The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 5 (24 page)

All that remained in the room was the can of low-sugar coffee Gabriel had left on the floor as a souvenir.

Around the point that he suggested her father might be in Japan, Gabriel started pressing her for payment—in the form of how Chiho was doing.

Emi was shaken. She had zero intention of divulging anything about a friend as precious as Chiho, but now a part of her heart was literally playing devil’s advocate for her, suggesting that spilling the beans might get her that bit closer to her father.

But time did not allow Emi to waver.

Below her, as her mind foundered between her desires and her conscience, an enormous mass of energy zoomed by.

“Ah, crap crap crap
crap
.”

The easy grin on Gabriel’s face disappeared. He finished off the remaining coffee.

“Okay, that’s all for now. I kinda gotta cover my ass for the time being, so this little confab’s over. Let’s call that info I gave you a freebie, all right? Feel free to pay me back next time. With interest!”

“W-wait a—”

“Though I s’pose it ain’t easy for you, but…”

His face had an uncharacteristic somberness to it. Then he used one magic or another to float right through the walls and windows, and then he was flitting outside the observation deck.

“…it’s not like everybody in heaven uses their job title as carte blanche to do anything they want, y’know? We just don’t wanna die, like everybody else. And maybe I don’t, like, show it off much, but I know full well that folks down there are worshipping us.”

And soon, he left, flying toward the mystery blob of energy. Both of them traveled south.
Something must be happening at Tokyo Tower, where Maou is.

But it still couldn’t make Emi move.

Who should she be fighting? What reason did she have? What did she have to protect? It was all chaos in her mind.

“Hey…Alas Ramus?”

“Oo?”

“I think this Hero stuff’s too much of a load on my shoulders. I used to be a simple farm girl, just like all the others around me. Maybe if I had some better schooling from a younger age, I could’ve had some more resolve. Like, forget about the little details, just slay the Devil King! That kind of thing.”

“No Hero? You don’t like it?”

She couldn’t understand some of the loftier concepts, but it was remarkable how Alas Ramus grasped at the crux of it, beautifully encapsulating what Emi wanted to say.

“I used to. I did. But if I was never the Hero, I probably never would’ve run into you, so I don’t think it’s so bad now.”

“Nee-hee!”

“Alas Ramus?”

“Yeahh?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Alas Ramus blinked a couple times at the question.
Must be too young for that talk
, Emi figured.

“I wanna be Rewax-Berr!”

Or not. Her eyes twinkled as she raised two triumphant arms in the air.

Emi wasn’t expecting an actual occupation, but the response she earned threw her for such a loop that silence reigned for a few moments. Then, a soft smile came across her face.

“You want to be Relax-a-Bear, huh?”

“Yehh! And, and…”

Alas Ramus climbed up on Emi’s body. It was an effective debating tactic.

“…cuwwy!”

“Huh?”

Emi furrowed her brows. She had never fed curry to Alas Ramus before.

The Devil’s Castle promised they were feeding her age-appropriate food as well. Curry would’ve been out of the question. So why was it her favorite thing now?

“Mommy love Rewax-Berr and cuwwy! I love Mommy, too! When I grow up, Alas Ramus, Rewax-Berr! Cuwwy!”

“…Oh.”

When she grew up, she wanted to be the things Emi loved.

Emi could feel the tears coming. She hugged the little girl close, in order to distract herself.

“I’m sorry. Guess Mommy’s turning into a wimp, huh?”

“Eat cuwwy?”

“Once Chiho’s all better, let’s all go eat some together.”

“Okeh!”

Alas Ramus shot her right hand upward in approval.

“Mph.”

And hit Emi in the nose.

“…Heh. Maybe I needed that, huh?”

The tears came back, for a different reason this time. Emi finally found it in her to stand back up.

“Not like it’s the first time I’ve decided to procrastinate large decisions. Right now, I’ve gotta take action to protect what’s in front of me. What happens later…I can think about then.”

For now, as long as Raguel was clearly hurting Chiho, Laila, and Japan in general, he was undoubtedly Emi’s foe.

