she went out somewhere with Amane this morning.”
“Um, to the hospital, or…?”
“Hmm? Nah.” Maou shook his head, realizing what Chiho was worrying about. “That girl was practically back to normal this morning. I guess that gash wasn’t anything too serious after all.”
“Huhh?!” Chiho shouted in disbelief. Her shock was understandable: The next-door neighbor was an active part of the events of three days ago—and at the height of it, she had been clawed from shoulder to chest by an enormous demon as she’d attempted to protect Chiho from harm. Even if Suzuno were a high-level Church cleric with untold holy magic at her fingertips, Chiho couldn’t imagine such a grave wound healing up within three days.
“Yeah, well, Amane was going on about how crazy that was, too, actually. But you know how she never fills us in on stuff, so…”
“…True.” Chiho nodded.
Amane Ohguro ran a beachfront snack bar in Choshi, a fair distance northeast of Villa Rosa, that Maou and his acquaintances had temped at briefly. She was also the niece of Miki Shiba, the shadowy, corpulent lady who owned Villa Rosa and served as the landlord of Devil’s Castle. Both she and Amane seemed like they were native to Japan, but both acted as though they knew who Maou really was from the start—and Amane, for her part, had wielded powers in front of Maou that were beyond even his own imagination.
“Do you think Amane will come back here, though?” Chiho asked.
“Yeah. Her stuff’s still in Suzuno’s room.”
Amane had spent the past three days staying in Suzuno’s apartment. That did little to quell Chiho’s concern. What if Amane decided to disappear without a trace again after busting out her powers, like she did in Choshi? She had yet to divulge her reasons for visiting Sasazuka in the first place, and her exact nature was still a mystery to them. Neither Maou nor Chiho felt safe in fully trusting her.
“They said they’d be back late in the afternoon, so let’s just try waitin’ them out for now, huh?”
“All right… Oh! I was so surprised about Suzuno that I forgot all about this. Maou?”
“Yeah?”
“Where’d that girl go?”
There was more than a trace of sternness to the question. Maou doubted he was imagining it.
“…You mean Acieth? She’s here. Right here.”
He pointed at his own forehead, wincing as he did. Housed inside was a voice currently pleading at him for a bite of the mashed-potato Fla-Vor-Nice he was slowly working his way through.
“There… Really, Maou?!”
“Wh-what do you want me to say? That’s how the system works or whatever! She’s annoying me enough in my head, but if I take her out, it’s gonna be even worse. She’s a hellion.”
Now Chiho looked even sterner than before. It sounded too much like an excuse to her. “Well,” she began, “if we’re going to talk to Suzuki about this, we’re going to need to talk to Acieth, too!” Her hands were on the lapel of Maou’s shirt. She was placing far too much emphasis on every syllable. “Take. Her. Out. Now!”
“Aggh! Stop shaking me, Chi! I’m gonna drop this ice pop! Look, okay, okay, I’ll do it! I need to concentrate, so stop shaking me! I’m not used to this yet!”
The lack of forward progress was starting to seriously agitate Chiho. Peeling her away from him, Maou turned to an empty corner of the room, supported his dazed head with one hand, and pointed forward with the other.
“Mmm…come forth, Acieth!”
As he spoke, a dull purple light shone out from Maou’s body. Rika, seeing this up close, tensed up—but Chiho couldn’t provide her support right now.
“Maou, I want bite, toooo!”
The light from Maou’s body slowly began to gather and form a body—not in front of Maou, but behind him. She was maybe a little younger than Chiho, her silvery hair—complete with a purple whorl on one side—indicating she was plainly not from Japan.
She was now here, with them, and that wasn’t really the issue right now. The issue was that she had her arms and legs entangled over Maou from behind him, in a close embrace. And that wasn’t all—her mouth was wide open and making a beeline for the ice-cream pop near Maou’s own face. For someone like Chiho, and all the feelings she had for him, that was far too much to let slide.
“Ah, ah, ah, Acieth, what’re you doing to Maou?!”
“Ooh, um, getting some skinship with him? As a partner?”
“Agh!” Maou, despite the fact that he was the one who summoned her, acted just as shocked. “Get off me, Acieth!” She had yet to materialize in any position Maou intended—but that didn’t mean it had to work like this, either.
“Oh, Maou! So bashful!”
“That’s not the problem, man! You’re not gettin’ a single bite of this! You already ate my snacks without permission!”
“It is okay! I am the growing girl!”
“Could you at least pretend to listen to me? You’re not gettin’ a bite, and that’s it!”
The grappling match continued between the King of All Demons and the mystery girl over some ice cream for several seconds. Then it was abruptly stopped.
“Stop! It! Right! There!”
“Whoa!”
“Aghh!”
Chiho, forcing her way between the two, pulled Acieth away from Maou’s body.
“Chihoooo! Why are you doing?”
“I have another pop for you, Acieth! Just stop trying to take Maou’s from him!”
