In no part thanks to that, Maou and the gang were the only ones left in the public space.
Right when the TV switched from a quick news update to a series of ad spots for the day’s wacky variety programming:
“I have it!” Suzuno finally lifted her head above the notebook.
“You have what? What have you even been doing this whole time?”
“This is the first time I’ve had to write out all of the formulas from scratch since…my time at the seminary, if I recall. I’ve found it, Emilia.”
“And?”
Suzuno beamed.
“Chiho’s body is the perfect picture of health. She is young, and strong. As soon as tomorrow—no later than two or three days—her body will neutralize the demonic force, and she will awaken.”
“S-seriously?!”
Suzuno’s appraisal made Maou jump out of his seat with a clatter. Ashiya looked dubiously at her.
“How…how are you so sure of that?”
“It would perhaps be easier to demonstrate with an experiment. Give me your hand, Alciel.”
“What?”
He extended his arm, eyebrows still arched downward, and obediently clasped hands with Suzuno. Then:
“Nrrhh!!”
With a groan, Ashiya’s entire body glowed dimly for a moment. The next instant, his hair stood on end, as if he had just stuck a fork in a power outlet.
“Gnh…nh… Wha-what are you doing?!”
Ashiya glared at Suzuno with unfocused eyes, having trouble articulating his complaint at first.
“That hard on a demon, is it? That was the same level of force as the sonar I probed Chiho’s body with.”
“…Sonar?”
Maou’s eyes came to attention. He hadn’t heard that word in a while.
Come to think of it, Suzuno’s compassionate caress of Chiho’s hand seemed a little too forced to be sincere. She must have been sonar-ing up and down her body then.
“Before one can undertake full training in the holy arts, they use this method to measure your body’s core receptiveness to magic. This can greatly affect how one’s holy magic affects their body, as you know.”
“Y-yeah…”
“A form of holy sonar is run across the body, containing a spell meant to examine its contents. Gauging the reactions one receives from each section of the body allows you to gain a general idea of their receptiveness. The human body can react in a variety of complex ways, so normally you would use specialized instruments for this procedure, but a caster can use their own senses if an approximate calculation will suffice.”
Suzuno pointed out the ten or so pages of Emi’s notebook she had filled with her mysterious scrawl.
“Of course, even an approximate calculation can take quite a bit of time if you do it by hand.”
Maou and the hair-on-end Ashiya pouted ruefully at her. Urushihara was still focused on the TV.
“Look, I don’t need the deep-cuts version, all right? Cut to the chase!”
“Before that, I need to ask. Emilia, why did you diagnose Chiho’s condition as magic poisoning?”
“I followed this light into the hospital.”
Emi extracted the bottle with the Yesod fragment from her bag. It made Maou’s eyebrows arch up a bit.
“…That’s the piece Camio had, huh? You didn’t give it to Alas Ramus?”
“If I fuse it with her, I can’t pluck it back out later, you know? I kept it because I thought we’d have to look for the other fragments, sooner or later. I can’t go brandishing my holy sword around in public to search for them.”
“Oh… Right.”
Emi explained her motives—the woman in white at Tokyo Big-Egg Town, the way she healed Alas Ramus, and the Yesod fragment she tried to track her down with.
“I busted it out near the Tokyu Hand in Shinjuku, but I wasn’t expecting to find it after less than thirty minutes of walking. And who could’ve known Chiho, of all people, had it…”
The story of Chiho in a coma at the hospital was shocking enough. But when Emi came to see her, she could feel, clear as day, the residual signs of demonic force.
That, combined with the ring on Chiho’s finger, made it impossible for Emi to figure it out by herself—so off she went to Devil’s Castle for assistance.
“So why did you not call myself or the Devil King?” Suzuno inquired.
She had a good point. Emi knew perfectly well that Maou, Ashiya, and Suzuno were somewhere in Shinjuku at that point in time. But the reply came from Urushihara.