Gabriel had just let slip that he was trying to avoid interference between Raguel’s sonar waves from the Tokyo Tower and the digital test broadcasts from the Skytree.

Which meant that the main field of battle was clearly going to be Tokyo Tower—Maou, Ashiya, and Raguel, all in one place.

And if they were going to take on Gabriel or Raguel in combat, they had zero chance of winning. Beyond that, there was the danger of the Devil King being taken back to Ente Isla, as Suzuno suggested.

“I still don’t know how to deal with this…but I can’t have him that far away from me!”

She felt safe in exclaiming it out loud. Nobody from the ground was going to pick on her about it.

So she retraced her steps, running through the same service corridor to reach the observation deck’s roof. It was right when she focused on her legs in preparation for a full-strength leap that she was interrupted.

“Ooh, not right now. Tokyo Tower’s shut away in Maou’s demonic barrier. If you try to force your way in, that’ll break the barrier and probably hurt a lot of people and stuff.”

“…
Ngh!
Wh-who’s there?!”

Nobody should have been in the Skytree except for Emi and Alas Ramus. And Alas Ramus was fused within her.

“I sure am glad to see you, though! Good to see everybody’s still here in Japan, too.”

The light was streaming down from above Emi’s vantage point on the roof.

The form within it continued speaking to the speechless Hero.

“Let’s go together, okay? I’ll make an entrance for you.”

“Ch-Chiho… Why are you…”

“Are you ready, Yusa?”

Chiho, bathed in a holy golden light, didn’t wait for Emi’s response as she loaded a holy-force arrow into the silvery bow of light she summoned out of thin air.

“…!”

Then, with a sudden release of concentration, the silver air penetrated the night sky, sending Chiho and Emi southward through the air on its light trail.

Their forms were lost in the dazzling light. All that remained to break the silence was the blustering wind beating against the scaffolding.

“Oooh, things’re getting fun now, huh?”

Gabriel defiantly looked down upon the two demons within their world of green light. The Afro man, between Satan and Alciel, sullenly glared at his heavenly partner.

“No. Not at
all
, they’re not! Why’d you come all the way here from the
other
tower, Gabe?! Sonar’s all about precision! You’re gonna screw it all up!”

Behind this man, roughing it in his Afro, preworn denim, and T-shirt, two unexpected and rather out-of-place wings emitted a soft, glowing light.

“Yeah, well, Emilia distracted me. But we don’t need sonar any longer, no? No way any normal guy could make that energy wave just now. We could find it right now if we looked a little.”

“Look, did you think that
didn’t
occur to me or something? Think about it.”

Raguel and Gabriel locked eyes for one uncomfortable moment.

“You think
this
guy’s gonna let me go anywhere right now? I mean, look at those eyes. They’re demonic.”

“Would you expect anything else?”

The dark voice seemed to rumble upward from beneath the ground. Its power, like the guttural growl of a death-metal front man, was enough to keep both archangels riveted in place.

“You bastards better not even
think
of taking one step outside this barrier.”

“……”

Devil King Satan, accompanied by the Great Demon General Alciel.

Two angels and two demons, facing off at Tokyo Tower, locked into a proverbial steel cage of demonic force.

“That, and… Come
onnn
, I thought there wasn’t any demonic force in this world! This is
totally
Devil King Satan right here, isn’t it?! I dunno who that muscly weirdo next to him is, but…Gabe, could this
be
any different from what we first talked about? Huh?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorr-eeeee. I wasn’t really lying, though! I really didn’t think they’d bother getting involved at all. Pinky swear! It’s just… It’s all that
thing’s
fault.”

Gabriel used his hands to simulate the events of the past few minutes—the hail of light, along with Satan and Alciel’s sudden appearance.

“Pretty cute light show, but the ending needs some work, no? If you ask me, Laila must’ve stumbled onto something we don’t know about.”

