“Oh, no? I didn’t realize. I always fall into that whenever I’m talking to folks back home. We all live in Kobe.”
Come to think of it, Rika did sound a bit different from usual ever since they’d met at the collapse site. Revealing more of herself, maybe. The thought made Emi smile.
“Wow. It sounds kind of fresh and new to me. I’ve never really left Tokyo at all, but I’d love to go out west sometime.”
The work paid well by the hour, but she was hardly a wealthy woman, and she had never enjoyed anything close to resembling a “vacation” in her life. If it weren’t for the Devil King…though she had entertained the thought of traveling around Japan for a while if she ever did slay him. But that was far in the future, if ever.
Emi focused back on her dinner. By the time the music program was over, she had polished off everything Rika put out for her.
“Wow. Nice job. Guess you’re just fine now, huh?”
“Thanks to you. Should I go rinse off the dishes?”
Emi quickly stacked up the dishes and bowls, dividing them into “oil” and “non-oil” stacks as she placed them in the water.
“Thanks! Just leave them there, okay? I’ll wash them later.”
“Sure thing. Oh, uh, you mind if I watch the news?”
“Mmm? Not really, but are you sure?”
It was obvious what they’d be covering, no matter how long they waited. Rika’s face darkened for a moment, but Emi nodded back at her.
“I want to check the weather and stuff. Besides, I’m sure they’ll have other things on, too.”
“Well, okay. I think Press Terminal oughtta be on right now.”
Rika picked up the remote and navigated the channels. Emi returned from the dining table and sat where she was before, facing the TV screen. The top news was the collapse in Shinjuku, of course, but they dwelled upon it for a surprisingly small amount of time before moving on to the recent rash of street robberies across Tokyo.
“Man, that sucks. My luck’s been so bad lately, I’m probably gonna run into that next.”
The observation from Emi made Rika look at her from the side. Then: “Dahh! Aw, Emi, you’re the best!”
“Huh? Wh-what do you mean, Rika?”
Suddenly, Rika gave Emi a hug from behind.
“Whoa! What’s gotten into you?”
“Aw, you’re just so nice, Emi. You’re so soothing.”
“Huh?”
For a moment or two, Rika swayed back and forth, rocking Emi like a cradle. Emi let it pass, not quite understanding her behavior. Soon, Rika finally spoke, still holding her.
“You know, ever since I went off to Tokyo, I’ve always tried to speak in standard Japanese. It was just so annoying otherwise.”
“Annoying?”
Emi turned toward her quizzically. Thousands of people flocked to Tokyo from elsewhere in Japan all the time. Several people at the call center still sported obvious accents as they worked.
“Well, like, if you use standard Japanese, then you don’t have to worry about people asking where you came from, right?”
Come to think of it…Emi knew Rika was from the Kansai area, but her friend never told her anything else about home.
It was, truthfully, something Emi never actively explored with her, lest she be tasked with completely fabricating her own childhood in response.
“If you’re from Hyogo prefecture, then all people in Tokyo ever want to talk to you about is The Earthquake.”
“Oh…”
Emi suddenly realized her motivation. She turned around within Rika’s arms.
“And that’s, like, all, too. Never anything else. So I stopped talking about my home, since it was just getting annoying.”
Rika’s eyes turned toward the family photograph.
“I was still just a kid during the 1995 Earthquake, but I’ll still never forget that day. It was really scary. There were a lot of small workshops and stuff near our house, and we had a lot of damage in our neighborhood.”
Emi was certainly aware of the history-making earthquake centered on Kobe and its environs. It was an era-defining event, a couple of decades ago.
“It was practically a miracle everyone in my family was okay. A lot of my friends… There were a ton of kids who lost family members. I was in grade school, but when class started up again, two of my classmates were gone. I tried to kid myself into thinking they moved away.”
“…Wow. I hear you.”
“So it really makes me mad, how insensitive some people are. They’re just like ‘Oh, how was the earthquake?’ It pretty much flattened my granddad’s workshop, and there were aftershocks the whole time we were at the rescue center. I was scared for days!”
Rika’s voice was detached and calm as she spoke. She had clearly come to terms with it in her mind by this point.
“But the moment I take a step away from where I grew up, people treat it like some long-forgotten event. No matter where I go, no matter how much time has passed, when I mention that my family’s from Kobe, they ask about The Earthquake first. It’s like, can’t they picture anything else about the place? Those sort of people, I really didn’t want to be friends with them.”
As Rika explained, she had to give up her hardline stance over time.
“That was, like, pretty much everyone I met, so I thought I’d never let myself talk to anybody if I kept dwelling on it. So I changed my accent so I could hide where I came from. Sorry I tricked you like that!”
“Oh, you didn’t trick me…”
“But you’re the first one, Emi. The first one who heard the word Kobe and didn’t ask about the quake.”
Rika finally separated from Emi, taking the glasses back to the kitchen for another round of mineral water from the fridge.
“Whenever you find that your life’s gone completely upside down like that… There’s just no telling how people will react afterward, you know?”