“’Cause I called her. I needed to talk to her about somethin’…but it kinda doesn’t matter now. I wanna hear Bell’s full diagnosis first.”
His eyes never left the TV screen.
“…So, that’s the long and short of it. I saw all kinds of people afflicted by demonic force in Ente Isla, and Chiho reminded me of all of them. That, and there’s no way I should detect demonic power from Chiho, of all people. So I figured she was poisoned right off, but…”
Suzuno nodded in agreement.
“Emilia’s intuition is half correct, half mistaken.”
“How so?”
“Chiho, indeed, suffers from demonic poisoning. But not from an external source. The demonic power was generated from within, due to a dangerous energy imbalance in her body.”
“?!”
Maou and Ashiya joined Emi in a clear gasp of shock, striking the point home. Even Urushihara looked back toward Suzuno sharply.
“Generated from within Chiho’s body?”
“One might say that Chiho’s own spiritual energy transformed into demonic force.”
“Uhhh, wait. Hang on a sec.”
Maou raised a hand in the air.
“Is that kind of thing even possible?!”
“Assuming my calculations are correct, yes. That, and the equations themselves, handed down from generations of Church doctrine.”
“Well, do it over again,” Maou demanded.
Suzuno pouted, indignant.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I could not believe it myself at first, so I double-checked every calculation before reaching my conclusion.”
“But…demonic power from within? Chi’s a human being. A Japanese girl. She’s from Earth!”
“I understand what you are trying to say, but have you already forgotten your past? You regained your Devil King form on more than one occasion here in Japan by absorbing demonic energy from the hearts of mankind.”
“I… Well, yeah, but…”
“Regardless. After estimating the remaining demonic force within Chiho’s body with my sonar, it is clear that this is a case of poisoning, though not one serious enough to threaten her life. She fell into a coma due to her body consuming its strength in the act of trying to push it back and neutralize it, but the holy force I infused within my sonar should help catalyze the process. Once that is complete, she will wake up naturally.”
“So if all the pieces are put together…you’re saying that you almost vaporized my person just now?”
Suzuno let the irate jab from Ashiya slide with a smile.
If she was telling the truth, no one had any reason to worry about Chiho’s safety. But discovering the cause only led to a completely different problem rearing its ugly head:
Chiho, a mere human, was generating demonic force within herself, and they had no idea what was inducing this. Furthermore, in her comatose state, she was wearing a ring festooned with a Yesod fragment.
Emi racked her brain for some sort of hint.
“This may not lead to anything…but I think Chiho’s ring is the same kind as the one that woman in white had on.”
“You think?”
“Well, I was kind of in a panic, all right? I don’t really remember what kind of ring it was. But I think it looked like that.”
“Yeah, great. Really useful, Emi. So why’s that ring on her finger?”
“Maybe…that woman in white put it on her, for some reason…”
“Oh
, come on! Let’s worry about where it came from later, okay? The thing we really need to be thinking over right now is…”
“The external cause of Chiho Sasaki’s body generating that force, right?”
“…Urushihara?”
Everyone focused on the man, whose gaze was still fixated upon the TV.
“Demonic force in her body is weird, dude. Real weird. But judging by how you guys keep on transforming, it’s totally likely that humans in this world…you know, just do that, right? But either way, someone or something acted upon Chiho to make her do that.”
“Could you at least stop watching TV and face us?”
Emi was clearly irritated. Urushihara paid it no mind, currently enthralled in a local-interest news story about a regional cook-off in one rural burg or another. “I told you that I called Yusa, didn’t I? Yusa, the girl who never saw me as anything besides a breathing vending machine and line wrangler. Why do you think she bothered answering my call?”
Emi scowled.
“Because you said that Gabriel paid a visit to Villa Rosa Sasazuka.”
“Gabriel did?!”
The other three in the room were instantaneously stupefied.
