The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 9

by Satoshi Wagahara

  Sariel leaned his body against a nearby tree on the sidewalk, as if this conversation was starting to tire him. He looked up at the sky, face serene.

  “We were trying to interfere with the birth of a god in Ente Isla. A real one. That was the ultimate aim.”

  This was not enough to make Urushihara, Suzuno, and certainly Rika understand what he meant. Only Amane seemed to.

  “…Well, that was a pretty stupid idea,” she said listlessly, a trace of pity to her voice. “I don’t know where you guys came from, but do you think any mortal being has a chance against the full fury of nature?”

  “…?”

  Sariel gave Amane a quizzical look; Suzuno and Urushihara seemed just as lost. It should have been clear to Amane that Sariel was from Ente Isla—from the heavens above that planet, at least…

  “Because you must have thought you did, didn’t you?” she continued. “That’s why you tried doing something like that—because you thought you could. The Sephirot over in your world… It’s created some serious karma at this point, after all.”

  “Who…are you…?”

  “Oh, like that even matters. Lemme just warn you, though: This Ente Isla or whatever it is…it’s gonna have it pretty rough now, going forward. You prodded the hornet’s nest, and now it’s gonna sting back atcha. Exactly how, I couldn’t tell you, but it will, and bad.”

  “So be it,” Sariel intoned heavily as he pulled away from the tree. “Let it happen. I have no intention of returning.”

  “Lord Sariel!”

  Suzuno called for him as he turned around and began to walk off. His only response was a hand raised to the air. “I told you,” he said. “I’m in no position to support you right now, but I’m not actively opposing you, either. I have no intention of telling you anything, and I have no intention of helping you. That training session before was the exception that proves the rule, all right?”

  “That training session” must have meant his helping Chiho learn how to handle holy magic earlier. They offered to help mend fences with Kisaki in exchange, and he leaped at it greedily like a penguin chick greeting the arrival of summer. To Suzuno, he was in no position to act all prissy about it now.

  “…But,” he suddenly continued, “if Mayumi Kisaki were ever to fall into danger, I am prepared to toss my very life on the line. So no matter what you intend to do from now on, tell the Devil King this one thing for me: Tell him that no matter what happens, I will always step up to protect my goddess, Mayumi Kisaki; the MgRonald Hatagaya location and the crew that she loves with all her heart; and this shopping arcade that it is kind enough to call home.”

  “So,” Amane said as they watched Sariel walk back to his job. “How’s that grab ya, Rika?”

  “Kind of hard to tell. We’ve only talked once. But something tells me he could do a lot better than this, y’know?”

  “You’re damn right, Rika Suzuki,” Urushihara confirmed. “I think we can believe him, though. He’s, like, pretty crazy for Kisaki, and besides, there ain’t an angel or human who could beat ’im. Even with the demons, the only ones who’d try hittin’ Earth right now are the Malebranche, and ain’t no way they could take him on.”

  “Indeed,” Suzuno added. “I am concerned with how much holy force Lord Sariel has left to wield, but…this is perhaps an unexpected, and very welcome, boon for us.”

  Sariel had just declared that he would step up to protect the staff of the MgRonald in front of Hatagaya Station. Which meant that as long as they were on duty, Kisaki and Chiho were completely safe—especially with Amane on the scene, too. And no one was happier about that than Urushihara, given that it meant even the most dreadful of disasters wouldn’t require him to leave his computer any longer.

  “Okay, so…uh, I guess we kinda stormed outta the restaurant, but what’ll we do now?”

  Rika’s question made Suzuno turn back toward MgRonald. “I had thought we would wait until the end of their shift,” she said, “but perhaps we should return home and travel to Ueno later to prepare. My apologies, Amane, but would you mind driving the Devil King’s scooter again for me? To Ueno, this time.”

  “No problem, but what for?”