“But just see people eat something, it looks…so tasty…”
“I don’t care!!”
“Ooooh… All right,” Acieth said as she stepped back, sufficiently cowed by Chiho’s tirade—but not so much as to keep her hands away from the shopping bag with her ice-cream prize.
“Wow, Chi,” an astonished Maou whispered behind Chiho, “Acieth actually listened to you.”
“…Maou.”
“Y-yes?!”
&nbs
p; He didn’t think Chiho would find anything wrong with the appraisal. But when he turned around, he detected something murderous to her face. He stiffened up, posture straight.
“If you keep spoiling Acieth too much, you know how jealous Alas Ramus will be once she returns. She’ll hate you for it.”
“Sh-she will?”
“And you, you…you just can’t let that happen to you, all right? I know this is kind of a weird situation, but Acieth is a girl, all right? A girl!”
“N-no, I… Okay, maybe I could’ve put it nicer, but I swear, Acieth never listens to me—”
“I’m not talking about that!”
“Whuh?!”
Try as he did to plead his case, Maou began to acutely feel that he and the glaring, reddened Chiho were on nowhere near the same wavelength.
“All that…that ‘getting to know’ each other…in broad daylight… That just isn’t right, Maou!”
“Ch-Chi? Chi, I think you got the wrong idea, I…I’m not doing anything like…”
“Oh, well, oh, well. That is life! Me and Maou, we same body and heart now!”
“Nnnnhhh!!”
“Ch-Chi! Chill out! You know what she means, right?! And Acieth, I don’t care how bad you are at this language—I swear you’re picking your words on purpose, aren’t you?!”
Acieth seemed to be all but taunting Chiho by this point. But it was true. They both really did occupy the same body. Acieth had a single shock of purple in her silvery hair—the telltale sign of one born from a Sephirah, one of the jewels that formed the world of Ente Isla. There was another person in Maou’s and Chiho’s lives with the same characteristics—Alas Ramus, the near-baby who fused with Emilia’s Better Half and treated her and the Devil King as her own parents. And while it was hard to believe, given their external ages, apparently Acieth was Alas Ramus’s younger sister.
Given that they were sisters, it was safe to assume Acieth had similar abilities as her sibling. Just like with Alas Ramus and Emi, Acieth was now fused with Maou, helping him and his friends escape death three days ago. Which was great, but apparently this was permanent—and like with the Hero and her “daughter,” even if Maou materialized Acieth, she was no longer able to go beyond a certain physical distance from him.
Acieth had always been a, shall we say, sociable girl. But her behavior had undergone enormous changes before and after the fusion. To wit, she was now physically all over him all the time—enough so that Chiho, who never acted so blatantly jealous if another girl had Maou’s attention, just couldn’t keep her cool around her.
But on the other hand:
“You are…Rika? Do you want ice cream, too?”
Now her interest was fully shifted from the pained Maou and the half-trembling Chiho. She offered a packet to Rika, who currently had nothing to do but stare at the three of them bickering with each other.
“Oh, uh, I’m fine. Thanks.”
The refusal seemed to put Acieth off a little. It was unusual to see.
“Maou!” Chiho snapped.
“Y-yes?” the startled Maou said, exposed to the full brunt of Chiho’s stare.
“It sure would be nice if Yusa and Ashiya came back, huh?” she droned.
“Y-yeah, I think?” Maou chirped right back.
“…You guys make no sense to me,” a befuddled Rika observed. Then Maou’s phone, more than a little bit behind the times, went off.
“Oh, I got a text from Suzuno. Must be close to home.”
Thirty minutes, as the text specified.
“Ooh, how good! This morning, I ask Amane, buy ice cream for me!”
“How much’re you planning to eat, anyway? Don’t come runnin’ to me if you get a stomachache.”
Maou didn’t expect a response. He couldn’t help but admonish her anyway.
“So when they get back, guys,” he continued, grabbing the papers he had out on the table, “I guess we’ll start talking about rescuing Emi, Alas Ramus, Ashiya, Emi’s dad…the whole gang. I’ll worry about shifts again later.”
“Uh, hey…”
“Agh!”
Rika half-rose to her feet at the weak-sounding yelp that suddenly came from parts unknown. Everyone, except for Acieth, focused their eyes on the closet—just in time for it to open up an inch or so. Behind it was the Great Demon General Lucifer, better known around here as Hanzou Urushihara, the dead weight of Devil’s Castle and a man who styled himself as the greatest slacker in the world.
“Dude,” he moaned to the group, “I don’t care if you forget about me or whatever…but try to keep it down, okay? I’m not all fixed up like Bell yet. All that shouting makes my wounds hurt still, all right?”
Emi and Ashiya were marooned in Ente Isla.
