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?!”
Emi’s eyebrows arched high upward. It wasn’t the sort of question she expected.
“Well… Yeah. Of course not!”
“Why not?”
“Why… Well, why do you think? They’re different types of animals.”
“They’re both primates, right? Like, humans are really close to monkeys that way. Different breeds of dogs and cats mate and produce offspring all the time, right?”
“That’s because their genes are a lot closer to each other! I mean, there’s still some debate about the structure of human and chimp genes, but the theory that there’s only a few percentage points of difference between them’s still just a theory!”
“Ooh, you’re a lot better read up on genes than I am. Nerrrrrd!”
“It…it was just something I saw on TV a while ago!”
“Wow! The Hero goes channel surfing, huh? Wait’ll I tell the folks back home about that!”
Gabriel eyed Emi for a moment, as if silently gloating over his little jab.
“But anyway, what you’re saying, Hero, is that humans and chimps can’t produce children because they’re too disparate from each other.”
“Yes! What are you getting at?!”
“So why are a human and an angel any different?”
Time stopped.
It was the perfect—really, the only—way to describe that instant.
“…What…are you…?”
“You’re the daughter of Laila, an angel, and Nord Justina, a human. That much I guarantee is true, so don’t start doubting that on me, too, all right? That’s the whole reason you’re a danger to heaven right now, besides.”
“H-how so…?”
“…Y’know, I think you put it best just a second ago. There’s nothing that disparate about them. You’re totally right.”
Gabriel spread his arms out wide. The sudden flourish made the remaining content of his coffee can spill out a little, staining his toga.
“In the realm of creatures, which do you think it is—are humans angels, or are angels humans?”
“Which…? What do you…?”
Are angels…humans?
The wings folded behind him. The overwhelming aura of holy force. The blue-tinged silver hair and deep blue eyes. As long as she ignored the coffee stain, Gabriel clearly wasn’t human.
But.
“You guys… For whatever reason, you just decided that heaven and the angels were these crazy, supernatural things, no? And as an angel, I’m not gonna deny that, exactly. But supernatural? No. I mean, if anything’s supernatural here…”
Gabriel looked at the small figure in Emi’s grasp, her eyes still transfixed upon him in a hostile glare.
“It’s her.”
The girl just labeled by an archangel as “supernatural” stood up in Emi’s arms, trying to protect her mommy with her own body, and gave her best attempt at a threatening snarl.
“Ooo…”
Her challenge wasn’t that threatening.
Emi, still attempting to process everything, realized her legs were shaking. Gabriel wasn’t prepared to wait for her.
“But really, that’s just the opening act, y’know? The real meat of it comes after that. And the fact we angels don’t take action unless heaven’s in danger has a lot to do with it. We got two sides kinda fighting over how to define that, if you follow me, and so Raguel’s stepped up to make everyone march to the beat of a single drummer again. And the way Raguel decides to settle that little question… Well, he’s got a lot of stuff to consider.”
Gabriel seemed to enjoy this now, directly addressing the colorless Emi.
“Like, for one, I’m pretty sure your dad’s here on Earth, along with your mom. And depending on Raguel’s judgment, he might face the long arm of
heavenly law before long, too.”
The lights were out in Room 305 of Seikai University Hospital.
The only illumination came from the crack under the hallway door and a flashing LED that indicated the location of the NURSE-CALL button.
That—and another, dimmer light, deeper inside. It was purple in color and had an odd warmth to it. Only the snores of the nearby patients greeted it.
“Mommm… You know I don’t like it when you put peas on top of my pork dumplings…”
Chiho, voice clearly still half asleep, sat up in bed. She tossed the covers aside, the last memory she had still fresh in her mind. “Ah! Sorry, Mom! I kinda fell asleep so I forgot to turn on the…rice…?”
She blinked at the wholly unfamiliar walls, the ceiling, the window. Then she turned around, sensing someone whispering something into her ear.
“Huh…? A hospital?”
Then she noticed her cell phone by the bed. The battery must’ve run out on it. The back panel wasn’t displaying the time.