Emi could feel her heart pound for an instant at the nuance behind the observation.
“Some people out there, they try to take advantage of the chaos to do real bad stuff. Then there are people who really work hard to help out others, even though they have no idea what’s gonna happen tomorrow. And it makes you think, you know? It’s kind of like those old cartoons, where whenever you’re pondering something, this little angel and devil appear on your shoulders.”
Rika crossed her index fingers in swordlike fashion to illustrate her point.
“It made me think that, like, people really can be angels; they really can be devils. It all depends on what they choose to do.”
“Angel, or devil…?”
Rika’s offhand remarks triggered something. Emi pondered it for a moment.
“So anyway, that photo shows what my pop and granddad devoted themselves to for the next ten years after. They rebuilt their workshop from scratch, just a constant, never-ending effort. And even now, with the recession and so on, they still have enough old business connections to keep chugging along.”
She put the glass down in front of her.
“But I’m telling you, today spooked me. I come all the way to Tokyo, only to see an accident like that…and another friend was there, too! I never even wanted to think about it.”
Another friend. The words snapped Emi back to attention. Rika must have been close to the classmates she lost.
If things had worked out otherwise, it might have been Rika herself. She was a mature adult because she had learned, at a deeply personal level, the terrors that disaster could bring. And now she was coming to Emi’s rescue as well, doing her level best to help her out.
“Emi?”
“…Huh?”
“You okay? Sorry if I’m making you think about kind of weird stuff.”
Rika chuckled to herself, then emptied the remaining mineral water into her mouth, as if drinking up the dark emotions locked in her memories.
“But, hey, we’re all okay now, right? And you’ve really been a huge help to me, R
ika. I appreciate it so much.”
“Oh, stop. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t help each other out? No need to feel all weird about it.”
At that instant, that feeling struck Emi again. That soft light in her heart. The warm…feeling. The comfort of knowing she was protected, head to toe.
“So, you know, that’s why I don’t really want to ask about you or anything.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, where you lived, where you come from… I don’t really care about that, Emi. To me, as long as you’re a friend I can talk a bunch of BS with, and have lunch with, and go out on the town with sometimes, that’s all I need.”
“Rika…”
“Oh, and speaking of…”
Suddenly, Rika brought his face closer to Emi’s, a sneering smile on her face.
“Who was that guy?”
“Eh?”
“The guy you were talking to out by the accident site.”
“Huh? Uh… Oh. That guy.”
She meant Maou. Of course she did.
“You know him? You sure acted like you did. He looked like a pretty decent fellow, so I couldn’t help but wonder…”
“Hey! You just said you wouldn’t ask me anything, Rika! That, and he’s really not anyone like—”
“Romance is different, Emi! I won’t let any of those wolves get near you, my little angel!”
“Oh, stop sounding like some weird, overprotective dad! He’s just an acquaintance of mine…actually, less than that, even. He’s a demon, not a wolf. Total demon.”
It was no lie. He was certainly nothing more than an acquaintance. And he was a demon.
“A demon…”
“Emi?”
“An angel…and a demon.”
At the site of that frightful accident, Maou had regained his demon form.
“What’s up, Emi?”
She looked at Rika’s face, the face of a woman who called her a friend.
She had felt a sense of warmth in the shower, and then at the dining table, when her friend hugged her; like her heart was within an angel’s wings.
And the cause of it:
“The heart…of a human being?”
THE DEVIL AND THE HERO STAND STRONG IN SASAZUKA
“Not you again. This early in the morning? Look, I have work today, so could you let me sleep some more?”
It was hardly that early. Emi, after all, had left the same time Rika went off to work.
Rika tried to stop her, suggesting she take another day to rest. But she didn’t want to cause too much trouble for her friend, and the thoughts she dwelled upon over the previous night had driven her to room 201 of the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments as quickly as she could manage.
Since her own clothes were bloodied, she borrowed a blouse from Rika. She wore the same suit and shoes from the night of the accident as she clambered the Villa Rosa staircase and mashed a finger on the doorbell.
She expected that Maou might not exactly heave the door wide open for her, so she had an excuse in hand—a brown paper envelope she purchased from the convenience store. It was enough to capture Maou’s notice as he cracked the door open, still not ready to remove the chain.
“Don’t worry. There isn’t poison or a razor blade inside or anything.”
“I don’t think I’ve received anything from you I didn’t regret.”
“Oh, well, in that case, I think I’ll just keep this thousand yen—”
Maou snatched the envelope away.
“Okay, we’re even now.”
“Hey! I thought we promised you’d stop interfering with us for a while.”
“I think me rescuing you from the cops more than makes up for that.”
“Ugh, you stupid little—”
Emi interjected before Maou could finish his evaluation.
“Yesterday!”
“Uh?”
“Was Ashiya…I mean Alciel all right?”
A look of clear suspicion crossed Maou’s face.
“Did you get clocked in the head or something last night?”
“We’re talking about him, not me. He wasn’t hurt or anything?”
She knew this was an inelegant way of picking his mind. But there was no other way to broach the topic.