  “What other reason could there be?” a somewhat irritated Suzuno spat out as she glared at the second floor. “That idiot Devil King never acquired his license. If I let him drive it there and a police officer stopped him, he would be summarily arrested for driving without a license. As it stands, he would never agree to drive one right now. He would gripe endlessly about how he’d lose his job if he was found out, or how Alciel would scream to high heaven at him.”

  “Hey, I know I’m late asking this, but…he is the Devil King, right? Like, the king of an entire demon kingdom and everything?”

  Rika remained not wholly convinced. This was a Devil King afraid of traffic citations, and a so-called Church cleric showing genuine concern about what should have been the personification of evil in her religion.

  “…He is,” a deflated Suzuno replied. “This man who upholds the law, respects mankind, loves his career, and shows concern for the woman who wanted him dead is the King of All Demons and invader of Ente Isla. And that is exactly why Emilia and I have so much trouble with him.”

  The emotions behind that statement were so deep, dark, and conflicting that Rika never would’ve had any chance at fully comprehending them.

  It was one in the morning at Ueno-Onshi Park, in a corner of Tokyo’s Taito ward. Admittance into National Museum of Western Art grounds would normally be forbidden at this hour, but there were two people there, walking along a tiled path in the front lawn, watching carefully for guards or cameras as they pushed along a pair of roofed motor scooters packed with camping equipment.

  “Hey, you sure we’re good? No one’s gonna see us?”

  “…Look, are you sure you’re a Devil King?”

  Rika had already asked Maou that what seemed like a billion times. It didn’t exactly put Maou’s mind at ease.

  “I’m just sayin’, this is totally trespassing, what we’re doing right now. Even this late at night, there’s gotta be someone here in this park…”

  “Indeed. There are quite a few drinking establishments in the area. Many of the clubs around here remain open until dawn, in fact. Indeed, indeed…”

  “Look, Suzuno, can we just do this and get outta here already?! What if someone spots Chi and starts askin’ questions or whatever?”

  “Hey, um, Maou?”

  It was Amane who finally voiced her complaints over Maou’s excessive paranoia.

  “This is supposed to be the Devil King’s triumphant return to his homeland, ain’t it? Aren’t you supposed to act a lot more stately about it or whatever?”

  “Acting ‘stately’ isn’t gonna help me if I get arrested doing it! Ugh, I so wish I had gotten my license before this. I know it’s Ente Isla we’re going to, but…”

  “You’re so anal about the smallest things, seriously,” she continued. “Look, if something happens, I’ll fix it for you all, all right? So snap out of it! D’you think Chiho wants to put up with all this?”

  “Oh, no, um… I don’t really mind, or…”

  “Dude, I’m about to fall asleep. I can’t stay up all night like this while I’m still hurt, okay? So can we get movin’ with this, Bell?”

  “Honestly, you people…”

  For the grand departure that it was, it was sorely lacking in tension—something that drained the strength from Suzuno’s face, even though she needed all the strength she could muster right now.

  “Right,” she began. “I need all of you to be quiet. Gate magic requires intense concentration.” Then, without hesitation, she walked past a placard reading “SEISMIC ISOLATION PLATFORM—DO NOT STAND ON BASE” and stepped up to the platform their “gate” was situated on.

  Suzuno, by and large, had one worry at the moment. The Gates of Hell was a sculpture of great portent, to be sure—vast history was chiseled into it, the story of Earth,
mankind in all its permutations, writ large upon its surface. Whether that meant it’d serve as an amplifier powerful enough to open a Gate with was another matter entirely. The Gate’s potential was strictly guesswork on Maou and Ashiya’s part.

  “…”

  The bronze doors that formed Auguste Rodin’s masterpiece loomed above her now. Flanked on both sides by statues of Adam and Eve, it was meant to depict the entrance of hell from Canto III of “The Inferno” from the Divine Comedy, which described a certain famous inscription written on its arch: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

  “‘Abandon all hope,’ is it?”

  “What was that, Suzuno?” Chiho asked.

  Suzuno smiled. “Oh, just recalling the past. Never in my dreams did I expect to savor those words shoulder to shoulder with the Devil King. I’ve a feeling we might just be able to do this.”