Though perhaps that was not the right word: Emi, after all, had originally chased the Devil King from Ente Isla to Earth—and Ashiya had been one of the demon leaders commanding the world’s conquest. If anything, Ente Isla was exactly where the two of them belonged. But, even in their native land, they were well and truly stuck.
It all started when Emi, curious about what her parents were doing on Ente Isla and what kind of past they had, decided to return home to find answers. She was the undisputed strongest human being in the universe. At the time, not even Maou, her natural enemy, could imagine her running into any kind of danger.
But Emi never came back—not even after the day she promised to return—and Alas Ramus, fused into the young woman’s Better Half sword, was undoubtedly still with her. The child’s fate worried Maou enough to make him fail the written exam for his motor scooter license, something he was trying to earn so he could help out with MgRonald’s new delivery program.
So he marched back to the exam center in Fuchu for a retest, only to run into a strange man and his daughter: Hiroshi and Tsubasa Sato, two people who boarded Maou’s bus at the space observatory in Mitaka. Despite their names, they were clearly new to Japan. Thanks to their chance encounter, Maou found himself entangled in their affairs all through his retest—but then he found out who they really were. The man was none other than Nord Justina, Emilia’s father and someone thought to have died in battle against the Devil King’s Army; while Tsubasa Sato was Acieth Alla, Alas Ramus’s younger sister and fellow Yesod Sephirah embodiment.
Just as Maou was trying to digest all of this, a top general from the Malebranche, a nobility-level demon tribe that had been getting in Maou’s hair quite a bit as of late, appeared at Chiho’s high school, forcing her to come face-to-face with him. Suzuno and Urushihara rushed to Sasahata North High School to assist, but Emi’s friend Rika Suzuki accidentally saw them fly off into the air, leading her to demand an explanation from Ashiya. He’d decided he had no other choice—but just as he had begun his tale, Maou had literally flown into the room from the test center, taken there by Acieth’s powers. He’d stayed only long enough to drop off Nord and fly right back out the window.
So there they had been. Three people—Rika, Ashiya, and Nord—a fairly baffling combination to see in Devil’s Castle. But before they could get to the bottom of everything, Efzahan’s Knights of the Inlain Azure Scarves, led by Gabriel himself, attacked Villa Rosa Sasazuka. Rika had survived unscathed—thanks to the appearance of Amane Ohguro, proprietor of Ohguro-ya in Choshi—but Gabriel had spirited away Nord and Ashiya. And over at the school, the combined powers of the Malebranche officer Libicocco and the archangel Camael had dealt both Suzuno and Urushihara grave injuries.
This was the scene that greeted Maou when he’d arrived at the school—and that was where he fused with Acieth, much as Emi fused with Alas Ramus, and then tapped into untold new powers. That provided all the edge he needed to repulse Camael and Libicocco.
But it could hardly be called a victory. Chiho, Suzuno, and Urushihara were all hurt. Ashiya and Nord had been kidnapped. And Emi and Alas Ramus were quite likely being held captive in Ente Isla. For Maou, it was nothing less than a rout.
As far as Maou was concerned, he truly was th
e Devil King. Room 201 in the Villa Rosa Sasazuka building was actually Devil’s Castle, and the neighborhood of Sasazuka was the castle town that served it. Shirou Ashiya, Hanzou Urushihara, Chiho Sasaki, Suzuno Kamazuki, and his nemesis Emi Yusa really were his Great Demon Generals, so christened by none other than the Devil King Satan himself.
They were his team of officers, his companions, the men and women Maou needed in order to launch a new bid at world domination. Protecting his team was a responsibility Maou took dead seriously.
He had to punish the charlatans who had dared defy the true Devil King’s Army. He knew he had the right team for it. And now Satan, the Devil King, was ready. It was time to sally forth from Japan, work with his companions, and prepare the New Devil King’s Army for a full invasion of Ente Isla, the Land of the Holy Cross.
“Oh, no way…”
Maou’s eyes stared into space.
“How can this even happen?!”
“Maou…”
Chiho reflexively laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. The anguish in his voice was clear to her.
“But this is the reality of it,” Suzuno intoned at the stupefied man before him. “One almost too cruel for you to accept, I imagine, but reality nonetheless. Such is what little power you have to work with now.”
“Suzuno! You’re being too hard on him!”
“Attempting to soften the blow for the Devil King will do nothing to change the facts, Chiho.”
“God…dammit…”
The pain was too much for Maou. He slammed a fist against the tatami-mat floor beneath him. The thudding sound echoed throughout the apartment.
“Why…? Why…?!”
He gritted his teeth, his tragic-looking eyes ruefully turned to Suzuno as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Why did you score your motor-scooter license first?!!!!”
“Shut up, Maou,” the honestly pained-sounding Urushihara was heard whispering from the closet. Maou was in no position to respond. He was too busy staring down Suzuno, who looked like she hadn’t a care in the world. The brilliant, radiant card in her hand was a laminated license, one with Suzuno’s name and photograph on it.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 9 Page 2