The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 2 (26 page)

Emi, hair blowing in the wind, glared downward upon the pair, even as her body remained limp.

Above them, an enormous crescent moon, far bigger than anything seen on Earth, showered its white glow upon Emi and the entirety of Tokyo city hall’s main building below.

The area within the light was cut off from reality, much as the Devil King could wrangle with his magical barriers.

The heliport at the top of the towering building, the one point in Shinjuku closer to the moon than anywhere else, seemed utterly detached from the hustle and bustle of the city below. It was quiet, with only the howling wind present to witness this otherworldly scene and its denizens.

“Just…give it up already.”

Like a holy warrior awaiting her judgment, Emi had been bathed in that purple light again and again, her body now nearly bereft of holy energy.

The light that scythe-wielding maniac wielded really did have the power to drain her strength, after all.

He was apparently after the Better Half holy sword within her body, but no matter how often the light coursed across her, the Holy Silver that resonated with her inner strength to form the sword refused to budge from within.

“I’m not resisting you. You just can’t do it. So can you try again some other time?”

Emi was recognized by the Church as the Hero with the power to slay the Demon King. They presented her with the Holy Silver, which she blithely accepted into her body with the help of the Church’s holy energy. But she had never given a single thought to how, exactly, this Holy Silver was stored within her.

The Better Half itself seemed to present itself as a physical weapon, one forged in some heavenly foundry somewhere, but the Cloth of the Dispeller that protected her was composed strictly of light, having no physical presence whatsoever.

Which meant, as she now questioned within her mind, that the Cloth wasn’t powered by Holy Silver, perhaps.

Robbed of the abilities she deftly harnessed in her war against the demons, her current state made her realize for the first time just how little she knew about her powers.

“Just…give it up already. Release me and Chiho.”

The words weakly spilled out of Emi’s mouth.

Chiho was still unconscious, tossed to the ground behind the scythe-wielding creep with her hands bound behind her.

“I’m afraid that won’t be happening. In fact, I plan to have this lovely little lady help me out in more than a few ways.”

The maniacal, scythe-wielding, convenience-store robber’s shoulders pulsed up and down as he laughed.

“…You worked in front of MgRonald so you could hit on women, Sarue?”

Emi summoned up all the sarcasm she could. The scythe-wielder’s shoulders stopped cold.

“Ah. You noticed.”

“Women are a lot more sensitive to stupid men and their exhibitionist streaks than you think.”

Even captured and depleted of strength, Emi still never shut up. The scythe-wielder laughed again.

“Fair enough. I did call myself Sarue. However…”

He raised a hand to remove his ski mask.

“My true name is Sariel. Sariel the archangel.”

Now he was revealed—his well-ordered, boy-like visage, his purple eyes, and…

“I didn’t know orange eyeshadow was all the rage in heaven right now.”

The orange paint around the angel’s eyes was clear now as he introduced himself.

“Heh… It’s proven to be quite obstinate.”

The angel called Sariel shrugged and laughed to himself, as if wistfully complaining about bad weather outside.

The mask was off, but the plastic rain poncho and camo pants were still on. The well-defined features of his face, now bedecked in bright orange, made for an almost clownish sight.

A heretofore unknown enemy revealing himself was usually meant to be a dramatic situation. For Emi, it took some effort to keep from cracking up.

“Wouldn’t be much of a crime deterrent if it came off that easily, you know?”

“Hmph. It is of no great concern to me. I needed those sunglasses to hide my purple eyes anyway.”

“You got a lot more issues to tackle than
that
, I’d say.”

The overpowering cologne he had on was no doubt meant to conceal the odor from the antitheft paintballs.

But his equally overpowering approach to chatting up women was likely more a permanent part of his personality.

Emi knew Sariel’s name well.

It was a name that appeared frequently in the Church’s holy texts. Several departments of the Church, including the Council of Inquisitors themselves, venerated him as an angel symbolic to their cause.

He was among the upper echelons of heavenly dwellers, enough so that he bore the title of archangel.

The purple light was the Evil Eye of the Fallen, a force that allowed him to defeat even high-level angels, sending them reeling down into the mortal world below.

