The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 5 (19 page)

Emi, realizing after a few moments that the jumble of syllables she just uttered were meant to mean Gabriel, leaped back and brandished her holy sword without a second thought.

Urushihara told her that Gabriel was back in Japan, but running into the angel as she was snooping around for holy-force sonar clues was totally unexpected.

She had defeated him once before, but he was still a powerful archangel, the symbol of all that was holy up in heaven. Emi stared him down, ready to react to so much as a single twitch.

“You
scaaaaared
me, girl!”

The first reaction Gabriel made was to warble out that shaky-voiced whine.

“I, like…
totally
didn’t notice, mm-kay? S-since when were you bumpin’ around down there?”

He glared sullenly at Emi, hands crossed at the elbows, his lips a clear shade of blue.

“It, it, it’s
collllld
up here!!”

“…Well, don’t look at me.”

Emi found it hard to think of anything else.

In a remarkably inspired fit of fashion coordination, Gabriel’s toga—right at home at a summer party in ancient Greece—was paired with a T-shirt with an
I LUV LA
logo on it. His legs were bare, the sight of which Emi did not appreciate very much, and he wore his sandals without so much as a pair of insulating socks.

All of his garments, except for the T-shirt perhaps, naturally held untold powers that Gabriel could wield at will against his foes. The power of warmth, sadly, did not seem to be among them.

“I-I mean, E-Emilia? What’re
you
doing here? Th-the Skytree isn’t even open yet! It won’t be up to full two-thousand-eighty-foot mode until later!”

His teeth chattered a bit as he complained at her.

“I-I-I guess the humans sure did one on me, huh? Yeah, I ain’t
ever
seen nothin’ like this in Ente Isla. Or h-heaven, even! Like,
maybe
the Devil’s Castle was T-Tokyo Tower height, but…I didn’t think it’d be so cold and windy up…
Grphhoo!
”

The archangel’s unhygienic sneeze spread particles of spittle across the city sky. Emi was unimpressed, pointing the tip of her blade at him.

“I’d like to know why
you’re
here. Weren’t you fired from your Yesod-fragment job?”

“Yeaaaah, about that. You got any t-tissues or something? Like, p-premoisturized would be nice right about now.”

If Gabriel felt any danger at Emi’s presence, he was doing a good job hiding it. But there was no reason to treat him with kid gloves. Not after what he’d tried to do to Alas Ramus.

In a flash, Emi ran up to Gabriel, bringing her sword’s tip to his chest as she had done once before.

“You haven’t forgotten about earlier, have you? I was never a very patient woman.”

“Oh, c’mon! You treat angels and demons the exact same way, girl!”

The wind was starting to make Gabriel tear up.

“Look, I… Y-you know, I told Lucifer, but I don’t care even in the
slightest
about you or the Better Half or those silly little demons, ’kay? Cross my heart, I’m serious! I’m just here on a bit of a business assignment, so as long as you guys keep all bein’ good little boys and girls for me…”

“Sorry, not gonna happen. That’s why
I’m
here. Did you fire off those sonar bursts?”

“……”

Emi, the wind to her back, chose her words carefully. For now, she had no clear signal that the angels, as Urushihara theorized, were after Laila.

“Do you remember the girl who knew all about us? That sonar put her in a coma.”

“Huh? Really?”

Was that an honest expression of surprise, or just Gabriel being Gabriel? Either way, the natural-born class clown of heaven’s face betrayed sheer dismay. He opened his mouth and took a deep breath.

“Hehhh-
choooo
!!”

Rather a lot of force behind that one.

Then, at that moment, Gabriel vanished from Emi’s view, her sword left jabbing at emptiness.

“…!!”

“Mommy! Not there!”

Following the holy force, Emi whirled her sword behind her back.

“‘Bzzzt’!”

Then she felt a finger against the back of her head.

“Bang! I win.”

“……”

The Better Half’s blade sliced through nothing but the fog of holy power Gabriel unleashed as a decoy. The real Gabriel was behind her, upside down in the air, putting his finger against Emi’s head like a pistol.

“Maybe I don’t have much of a chance with your sword from the front. But I can always skin this cat another way, right?”

She could sense the holy energy surging into his finger.

“…You gonna kill me and take Alas Ramus?”

