“I’m thinking I should take this chance to really blow it all up.”
“Huh? Blow what up?”
“Um, you know, the, uhh…”
“Yeah?”
Rika’s face was growing redder by the moment. She squirmed, barely able to piece together the words as her breathing grew ragged.
“I—I, you know, like, to be honest. I, um, I think I—I really like Ashiya and stuff, so…”
“I know. So?”
“…………Huh?”
“Huh?”
“…Um, why?”
“Why what?”
“Huh?”
The reddened Rika and the deadly serious Emi locked eyes silently for a moment.
“You…know? Like, what?”
“Are you surprised that I knew, Rika?”
“…Yeah. Like, I mean, I—when I said that—I thought I was gonna, um, die of embarrassment, but I held out, so…”
That might have been the case, but as mean as it was to Rika, it was already incredibly old news to her friend.
“Well, I’m sorry, Rika, but…probably, if anyone saw you and Alciel and how you acted, there’s no way they wouldn’t notice.”
“…You think so?”
“Probably.”
“What about, um, Ashiya…?”
“Him I wouldn’t be so sure about…but I have a hunch, and the Devil King and Bell have picked up on it.”
Rika blinked for a few moments.
“Maou and Suzuno……… Gahh?!”
“Rika?!”
The sudden shriek was accompanied by Rika’s forehead falling onto the table so hard their glasses were virtually thrown into the air.
“Oh nooooooooooooooooo! How could I have forgotten?! He totally said so on that daaaaaaay!!”
“Wh-whoa, keep it down, Rika! What’re you talking about all of a sudden?”
“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh, he told me he knew… I knew it, ngghhh, Maou, on that daaaaay…”
“The Devil King? What did he say to you? You mean on that day when he bought the TV?”
“Yesssssss! That day!! Maou— Maou said to me, he noticed what I feel, aaaahhhhh!!”
This fresh young maiden, so hesitant to lay out her true feelings only a moment ago, was now groaning and carrying on like a Malebranche tribesman whose claws had been torn off.
“He said, ‘Did you fall for Ashiya?’ Like, just like that! Maou did! Maou totally said it, that bum! He told me! Aaaahhh! And then Suzuno punched him out and started choking him! What the hell? What the hell?! I’m, like…! Why did I have to carry on like such an idiot around them, all over Ashiya?! I’m so ashamed, I’m so ashamed, I’m so ashamed I could die, why does life have to be so embarrrrrassinnnng?!”
“…Devil King…!”
She had no idea what the context of this conversation was, but Emi would be sure to thoroughly interrogate Maou about it within the next few days.
“It’s all right. It’s all right, Rika. The Devil King may not be too delicate a lot of the time, but he’s not the kind of guy to just spout that stuff with no prompting, and I’m pretty sure it never would’ve made it to Alciel…to Ashiya, I mean.”
“You thiiiiink? Because I really think it would’ve by now!!”
Rika lifted her head. The tip of her nose was now bright red, tears welling up in her eyes.
“L-look, it’s fine, all right? It’s fine. Bell throttled him that same day, so worst-case scenario, the rumor mill stopped right there…”
“Emiiiii, am I imagining things, because it sure doesn’t sound like you’re very confident about thaaaaaat?!”
“…Sorry. I can’t give you an absolute guarantee.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!”
She couldn’t lie to Rika. So instead, Emi gave her honest opinion.
“B-but Ashiya asked you out himself, didn’t he? And he didn’t act awkward or anything when he did, right? I’m sure it’s fine. Let’s be optimistic about this!”
“Um, yeah, he sounded the same as always over the phone, but ahhh, I’m nervous, I’m so nervous all of a sudden! Ashiya used to be this really brainy war general, yeah? Like, strategizing behind the scenes so nobody would notice? That kind of thiiiiiiiiiiing!!”
“N-no, it’s fine, it’s fine! You’d be really surprised how emotional he can be. He can’t hide anything like that!”
The main emotional moments for Ashiya were limited to when someone insulted Maou, or Urushihara embezzled his funds, or finances grew tighter, or an unexpected expense popped up, but that was really the only thing Emi could tell her.
“S-so what did you want advice about, Rika?! If you want to learn more about Alciel, then I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can tell you any more than what we did before!”