Chiho puzzled over this for a moment. Then it came to her. She had had this whispering experience before.
Carefully, she sized up her surroundings. The voice sounded like it wasn’t even two feet away from her. But there was nobody nearby. She didn’t expect a response, but Chiho went ahead and asked anyway.
“Um…Albert? Or is it…Emeralda, maybe?”
Suddenly, the phone she thought was dead lit up in a dazzling pattern, something Chiho knew she never configured herself.
This wasn’t a call, or a new text. But something, to be sure, was accessing her phone.
Gingerly, Chiho picked it up and opened it. The screen was jet-black. She brought the phone to her ear, doubting her sanity as she did.
“Uh…hello?”
She was rewarded with a female voice on the other end. What it had to say defied expectation.
“Oh, what do you mean, don’t be so picky?” Chiho replied. “I mean, whoever decided to pair up pork dumplings with peas must be some kind of devil spawn! Maybe the demons like it, but I’ll take shrimp or corn any day!”
She had commented on Chiho’s half-awake murmurings. There were two occasions that Chiho would voluntarily eat peas: If someone cooked them into a dish without knowing any better, and if all food except for peas was eradicated from the planet.
The voice didn’t seem to be making fun of her, but Chiho’s face reddened in the darkness anyway. She had let a total stranger know about her childish food hang-ups.
Then the voice directed Chiho to look at her left hand. Only then did Chiho realize she was wearing an unfamiliar ring.
“My left hand? …Oh, wait, is this one of those things? A Yesod fragment?”
She chuckled to herself a little. With everything that had been happening to her lately, her shock threshold was pretty high. The voice seemed suitably impressed.
“…Satan? Oh, you mean Maou… Huh? Oh. Where in Tokyo? …Okay.”
The conversation continued for a few moments. The tenseness in Chiho’s voice gradually disappeared.
“All right. I’ll try and help you out. …Huh? No, not scared, really. Kinda nervous, but…”
She smiled.
“I mean, all the demons and angels and Ente Islans around me… They’d all deny it, but they really get along pretty well, so. …Hmm? Oh, not really. Like, what would trying to trick me accomplish for anyone on that world? If that’s what the game is, it’d be a lot quicker and easier to just kidnap me like Olba did.”
The light from Chiho’s ring flickered a bit, as if tittering to itself.
“…Weapons? Well, I don’t know if I’d really call it a weapon…”
Chiho made a fist in the air, demonstrating her resolve to her invisible partner.
“But I’ve been doing kyudo for a while, so I think I’m pretty decent with a bow!”
“Hey… You think he’s really here?”
“Don’t ask me.”
Maou and Ashiya made their way down yet another Tokyo Tower stairway, the fatigue starkly written across their faces.
It being the dead of summer vacation, the entire tower was crawling with visitors. The trauma of his experience in Tokyo City Hall was fresh enough on Maou’s mind that he successfully convinced his cohort to start by taking the elevator all the way up, then running back down the stairs to conduct the search.
But even the journey up to the observation decks was enough to nauseate Maou. The crowds seemed to ripple and undulate around him, and every square inch of the observation space was filled with people, people, people.
It was impossible for the two of them to check up on everyone present. And there wasn’t a speck of holy force nearby, either.
Since they had no idea who, or what, was generating those holy sonar pulses, they went through the trouble of standing in line for each and every one of the coin-operated binocular stands. They studied the in-room displays intently, knowing they were getting in the way of other people as they did, trying to find some clue as to how the tower’s TV equipment was connected to the sonar.
Their efforts were fruitless on both decks they examined. And from the one stand that offered a view of Tokyo Skytree, they saw no sign that Emi was waging any sort of battle over there.
“If he’s eating dinner at the ground-floor restaurant or something, I’m gonna make him inhale soda up his nose.”
Maou and Ashiya, grumbling in a sort-of threatening, sort-of ridiculous manner, trudged their way downstairs. The little signs showing the calories you’d burn based on how many steps you’ve taken were proving to be too much irritating trivia even for Maou’s tastes.