Emi’s voice was almost lost in the high-altitude wind.

“Oh, of course not! Now why would I do that when I don’t even know how that child’s fused with you? I’d be super
double
screwed if I killed her, too!”

Suddenly, the holy force rapidly dwindled, the murderous rage she sensed behind her head disappearing.

“Instead…can you tell me more about that girl in the coma?”

“Huh?”

“’Cause all
I
did was make sure the test broadcasts from this tower didn’t interfere with what Tokyo Tower was transmitting. Didn’t want that to dilute our sonar’s accuracy. I don’t know how Raguel was actually firing that stuff off, really. He didn’t say anything about it knocking the people of
this
world unconscious.”

Emi turned her head, never letting her guard down for a moment. She tried her best to stare down Gabriel, although she found it slow going, considering his current inverted state.

“It’s
that
girl, huh? Chiho Sasaki? That cute girl who’s gone all ‘teen romance’ for the Devil King? She works at the same place he does, doesn’t she? I think Sariel mentioned that.”

“Why do you care about that? Are you gonna kidnap Chiho and treat her like a lab animal? The way Sariel wanted to?”

“Uh…? He was trying to do
that
?”

Gabriel wiped his nose, then used the momentum to feverishly shake his head, arms wide open.

“Did you honestly think
I’m
that depraved, too? ’Cause that really hurts, my dear. I just wanna know what that girl’s suffering from, is all.”

“…Why do you want to know so badly?”

Gabriel scratched one of his cheeks awkwardly.

“Wellllll… Maybe I don’t wanna get so directly involved the way Sariel did, but I guess we both wanna know a little, y’know? I mean, you know how folks on Earth research stuff like evolution and genes and all that, right?”

Something about Gabriel’s phrasing disgusted him. She was leaning over his face now, not bothering to hide her frustrated rage.

“You expect me to tell you after saying
that
to me?”

“…Is that a ‘nah’? Though given everything we’ve done to you guys, I guess it’s a bit much to sit down and have a nice chat over coffee at this point, huh? So how ’bout we do a little business instead, pray tell?”

“Business?”

A particularly strong gust of wind blew Emi’s long hair into the dark sky.

“I’ll even pay in advance! I’ll leak a couple of particularly tasty tidbits to you first. Then you can decide for yourself whether you wanna talk about Chiho Sasaki or not.”

“…Like you can prove you’re not lying through your teeth. I’m not gonna sell my friends over some story the enemy plants into my brain.”

“That’s why I
saaaaid
, you can decide for yourself! Talk or not, it’s all good in the ’hood! I’ve got a sneakin’ suspicion you’ll consider it, though, once I’m done.”

Finally taking the time to put himself right side up, Gabriel gave his wings a light flap as he landed on the roof of the observation deck.

“For example, what if I told you that your father…that Nord Justina is still alive?”

“Wha…?!”

The unexpected angle the words took on the way to Emi’s ears made the shock clear upon her face. The reaction seemed to cheer Gabriel up noticeably. He chuckled a bit from deep down in his throat.

“Wanna hear more?”

“…ah.”

Emi wasn’t allowed the time to formulate a response.

“Oh, wait…wait, get away from me, get…
Geh-shooo!
”

His entire head twisted in pain, no longer able to stem the tide rising from his chest, Gabriel sneezed heartily upon Emi’s face.

“…………”

The gusting wind chilled the completely unwelcome liquid particles that now covered Emi’s cheek.

“Hngh!”

The young woman lowered the butt of her sword onto Gabriel’s head.

“Gahh! Ugh, my eyes… They’re pounding…”

“Keep it short, and I’ll listen to you. But if Alas Ramus thinks you’re lying, I’ll help your head kiss your ass good-bye for you.”

“Oh,
jeez
, lady…! Why d’you have to treat both me
and
the demons like we’re some kinda plague…?”

A quick glance at Gabriel’s blubbering countenance gave her all the reassurance she needed.

“I show my foes zero kindness. And that goes double for Alas Ramus’s foes.”

The archangel raised both hands up in a surrender posture.

Five minutes later, the two of them were inside the freshly constructed observation deck.

The lack of wind made things blessedly warmer for both.

Masking sheets were draped here and there on the walls and floor. The space was still clearly a work in progress.