“Nnnnhh…”
Rika looked up at Emi, still teary-eyed. That look didn’t change the facts. Emi had nothing else to say. Whether as Shirou Ashiya or as the Great Demon General Alciel, Emi had only so much personal information she could relate about him. Even considering the grudges of the past, he was a sincere, unaffected, and extremely frugal person, walking around in clothing selected with cost performance first in mind and not being at all picky with what he ate. He wasn’t as obsessed as Maou about obtaining certifications and so on, but all the time spent at the library gave him a fairly broad knowledge of the world, and he would occasionally exhibit some bizarrely humanlike talents to keep the Devil’s Castle from falling in the red.
But Emi had mostly heard secondhand about all this. She hadn’t witnessed it for herself. His cooking talents were first-rate by homemade standards, one of the few abilities that Emi had to admit defeat with. His skills with electronics were sparse—he didn’t own any and never had the chance to use them—but he had already asked Rika for phone advice, so she’d come into this knowing that.
“So what I can say to you really isn’t all that different from what I gave you before. I don’t know how much I can help you with this date, honestly…”
“Don’t call it a date! You’re embarrassing me! I don’t think he thinks of it as a date!”
“What else do you want me to call it?”
“I—I don’t know, but… Arrgh, why do I have to embarrass myself so bad like this?!”
That’s what Emi wanted to know.
Rika bounced around on her padded booth seat for a bit longer, her breathing uncontrolled and face bright red.
“The…the advice I want… Ugh, I’m so embarrassed; it’s so hot in here, my heart hurts… I really want to ask you, Emi! …I…”
The moment Rika tried her hardest to spit it out, Emi’s mind gave her a new vision. She had seen this sort of expression before, these sorts of feelings.
“I—I want to know whether it’s…it’s okay for me to like Ashiya!”
“…”
I knew it, she thought as she nodded.
“I don’t really know what to say to that.”
“Oh. c’mon!” Rika craned her neck forward. “Like, I couldn’t ask anyone besides you, Emi!”
“Why’s that?”
“Why? Um… I mean, because Ashiya’s…”
Emi couldn’t help but smile as she watched Rika try to defend herself.
“Because Ashiya’s friends with the demon who destroyed my homeland? What’s that got to do with you, Rika?”
“Ah…”
Rika half rose to her feet. The two of them exchanged glances, one higher than the other.
“…Nothing?”
“Is what I think,” Emi said as she looked up at her.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Rika gasped. “…Why?”
“It’s a road we’ve already gone down a long time ago.”
“Already gone down?”
“Yeah.” Emi calmly took another sip from the water glass she nearly crushed earlier. “I mean, it’s kind of gone beyond familiar with our interactions these days, but the fact is that me and Alciel are still enemies
.”
“Right, so…”
“But I can’t just take away the feelings you have for him, Rika.”
Having her own feelings recited back to her point-blank made the temperature of Rika’s face rise a little once more.
“You still have those kinds of feelings, too, even after knowing about our past, and you’re worried about that, aren’t you?”
“Um, well, yeah. You and Suzuno and Emeralda. All you Ente Islans.”
Rika failed to notice Emi’s use of the word too.
“Right. But that still doesn’t matter. Of course…”
Emi recalled images of Rika in her mind, along with another vital friend of hers.
“I’m not exactly gonna be cheering from the sidelines, and if Alciel tries anything dangerous, I’m gonna put public safety way above your own feelings, Rika. But ultimately, it’s our fault he’s in Japan right now, and you met him and started having a thing for him without knowing any of that. Do you think I have any right to meddle with that?”
They had just finished up a meal the last time Emi dealt with this, too, hadn’t they? Emi recalled how large and round that girl’s eyes were, at the end of that.
“So I want you to keep deciding on your own feelings, Rika.”
“……Yeah.” Rika finally settled back into her seat, giving Emi a blank stare. “And here I thought you’d tell me to think about how people on Ente Isla feel, or about how I didn’t know anything about the war, or whatever.”
“I won’t talk about that, no, but in a way, what I’m telling you is a lot tougher than that. I mean…”
“I know, I know. You’re telling me you might kill this guy I like without mercy, if you have to.”
“Right.” Emi nodded with a grin. “That’s one rule I’m never compromising on. Not that it means very much right now.”
“Oh?”
“Like, I really can’t imagine any of them exposing anybody in Japan to danger at this point. As long as they’re in Japan, there’s absolutely no way I could kill them. I used to have my dead father to blame them for, so I could use my grudge about that to draw the line with them, but not now.”
“Oh…yeah.” Rika let out a soft sigh. “So what do you think about them all now? Maou and Ashiya and Urushihara.”
“…They’re my enemies.”
The reply came after a short period of reflection. The point wasn’t lost on Rika, and Emi herself was fully aware of it.