Unlike the Skytree, Tokyo Tower was lit up at all times, making it all but impossible to hide in a convenient shadow. And there was no sign of anyone suspicious trying to hide in the scaffolding around the observation decks, either.
Which meant the only possibilities were that their target was even higher up than what the observation deck allowed, or posing as a figure in the wax museum perched underneath the tower.
“If you think about it, my liege, this sonar signal isn’t something that is being constantly broadcast… The chances of this Raguel remaining here at all hours of the day might be rather low, actually.”
Ashiya’s theory seemed to make sense.
Even if he could keep himself in Devil King form, not even Maou was too willing to hang out in this maze of metal beams, exposed to the elements, unless he had some damn important business.
“Yeah, but…what now, then?”
“I am afraid we have little data to work with, but if the sonar truly is the culprit behind that incident at Socket City, that means the two sonar events today occurred five or six hours apart from each other. Which means…”
“The next one’s coming at midnight or so? I can’t wait that long!”
“Why not, Your Demonic Highness?”
“Um?”
Maou was puzzled at Ashiya’s confusion.
“Assuming we can trust Bell, Ms. Sasaki should be safe for the time being. And while I hate to make Socket City lose any more inventory for our sakes, there won’t be quite as many TVs on at midnight. As long as we can find a way to convince Ms. Sasaki’s parents not to turn on the TV tonight, I think it safe enough to wait it out.”
Maou looked reluctant to accept this. “Whether Chi’s fine or not… If we let them launch another bolt and that gets certain other things involved, that’s gonna be bad for me.”
“Hmm?”
“I…I want to hear him out. What he’s got to say. Now that I’m Devil King and Ente Isla’s already slipped outta my hands… If I let heaven get a leg up on me like this, I’ll have even less of a chance than before.”
“My liege?”
Ashiya failed to follow Maou’s concern. Maou ignored his servant’s puzzled face as he took out his cell phone and called Suzuno.
“Kamazuki speaking.”
“Yeah, we did the rounds around Tokyo Tower, but we didn’t spot anyon
e. How’s Emi doing? She tell you anything yet?”
“I cannot say. She has yet to contact me. …Hmm? What?”
“What is it?”
“Lucifer is… Here. I’m putting him on.”
Maou heard some scuffling about, followed by Urushihara’s shrill voice: “Nothing, dude?”
“No. We’re startin’ to think maybe he’s not in the tower right now.”
“Yeah, guess he wouldn’t have to be there all night.”
“‘Maybe’ is the key thing. I mean, if we just sit here, he’ll have a chance to fire another sonar bolt. I dunno what to do.”
“All right. You try calling Emilia yet?”
“No. I was just about to. But as far as we could tell through the binoculars, it didn’t look like there was a fight goin’ on or anything. Plus, if she was duking it out right now, I could probably feel the holy force all the way from here anyway.”
“Okay. I’ll see what kind of plan I can hatch. You mind staying where you are for now? I’ll call you later and letcha know if we see anything.”
“What kind of plan? Like, what are you… Hey!! Ugh, the bastard hung up on me!”
“What is wrong, my liege?”
“I dunno. It sounds like Urushihara’s got some kind of wacky-ass idea in mind that he’s not telling me about.”
“That is certainly unsettling. Hopefully it does not involve dipping into our bank account again.”
“What, you think he’s gonna call a detective or something? …Ugh. Let’s give him fifteen minutes. If I don’t hear from him by then, I’ll have everyone group back together somewhere or other.”
Maou dropped his cell phone back into his pocket and began trudging back down the stairs, Ashiya following closely behind.
Suzuno, following Urushihara, ran down the streets of the Yoyogi neighborhood.
The moment Urushihara hung up, this was what he said to her:
“I’m gonna lure the angel out. Give me a hand.”
Then he ran off. No further details.
“Lucifer! Where do you intend to go? We’re drifting away from the station!”
The pair of them were stationed at Yoyogi precisely because it was a quick train ride from both Tokyo Tower and the Skytree. Without a handy station nearby, they had no easy mode of transport unless they tapped their supernatural powers—which they needed to conserve in case a fight broke out.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 5 Page 17