One story even pinned the blame on Sariel for the fall of Lucifer.

“You know, you really had me concerned. Such a powerful weapon, being bandied around on another world. And now I reek and my beautiful face looks like an orange panda’s. I honestly considered taking my own life at one point.”

Emi rued his inability to go through with it. She had no idea Sariel was such an immature, narcissistic, smelly archangel.

“I failed to defeat you, I allowed you to regroup with the Devil King, and I almost had to miss work on our opening day. Quite the ordeal, I can tell you. But!”

Sariel the orange panda smiled, then turned toward Suzuno.

“Thanks to
you
, I managed to capture her without even breaking a sweat. And look at the lovely bonus prize I found!”

Emi followed Sariel’s eyes. Suzuno hung her head low, teeth still gritted.

“Chiho Sasaki. Quite a valuable sample, you know. A girl from another world who knows of the Devil King, and yet desires nothing more than to be close to him. She will provide us with untold research into how the Devil King’s powers affect the human mind!”

Emi rolled her eyes.

Sariel’s villainous, almost cartoonlike manner of speaking was one thing, but his current act was nothing short of unbelievable.

“You were listening in on us at that intersection?!”

She had noticed nothing suspicious near her at the time.

“Psh. You could at least be kind enough to call it ‘spying.’”

Sariel was overly eager to confess to his stalker tendencies. Emi wrinkled her nose in response, apparently enough to merit another blast of the Evil Eye of the Fallen from Sariel.

“Nngh!”

Emi groaned. It didn’t physically hurt her at all, but whenever she was exposed to it, the discomfort made it feel like her stomach was going to turn inside out.

“The holy sword is not something meant to be wielded by a human. Before it returns to the people of Ente Isla, we must pluck it out from you with our own hands. Such is the consensus of all of heaven, you see.”

“Aaaaaahhh!”

A particularly strong blast of light almost made Emi lose consciousness.

“Hmm. No dice, then? …Oh?”

Sariel halted the barrage to think for a moment. He walked toward the edge of the heliport.

He looked down, across the nearly eight hundred feet to the ground. Then he found something. He laughed.

“Well, well! Look at the little gnat who blundered his way in here.”

Suzuno’s head darted upward. Emi, too, lifted her head an inch or two.

“Ma…ou…”

Chiho, still unconscious, called his name as she struggled in her sleep.

“I couldn’t say how he penetrated my barrier, but there’s no need to show him an improper welcome. Is there, Bell?”

Suzuno’s body convulsed at the sound of her name.

“He doesn’t have any of his putrid little underlings with him. Even you could defeat the Devil King easily enough at this point.”

“…!”

She flashed an uneasy look at Emi, but her limp head, and the hair blowing wildly around her, made it impossible to gauge her expression.

“There’s nothing to fear. This building is bathed in the glow of my moonlight. There is none of that nasty negative energy for the Devil King to harness. Go.”

Even as her face remained pale, Suzuno dejectedly followed his words, walking to the edge of the roof.

As a member of the Church, there was no way she could defy the order of an angel, one very much a target of worship in her domain. To both the Council of Inquisitors and the new Reconciliation Panel, Sariel was undeniably an object of veneration.

The weight of her resolve groaned heavily on her back. The voice that followed made it all the heavier.

“…This is what you want?”

“!”

Suzuno gasped as she stood motionless.

“You want the Hero with the Holy Sword and the Devil King to meet their end on an alien world? For Ente Isla to be the exact same as it was before you came here? For peace to reign as if nothing happened? Does that work for you?”

It was the strong wind that made her legs shake. Suzuno forced herself to believe that. If she didn’t, she would have to admit otherwise.

She would have to admit that she was an agent of evil in the end, one of many tentacles writhing in the darkness that lurked at the very core of the Church.

“What could be troubling you? What you are doing is right. It is just. I, the symbolic leader of the Reconciliation Panel, guarantee it. Now, go. A word or two from me, and no one in the Church could ever lay a finger on you. You have nothing to fear.”

Sariel stood defiantly behind Suzuno.