  She took a bottle of 5-Holy Energy β out from her sleeve and gulped it down in one shot.

  “We never had any hope to begin with.”

  Slowly, Suzuno walked up to the gate, eyes fixated above. At the very top was a seated man looking down upon her. It was The Thinker, Rodin’s other masterpiece, and it formed both the keystone for the gate’s door frame and the artwork’s representation of Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy. Suzuno gave it a sincere nod, took a deep breath, and extended both hands toward the door. The next words out of her mouth were none of earthly origin.

  “”

  As she pronounced each syllable, particles of light began streaming from Suzuno’s fingertips to The Gates of Hell.

  “Wh-whoa…”

  Chiho couldn’t help but gasp in awe. Her own magical training enabled her to understand just how much energy was coursing through Suzuno’s body right now. She couldn’t even fathom the sheer quantity of force this stroke of magic required. Not even a hundred Chihos could’ve been enough.

  “Wow, this…this really looks like magic… This ain’t CGI or anything?”

  Despite having seen the Light of Iron and Acieth’s disappearing act for herself, Rika, eyes darting between Suzuno and the gate, couldn’t be blamed for blinking more than a few times at the display.

  The light particles grew thicker, soon forming two bands of light that enveloped Suzuno’s body and began to waver in the air. And amid the sound of her flapping kimono and the trees rustling in the wind, the sound of Amane muttering, “Huh. Weird,” went unnoticed by everyone. All eyes were on Suzuno, of course, so they couldn’t have noticed the fog that was billowing up from her feet and surrounding the entirety of the Gates.

  As the show continued, the bands of light around Suzuno began to emit what looked like lettering in the air.

  “”

  The moment the letters appeared, Suzuno’s expression clearly grew more pained. Chiho was struck with an impulse to lend a hand, but if she distracted her now, the entire spell would disappear in a wisp. It was absolutely massive, nothing on the level of an Idea Link.

  “It, it’s opening!” Maou shouted.

  The Gates, being a sculpture, weren’t literally opening for them—but now they could see the light dancing across its borders, and the air within was warping within itself.

  “We, we okay?” Urushihara shouted. He sounded anxious. The wrinkle in space was forming, but it showed no sign of opening for them. As if something was snagged on it, it began to close just as it seemed ready to burst open.

  “”

  Suzuno’s face was in anguish until she looked up. The man at the top of the gate looked blankly down at the cleric from another world. Was this cleric incapable of opening The Gates of Hell? No. This was Crestia Bell, the Scythe of Death herself. What would be a more suitable fate for her than hell itself?

  She took a deep breath, then another step forward.

  “”

  The call to arms that sent mankind forward against its most formidable of foes.

  “”

  As her voice rang out, the light bands swirling around Suzuno’s body whirlpooled down to a single point, flung themselves from her small hands, and smashed against the warped space in front of her.

  “”

  Her sweaty face told her audience exactly how grand and sublime a feat the opening was. Despite her inability to speak the local language any longer, she still had enough of her wits to raise a fist in the air and shout triumphantly.

  “”

  “S-sure!”

  In a rush, Suzuno climbed on her bike, Maou following suit. Once the helmet was strapped on, she gripped the brakes and turned on the engine.

  “Maou! Suzuno! Acieth!” Chiho called for her friends, just as they were about to depart. “We’ll take care of things over here! Be careful!”

  “Okay!”

  “We’ll be back!”

  Neither Suzuno nor Maou nor the invisible Acieth needed much in the way of words right now. Everyone knew by this point that, no matter where they went, they’d be right back in that cramped wooden apartment in Sasazuka—in Japan—before too long.

  The two scooter engines revved up, plunging Maou and Suzuno straight into the swirling light that spun in front of them. Then:

  “…They’re gone…”

  That was all a dumbfounded Rika could say. Like the end of a grandiose magic trick, Maou and Suzuno disappeared with neither a sound nor a trace the moment they touched that crack that opened in front of the Gates. All that remained was a small rift, an eerie light emanating out from it.