“Uggghhh… Look, can we just make this simpler for all of us? She’s kicked out of heaven anyway. We deploy the entire Regiment, we wipe out anyone who knows anything about this, bada-bing, bada-boom. Like we care about what happens to this nation anyway—”

“
Not
gonna happen.”

“……”

Gabriel shot a look at Satan’s face. But before he even had time for that, Raguel had already fixed his ire upon the Devil King.

“And what’s with
you
, besides? Transforming into a human, all struttin’ your stuff and showing off your English skills to everybody… You completely tricked me! And why are you messing with us, anyway? You coulda just sat there and slurped up your udon, like a good little boy! I know you and Gabe have kind of a past, but I didn’t even
do
anything to you guys! You mind butting out of heavenly affairs a little?!”

It was a full-on diatribe. Bits of spittle flew out the edge of his mouth as he ranted. Gabriel, watching on, grimaced in awkward embarrassment.

“Uhh, Raguel? I know that’s, like, the case and everything, but if you say that to them…”

Jets of black flame shot up from behind Satan and Alciel.

“…See? I knew you’d piss them off. I knew it!”

“Your inane squabbling with each other… It hurt one of our friends.”

The darkness advanced, the light edging backward.

“If you’ve changed your doctrine so it’s okay to rule over the world with violence now…well, hell, I could’ve still respected that. That was kind of my plan when I invaded the human world myself. I’m evil. I force people to do my bidding under the threat of violent harm. So when I see anyone like you two… It makes me want to pummel you.”

Satan was now within point-blank range of Raguel. Then, the next instant, he sent a fist sailing toward the side of his slack-jawed face.

“Oghh?!”

With an eerily off-putting groan, Raguel was thrown against the Tokyo Tower scaffolding.

“
Nhh
… That was fast…”

“His Demonic Highness never hesitates to land the first blow.”

“
You
were too slow, all right?”

It was becoming unclear whose side Gabriel was on.

“Trampling all over people like it’s your prerogative, acting like it’s all for some great cause… You won’t find anyone that low, even in the demon realms. You know what we usually like to call ourselves… Gabriel?”

“…‘Demons,’ right?”

Gabriel sounded oddly proud of himself, although he took care to remain poised for battle.

“Yes. We are demons. We are evil itself. We cannot live without preying upon someone. The lowest of the low!”

Satan, King of the Demons, sounded like he was at a confessional.

“And if you aren’t prepared to live with the sins you commit, then stop bitching about it to other people! This is the world of humans! A world where you have to live with everything you’ve ever done! It’s all weighing upon your back!!”

“…Uh, so are they gonna fight us, or what, Gabe?”

“Kinda lookin’ like it, yeah.”

Satan’s fist had about as much permanent effect on Raguel as his tirade just now. Despite how far he had been blown, there wasn’t a single bruise on his face.

The scaffolding he was thrown into was similarly unscathed, protected by Satan’s demonic barrier. There wouldn’t be any repeat of the Shuto Expressway near-disaster of time gone by.

“You take ’em, Gabe.”

“Oh, I
knew
this would happen…”

“You were expecting something else? Combat wasn’t really in my job description. I
told
you that right at the start! That I’d have my hands full tracking down Laila!”

Not pausing to hear Gabriel’s response, Raguel flew up toward the topmost antenna of Tokyo Tower.

He was trying, in other words, to break Satan’s barrier. The border between himself and the sky above him was closer than the boundaries covering the ground at either side.

Then several things happened at once.

Satan chased behind Raguel—who made it up to Observation Deck 1 in the blink of an eye—at supersonic speed, attempting to land a dark, flame-infused punch on his body.

Gabriel, traveling even faster than Satan, flew between him and Raguel’s back to stop him. Alciel, watching on from his original position, released a telekinetic wave straight toward Gabriel.

But as Gabriel stopped the Devil King’s attack cold:

“Syahh!”

Using nothing but his eyes and sheer force of will, he brushed off Alciel’s beam attack.

The Great Demon General, who had the power to effortlessly move countless gigantic boulders around during the Battle of Sasazuka before, didn’t even make the guardian angel of Sephirot break a sweat.