“Besides, this was the plan from the start, wasn’t it? We’re just a bit behind schedule, is all. Ente Isla will enjoy an era of peace. One free of the Devil King’s looming presence. One where the myth of the Hero with the holy sword shall be passed down for generations to come. You and I, Bell… We merely came to tie up the loose ends. There is no need for the audience to see all the furor and confusion behind the curtain.”

His tone was casual, as if they were discussing where to go for lunch.

It is true. I know I am in the right. What problem could defeating the Devil King possibly pose to us?

It’s not that Sariel is here to kill Emilia, besides. World peace, and my own goals… We can achieve both, without a single hitch.

“Suzuno…”

The papier-mâché fortress Suzuno attempted to build in her heart instantly crumpled at the sound of her voice.

“…Chiho.”

Chiho, bound and lying on her side, watched Suzuno as the tears streamed down her face.

“Why…why…?”

Suzuno couldn’t will herself to look. Her eyes darted around the night sky.

Her kimono flapped haphazardly in the rising gale. Bringing her right hand upward, she removed the cross-shaped hairpin from her head.

Her hair spread forth like a pair of jet-black wings in the wind. The hairpin began to shine.

“…Light of Iron.”

A glowing, golden hammer of war materialized with her voice, the “hammer of justice” that served as the Scythe of Death’s most notorious symbol during countless cruel, heartless inquisitions.

With hammer in hand, Suzuno shot toward the ground like a golden comet.

“Please…help me…already…”

Droplets of silver from her eyes and flew into the night sky.

“I don’t want to sacrifice anyone else!!”

“Whooaaarrghh!!”

The man at Suzuno’s upcoming landing point was startled to notice the girl above him.

Aiming squarely at the man as he was about to park his bicycle, Suzuno swung her hammer downward. The pathway crumbled with a roar, the man reduced to smithereens…it seemed at first.

“Damn! That was close! What the hell! You want me to die here?!”

Sadao Maou was on his rear end, mere inches from the edge of the hammer, as he griped. Then:

“Ah.”

He looked at the flattened mass underneath the hammer, stretched out like a steamroller had run over it. His face tightened.

“Du…”

“Du?”

“Duuuuuuuuullahaaaaaaaaannnnnnn!!!!”

Sadao Maou’s woeful wail echoed off the high-rises of western Shinjuku.

Maou clutched at the metallic hulk that used to be his trusty Dullahan as he glared at Suzuno.

“Suzuno, you incredible, incorrigible incompetent! What the hell did you do
that
for?! Do you have a grudge against Dullahan or something?! Give me back the two months I spent with this guy! And after that, give me a new bike, too! And the registration fees! And help me pay the bulk-garbage fee to give this guy a decent burial!”

“Shut up!”

“Agh!”

Suzuno, paying him no mind, fixed her next swing squarely upon Maou’s head.

Maou dodged in a panic, but the sight of the hammer whizzing by a few inches from his nose made him break into a cold sweat.

“Whoa, whoa, wait! Time out!”

“Silence!”

“Dude, dude, listen to me for a…”

“Silence, silence,
silence
!”

“Aaagggh!”

Faced with a war hammer swung at full force, Maou turned his back and ran.

“Halt! Devil King Satan!”

“The hell I’m halting!
You
stop first! Please!”

Running at full speed, Maou finally managed to open some space between himself and Suzuno.

“One minute! C’mon, just one minute!”

Maou held his index finger in the air.

“…?”

Suzuno stared, temporarily bewildered at the sight. But:

“!!!!!!”

Maou must have mistaken her indecision for agreement to his request. She gaped silently.

His mop was now on the ground as he slowly, deliberately, began to remove his clothes.

He took off the trademark MgRonald red polo tee, revealing the running shirt below, its colors faded from overwashing. His belt followed, accompanied by his work pants, allowing his world-beating UniClo sweat-wicking boxers to say hello to the outside world.

Once the cap went off, Maou wore nothing but his undies, a T-shirt, and a smile as he folded up his uniform and pants, dropping them off on the side of the pathway. Then, picking up his dingy mop, he turned to Suzuno.

“Okay, now I’m ready.”

“Wh-what are you
doing
?!”