“That huge, slimy freak better not have laid a finger on her…” Maou growled.
“Yeah, I wish the story was that simple. He came in on other business,” Urushihara replied. “Apparently he’s been put on desk duty after screwing up the Yesod-fragment hunt one too many times. Now they’re looking for some relic from the Demon Overlord Satan or whoever.”
Emi rolled her eyes.
“Desk duty? You think this is some kind of cop drama?”
“A ‘relic from the Demon Overlord’…?”
“You know that, Maou?”
“Hope it’s worth money. I could use some of that…though the inheritance tax would probably be a deal breaker. …Yeah, I think it rings a bell, but I don’t see why folks up in heaven would get in a lather searching for it.”
“Whoa. Glad to see we’re both on the same level, Maou.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Anyway, I guess Gabriel’s searching for that…whatever it is, but there’s a chance they’ve sent another angel down in his place. And if they have, I know who it’ll be.”
“Yo, Suzuno. If you have even a shred of conscience left as a cleric, go back to Ente Isla and take down the Church as the idol-worshipping fraud it is,” Maou grumbled.
“…I have no defense.”
Suzuno hung her head down low. Meanwhile, Ashiya crossed his arms.
“My, my, my. Between this lazy shut-in and that girl chaser… Is there anyone at all half decent up there?”
“Dude, don’t lump me in with them, Ashiya. I left ’cause I hated it, remember?”
“‘Left’?”
“So you’re saying that even you, the self-described shut-in, has some self-awareness?”
“Geh…”
Ashiya tipped his head lightly at Urushihara’s words, but as soon as all that, Maou thrust in, and Urushihara was only able to get a single word out.
“A-anyway!”
The fallen angel sputtered through his attempt to continue:
“If we’re gonna believe Gabriel, they sent the Observer down here to Japan.”
“The Observer…? Raguel? The angel who oversees the behavior of all the other angels?”
Urushihara nodded at Suzuno.
“He’s not all that high on the ladder, so to speak. Gabriel could probably whip his ass in a fair fight, and he’s not a Sephirah guardian, either. Thing is, though, Raguel’s been granted certain…powers the others don’t have.”
“The Call of the End Times…?” Suzuno muttered.
“Good evening. It’s the end of the week and time for your Friday evening news…”
The newscaster on TV demonstrated impeccable timing.
“……”
All eyes rested upon Suzuno. She turned red once she realized why.
“Wh-what? A mere coincidence!”
“……”
Then all eyes swiveled their way back toward Urushihara.
“I did not intend to do that! It is not my doing!” Suzuno protested.
Urushihara ignored her.
“I don’t know how the Call of the End Times was described in Ente Islan mythology, but it’s nothing all that fancy. Raguel has the power to observe the other angels, judge them as necessary, and announce the results to the rest of heaven. It usually involves booting angels out of the club, though.”
“Fallen angels?”
“Yeah. They set that whole system up not long after I left heaven. The Observer levies his judgment, and the Evil Eye of the Fallen carries out his sentence.”
“You mean…Sariel?”
It wasn’t a name Maou expected to come up.
“Think about it, dude. If Sariel was the sole judge, jury, and executioner when it came to kicking out angels, there wouldn’t be a single man left in heaven.”
Maou, Emi, and Suzuno exchanged glances. It was an extremely persuasive explanation.
“I know it looks like everyone just does what they want up there, but inside the bureaucracy, you’re pretty restricted in how you can use your powers. Not too different in the human world, either, right? The same kinda idea as why the soldier with his finger on the A-bomb button doesn’t try taking over the world.”
“But why is Raguel in Japan? The way you’re putting it, it doesn’t sound like he makes all that good of a substitute for Gabriel, given his power levels.”
Urushihara nodded at Emi’s question. “Well, if you assume that Raguel ain’t here to bring Gabriel back to heaven…I’m guessing he’s here to lay judgment on someone.”