“Hey, I think it’s gotten a lot warmer. You want some?”

Gabriel took a can of coffee out from somewhere within his toga. He showed it to Emi.

“Mommy, no drink! He’s mean!”

Alas Ramus, her animosity for Gabriel clearer than ever, was now materialized and hovering around Emi’s legs.

Emi didn’t need the warning. There was no telling
what
Gabriel used to warm that can up.

“Oh, come onnn! I didn’t spike it or anything, okay?”

Gabriel tried to defend himself. But poison wasn’t the issue to Emi.

“Sorry, but I’m not interested in accepting food or drink from people outside of this world. Tea’s fine by me, so just say what you’re gonna say and get your ass back to heaven.”

“Jeez, what a slave driverrrr! Y’know, it’s funny, though. That myth about ‘oooh, no, don’t eat anything from the afterlife, you’ll never come baaaaack!’ The same thing in Earth
and
Ente Isla, huh?”

Gabriel, not looking particularly offended, popped the top off his can of low-sugar coffee.

“Oooooh, this hits the spot…”

He remained unhurried, as always. She knew this was all part of his strategy, but she found herself tapping her fingernails against the wall regardless.

“I’m not here for light conversation, Gabriel. If you want anything from me, talk about my father
now
.”

“Oh, you’ll listen?”

“If I think you’re lying, it ends. Right there.”

“Don’t lie to Mommy!”

Being accused of deceit in stereo by a mother-daughter pair was enough to deflate even Gabriel’s monstrous ego.

“…Well, like I said, you can listen to me, and then
you
decide what to do, all right? I’ve got things to tell you about besides Nord Justina, anyway.”

Gabriel held the coffee can lovingly in both hands.

“So, listen. Heaven’s, like, about
thiiiiis
close to being pretty well cut in two, yeah? It’s like nothing ever before… Well, okay, not nothing
ever
before, but we’re talking, like,
maaaaybe
once every thousand years or so. And your mom and dad…and where
you
came from, too…plays a
huuuuge
role in it.”

“…I don’t need reams of exposition, okay? Just cut to the chase. I get that this guy Raguel is pursuing my mom Laila, for whatever reason. …Did my family do something to piss you guys off, or…?”

“Oooh, not exactly that, but I
do
think y’all kinda went out of your way to make life difficult for us.”

Gabriel smiled weakly, taking great care not to let his true thoughts come to the surface.

“But really, Laila and Nord are just one facet of it all. I mean, if you don’t mind a little angel straight talk for a sec, there’s you, there’s the Devil King Satan, there’s that Yesod fragment… And why stop there, even? There’s Lucifer, there’s that cleric chick in the kimono, there’s Satan’s ever-faithful lapdog… And Chiho Sasaki, too. They’re
all
involved now. And, eesh, you could
also
say that for everybody else on Earth, huh?”

“Didn’t I just tell you to keep it short?”

Emi remained peeved.

“All right, all right! What, you got a plane to catch or something? I’m just tryin’ to set everything up so you realize how mind-blowing it all is when I open the curtain.”

Gabriel’s eyes turned down toward his can of coffee.

“But first off… Just to be sure we’re on the same page and all, we angels…we’re not exactly strangers to this world.”

“Huh?”

“Our job descriptions, you know, they can be summed up pretty easily. If something poses a danger to heaven, we do whatever it takes to avoid it. Simple, huh? I know it’s extreme, but we really don’t care how many people the Devil King’s army kills down on Ente Isla. As long as it doesn’t put heaven in danger,
hakuna matata
, baby. Do a poll around heaven—they’re all gonna say that.”

It was a candidly worded statement, but it had the power to send any religious man or woman on Ente Isla into hysterics.

“So, like, when the demons got pushed out of Ente Isla, you got blown all the way to Earth, right, Emilia? And once that happened, you officially became a certified, bona-fide danger to heaven.”

“How delightful to hear. Why?”

“Aw, don’t you remember, lady? Like, when I told you to think again a little about what you really are?”

It was true. It had been one of his parting shots after nobly fleeing their first battle over Alas Ramus.

“What I really am?”

“Yeah. Ummm… This might not really be the best example, but maybe it’ll help you understand a little more. Like…you know how people and chimps can’t interbreed, right?”

“Huhh?!”