“Guyyyys, don’t you remember? Even during the Devil King’s heyday, he
still
probably couldn’t have beaten me, all right?”

Satan attempted to pull his fist away. Gabriel refused to let it budge an inch.

“I’ve got a job here myself, y’know. It’s not like transdimensional combat is my hobby or something. And I really feel for that girl, too. Seriously! It’s just… Maybe it all seems totally nutso to you all, but to us, it’s kinda life or death.”

“!!”

Satan, feeling the holy force well up from Gabriel’s palm, boosted his own body’s demonic power.

“Ooh, perceptive of you. Bit late, though.”

An alien form of energy penetrated through the demonic force and under his skin.

It was the all-time mother of sonar bolts, packing an untold amount of holy power—far more than what Suzuno jabbed into Ashiya for fun at the hospital.

The holy force within Gabriel’s vessel coursed past Satan’s demonic life energy, rankling his body as it robbed him of strength like snake venom.

There was nothing flashy to the attack, but it was enough to make the King of All Demons’ vision blur.

However, Gabriel had no follow-up attack in mind, it seemed. Satan made a mighty leap backward, away from his foe, his breathing labored from the excruciating pain.

“Head on out, Raguel. You can probably sniff out Laila’s trail once you’re outside. I can take these guys alone.”

Gabriel pointed at the ceiling. Raguel flew off without another word.

Like any wall, if a force was applied to Maou’s barrier that outclassed his demonic force, it would crumble apart. A single hole wasn’t enough to bring the whole thing down. But it had to hold. It had to keep the battle from leaking to the outside world, and it had to cage up two archangels at the same time.

But if Gabriel gained the upper hand all by himself and Raguel escaped, all was lost.

“Ashiya! Stop him!”

Alciel was already in motion before Satan bellowed the command. Approaching from Gabriel’s blind spot, he fired six simultaneous shots of telekinetic force at Raguel—two from his eyes, two from his hands, and two from his dual-tipped tail.

“Try again!”

A blast of wind raked across Alciel.

Gabriel, facing Satan until just a moment ago, now had something resembling a sword in his hand, using it to shrug Alciel’s telekinesis away.

The blade must have been quite a bit longer once. A closer look revealed that, considering the size of the hilt, the blade was astonishingly short.

“Durandal…”

Alciel angrily spat out the name.

It was Gabriel’s sword, spoken of in legends but shattered into pieces by the Better Half once Alas Ramus fused with it.

“Mm-hmm! Never really could rematerialize the end of it, though. It looks
so
lame, doesn’t it?”

Now the sword, which looked like it was chopped in two about halfway down its length, was zooming its way toward Satan, Gabriel lunging behind.

“!!”

Satan, feeling something silently swoop toward him, tilted his head a little.

Despite the distance between them, there was now blood oozing out of a scratch on his cheek.

“Funny thing is, though, it still cuts just as good as it always did! And I don’t care how good the material on your UniClo wardrobe is—it ain’t gonna put up much resistance to this, you know?”

“…So try it.” Alciel refused to falter.

Flying toward Gabriel, he began to launch a flurry of strikes with his tail and the claws on each hand.

“Wh-whoa, whoa, look out! You’re gonna get your fingers chopped off with this… Huh?”

Gabriel, not wanting to permanently maim Alciel, prepared to strike him with the butt of his sword. But something seemed off. It was strangely heavy in his hand.

There was no room to swing Durandal between the attacks.

“Oh? Oh? Ohhh?”

“…! …! …!”

Gabriel had one sword. But Alciel had three methods of attack. And while it took time, the silent barrage of strikes with his claws and the hook-like spikes on his tail gradually began to swipe against Gabriel’s body.

“Ow! Dahh! Jeez, that tingles!”

“That stoic act isn’t just for show, man. He means it.”

Gabriel, unable to handle Alciel’s bombardment, now had Satan behind his back.

“Gehh?!”

He noticed a moment too late, as Satan took his enormous hands and grabbed his head from behind.