“It might not be ‘doves’ like me paying house calls any longer.”
The warning was clear upon Urushihara’s mind.
“What kind of judgment?”
“You don’t know?”
Maou’s question seemed far less weighty to him than Emi’s.
“Neither of you? The King of All Demons and the half-angel Hero over there?”
Urushihara then turned to Suzuno.
“Heaven stood by blithely while the Devil King’s army ran roughshod over Ente Isla. So why’s it sending angels down to Japan, on another world, like it’s goin’ outta style? You ever think about that?”
For Suzuno, a high-level Church cleric who sent many of her sect’s knights to their doom while proclaiming all the while that her god’s blessings were on their side, the question was enough to crush her.
“…No matter how many Ente Islans lose their lives, it never affects the heavens at all…” she whispered.
“Bingo.”
A cruel reply.
“But if they think it’s their fault, they’ll try to fix it…in the way they prefer to do it. You get me? Maou, Yusa, and Ashiya and Bell, too, of course—you’re all getting close to a truth the heavens want to keep hidden; you’re keeping Sephirah fragments to yourself; and you used your innate powers to dispatch multiple frontline angels. If Raguel declares you to be an enemy of all heaven…”
The newscast, playing to Maou’s crew and nobody else, played footage from a civil war in one nation or another.
“That’s when heaven’s gonna start gettin’ serious. They’ll make Gabriel’s Heavenly Regiment look like a bunch of kindergartners.”
“…Bullcrap!” Maou hammered an angry fist down on the table. “Then why didn’t they just attack us directly this time, too?!”
“Dunno, man. All this assumes that we can believe what Gabriel told me. For all we know, they’re after something totally unrelated to us—that ‘woman in white,’ for example. We have no idea where Chiho Sasaki’s ring came from, right?”
“So what do you want us to do? We can hardly just sit here and wait for Raguel to take action. That could lead to more victims like Ms. Sasaki.”
“Yeah, about that. I actually got ideas along those lines, so I’ve been waiting for a bit
now.”
“Waiting? For what…?”
“Now for a roundup of the day’s top news.”
The newscaster chose that moment to wrap up his civil-war coverage and launch into a recap of Japan’s main news stories of the day.
“Technicians are still looking into a bug that’s inconvenienced users across the metro area, one that’s preventing TV-compatible cell phones and tablets from receiving broadcasts.”
“Oh, that wasn’t just Dokodemo?”
Emi, who had spent much of the past few days assuaging irate customers about that exact issue, perked up at the mention.
The screen showed some hapless phone-company executive apologizing at a press conference, bowing down low as he drowned in a blaze of camera flashes.
Then:
“Geh!”
“Whoa!”
“Agh!”
As if thrown off balance by the litany of flashes, Maou and Ashiya fell off of their chairs.
Urushihara managed to grab on to the table in time, but his knees were visibly trembling.
“Wh-what’s wrong with you guys?”
“Are you all right?!”
Emi helped Maou up and Suzuno lent a hand to Ashiya, both wondering why they had been suddenly blown aside by nothing in particular.
“Huh?”
“Wha?!”
When they set eyes on the two demons, however, their eyes popped out of their sockets.
Their hair was on end, as if they had been electrocuted.
Poor Ashiya, fresh from Suzuno’s sonar probing, had his hair going every which direction, as if he purchased an economy-sized jar of hair wax and figured he better use it all before the sell-by date.
“What is going on with you people?!”
“…That’s what I want to know.” Maou’s voice was shaky and cheerless.
“Emilia and Bell didn’t notice that? Must be that receptiveness you guys have…”
Urushihara looked unfazed at first glance, but he still sounded a bit pained as he gestured toward the TV.
In the midst of this furor, the news had already moved on to a story about the nationwide heat wave leading to an epidemic of heatstroke cases.
“Wh-what? The TV? Huh? A-all right, all right, gimme a sec!”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 5 Page 14