  “…Be careful,” Chiho whispered once more. The ring she was clutching, the one with the Yesod fragment inside it, glowed softly.

  “Okay, so…now what?” Rika asked, still clearly bewildered as her head bobbed between the Gate and Chiho.

  “We wait. That’s all we really need to do. Just wait for Maou and Suzuno to get Yusa and Alas Ramus and Ashiya back.”

  Unlike Rika’s wavering voice, Chiho’s was fully resolute. It was so sure about what the future held for them all that Rika was taken aback by it.

  “B-but…”

  “Well, okay, I don’t mean juuust wait. I need to go to Ms. Kisaki during my next shift and ask her which location I can start my delivery training at.”

  “Huh?” Rika moaned, confused at the ever-so-slight difference in weight between what just happened and what Chiho had just told her. “Wh-why’re you bringing that up?”

  “Because Maou said he wanted to do it,” she cheerfully replied. “I want to tell him everything I learned during my training session once he gets back. That’ll take some of the burden off him once he starts his new position.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a helpful spouse before in my life,” Amane ironically exclaimed. “Well, perfect! That’s what teamwork’s all about, anyways. Doing what you can for your friends.”

  “I…”

  Rika still didn’t know how to parse Chiho. So much younger than her, yet so much more…put together. Brave, even.

  “Ah, you’re still just a beginner at this, Rika,” Amane advised. “Just try to picture Yusa back here safe and sound, all right? Try to mentally prepare for that and stuff.”

  “Prepare for it…?”

  “…’Kay, I’m outta here,” Urushihara characteristically muttered.

  “Uh, but what about that rift?”

  Just as Rika pointed at the Gate hole Suzuno had opened up, it gradually shrank into a single dot in the air before disappearing completely. Beyond it, The Gates of Hell loomed, just as it did during opening hours. Nothing had changed to it; the only evidence Maou and Suzuno had been there at all were the fresh tire tracks they had left on the tile as
they peeled off.

  “Well, shall we, then?” Amane suggested as the fog spouting from under her feet began to dissipate, returning Ueno-Onshi Park to its quiet late-night atmosphere. “While nobody’s spotted us, at least?”

  Urushihara took the chance to look at the park’s clock tower. It was half past one—late enough that even a grown-up wandering park grounds might attract police attention.

  “Hey, you sure it’s okay for you to be walking around this late, Chiho Sasaki?”

  “Oh, it’s fine with my parents. I’m going to be staying at Suzuno’s place tonight.”

  “Huh?” Urushihara’s eyebrows rose. “You’re comin’ with me? I thought Amane was shackin’ up in there already.”

  Chiho, in response, sized Amane up with her eyes. “Oh, you’ll be fine in your room, Urushihara. No need to worry about us.”

  “…Dude, I don’t really like how you’re assuming I’m just gonna sit in the closet this whole time.”

  “That’s not really what I meant,” Chiho countered, “but this… Well, I can’t even tell Maou about this, sadly. It’s not really something we could do if he or Yusa or Suzuno were here, and really, if you wouldn’t mind holing up in your closet… Okay, the room is fine, too, but if you could chill inside for a few days, that’d really help us out.”

  “Geez, dude,” Urushihara replied, unable to pick up on what Chiho was saying between the words. “So now you’re commanding me to be an outcast to society?”

  Chiho, ignoring him, turned to Amane.

  “Amane?”

  “Hmm? Why’re you lookin’ so serious?”

  “You said you couldn’t tell Maou and the other demons about anything their landlord hasn’t already said to them, right?”

  Amane’s face, a good length taller than Chiho’s as she looked down upon her, suddenly brightened a little. She flashed a defiant smile.

  “So what about me by myself?”

  “…Well, that depends on what you’re asking, I s’pose. But why do you think you deserve to know more than them?”

  That was the only “examination” Amane saw fit to give her. And Chiho, without a moment’s hesitation, passed with flying colors.