“No, no injuries. Major blow to his ego, though.”
The look of suspicion remained on his face.
“And he didn’t turn back into his demon form or anything, either.”
“Ah…!”
“What? Isn’t that what you were asking about?” Maou snorted at Emi, who was unable to hide the shock. The confrontational tone drained from her voice.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Well, what if I said he was a demon? Would you bust in here and kill us?”
“I…”
Maou continued, not expecting a useful response.
“He could tell I reverted back, too, for a little while. He spent all night crying about ‘Ooooh, I failed to serve my liege at his hour of need,’ et cetera, et cetera, and now he’s sleeping in this morning. What the hell am I gonna do for breakfast now?”
Ashiya had remained staunchly human. Internally, this disturbed Emi.
Rika’s monologue suggested to her that Maou regained his demon form temporarily because his body had consumed the terror and anguish from the nearby survivors, converting it into magical force.
If that theory proved true, Maou could have used the power he had before yesterday to summon any manner of disaster. Say, an earthquake strong enough to make an underground corridor collapse. And he could repeat the process, continually feeding off the negative emotions of his victims, until the Devil King Satan finally resurrected himself. And if this was Maou’s plan, there was no reason for him to hesitate any longer.
Satan, in his conquest of Ente Isla, was a cruel, merciless tyrant, one who thought of a human being’s life as no more consequential as that of a blade of grass. It was easy to picture him immediately moving to take action.
So she flew to his squalid apartment in a state of half panic…and found the same dopey-looking face peeking out behind the crack in the door, whining about how he needed to be on time for his shift. What was this Devil King thinking, going on with his human life? It was beyond Emi’s comprehension.
His next question brought Emi into an even higher plane of bewilderment.
“But, hey, were you all right? I saw your forehead. And you used some of your power when you put Chi to sleep, didn’t you?”
“…What?”
Emi froze on the spot.
“What are you…saying?”
“What do you mean, what am I saying? I’m just asking if you’re okay. Your power isn’t back, right?”
The easy explanation would be that she had suddenly, inexplicably, failed to comprehend the Japanese language. If only it were that easy.
“Are you being…serious?”
“What? Am I not allowed to be concerned about people?”
Maou acted honestly peeved as he fired back.
Emi could feel the blood drain from her face. She felt sick. What could this man possibly be saying to her?
She was gripped by an intense loathing, one far stronger than what rose up upon her first encounter with Maou and Ashiya in Japan. It was almost the same hatred as she felt the day she learned of her father’s death.
“I am not so weak…that my enemy should be concerned for me.”
That was all she could say, at the end of it.
“Oh?…Yeah, I guess so, huh?”
That was all the response Maou had to offer.
“Anyway. If that’s all you needed, you mind leaving me alone?”
“With pleasure.”
Emi quickly turned to make her exit. She wanted to feel out Maou a bit more, in hopes he’d drop a clue to the riddle behind his transformation. But if she stayed here any longer, she honestly wasn’t sure what the disgust bubbling within her chest would make her do.
&nb
sp; Maou looked on, concerned, as she left. Whether he understood her feelings or not, he plainly found her behavior puzzling. Suddenly, something sprang to his mind.
“H-hey! Emi!”
But Emi showed no sign of stopping, in a hurry to leave as quickly as possible.
“You’re gonna slip if you—”
He wasn’t quite able to relay the intended message before the moment came. The sound of corrugated iron panels loudly scraping against each other greeted his ears.
“Ah!”
That was all the reaction Maou heard from Emi.
The corrugated-iron stairway structure, replete with peeling paint and visible rust, had long been tilting to the side, the result of long years of supporting itself against the wind, rain, and weight of time. It had achieved an odd concave shape, just barely skirting legal regulations.
A soundless scream was heard as the weight so cruelly placed upon these stairs consumed its potential energy and tumbled to the ground.
“—if you go downstairs in those heels.”
Maou finally completed the sentence once the noise died down.
A sulky-looking Ashiya, wearing a jersey he had lying around on the floor, opened the cabinet that held their first-aid kit.
Atop a stack of job-search magazines bound with twine in the corner, Emi sat staring into space, unable to figure out where to direct her emotions any longer.
Considering she had slipped the moment she set foot on the first step, her injuries were miraculously light. Unfortunately, her suit, which had survived intact up to this point, was now a ragged mess of dirt and tearing. One of the pumps that flew off her feet landed right on a concrete-block flagstone, adding a patchwork of scratches to the external leather.
As for Emi herself: One sprained finger, caused by reaching out and jamming it against the handrail. Bruising on her buttocks, which was the first to hit the stairs. A scrape to the bridge of her nose, as she landed facedown below.
Overall, far more serious than the damage she took from an entire underground corridor collapsing upon her.
“My… The Hero Emilia had the Devil King—in a different form, yes, but still the Devil King!—cornered in his lair once, and now she’s been roughed up by falling down the stairs of our apartment? A black mark on His Demonic Highness more than anyone, perhaps, but…”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 1 Page 14