“My father was alive the whole time, but what the demons did completely wrecked the path of my life, changing it from what it should’ve been…or what I think it should’ve been, at least. That’s as true now as it was then. And there are all these people that died full of regrets thanks to them. All this sadness from the relatives and friends they left behind. I still need to make them take that in, from my heart. The just deserts I haven’t delivered yet.”
But that simply wasn’t enough, by now, to fan the flames of hatred within Emi. This, too, she was fully aware of.
“I’ve thought about it time and again. There’s no point obsessing about theoreticals, but even if the Devil King didn’t do anything, Ente Isla was in a constant state of war between its nations. And there’s always war somewhere on Earth, too, isn’t there? Japan’s relatively peaceful, but people are dying on a daily basis in conflicts big and small worldwide. It just so happened that I was confronting the Devil King, and I had the power to face off against him. I was nearly killed countless times, and you know, seeing girls my age in Japan who live these carefree lives and don’t have to fear potentially dying tomorrow…I’m jealous of that. But no matter how jealous I am, I can’t alter my past to be more like theirs.”
Emi clutched Rika’s hand above the table.
“Plus, I don’t want to think that making friends with you, and the time I spent here, is thanks to my life being wrecked. If I could live my life all over again, I don’t want to pick one for myself where I didn’t meet you.”
“Emi…” Rika looked at her hand, her cheeks reddening again. “I-I’m glad you think so much of me like that, but I’m really no one that amazing…”
“The only person who can decide how valuable you are to me is me, Rika. And you’re a valued friend. Someone I can’t cut out from my life.”
The words came straight and true to the utterly confused Rika.
“Nnh… Now—now I’m getting all embarrassed for totally different reasons, girl! You keep buttering me up like that, you’ll make Emeralda all jealous next.”
“Yeah. But the difference is that Eme is somebody way high up in society. Someone I’d normally never get to talk with. Being able to chat and laugh with someone like that is one achievement I’ve made in my life. She may not look it, but you won’t find a more reliable woman out there.”
“I’m sorry if this is rude, but I still can’t believe she’s older than you, Emi.”
“Do I look that much older than her? Wow. I remember Chiho being all surprised about my age, too, long ago.”
“Well, Emeralda looks like a little girl, and not to put it this way, but maybe it’s the hard life you’ve led that makes you mature beyond your age, Emi. You don’t feel younger than me at all, and maybe you act more your age when it’s all informal like this, but from the side, I mean, you look as grown-up as that manager at Maggie’s.”
“If I remind you of Ms. Kisaki, that sure makes me proud as a woman, yeah…”
Emi smiled and removed her hand from Rika’s.
“But getting back to the topic, there’s really no need for you to worry about me, Rika. Just go where your feelings take you.”
“Oh, yeah, we were talking about that, weren’t we? But you know, I’m dealing with you right now. Once I’m right in front of him, I might wind up ducking out before I can even do anything.”
“If it happens, it happens. That’s another choice available to you, Rika. There’s nothing rare about it—wanting to confess your love but failing to in the end.”
“Ugh, stop it! This is soooo embarrassing!”
Rika started squirming yet again, hands against her face.
“I know I shouldn’t bring this up yet again, but I’m amazed you can cut through all the crap like that. Even though these are your sworn enemies I’m talking about…”
“I told you, we’re past that road.”
She certainly sounded emboldened, enough even to surprise herself. But Emi’s thoughts about back then were now fully solidified in her mind. Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara were enemies of mankind on Ente Isla, but none of that had anything to do with Japan or even Earth. They had every right to be loved on Earth, and if needed, she wouldn’t hesitate to take their lives precisely because they were no longer related.
“When you say that, are you talking about Chiho?”
“In some ways, Chiho’s stronger than any of us right now, but she’s still only about as mature as her current age. She learned about the Devil King and me strictly solo, nobody to talk to or be protected by. It must have been hellish to deal with.”
“Yeah, talk about shocking. Like, didn’t you break your leg or something back when Urushihara was fighting Maou and you saved her from getting crushed by highway debris?”
Rika was recalling what Chiho herself had told her while Emi was incommunicado in Ente Isla.
“Pretty much, yeah. No joke, it was like she was thrown into a summer blockbuster film all by herself, and nobody on Earth has any memory of it besides her. I couldn’t imagine how scary it was.”
“Any memory? What do you mean?”
Emi pointed at her own temple as a quizzical Rika stared at her. “I suppose you could call it memory control? Me, Bell, and the Devil King are able to rewrite people’s memories to some extent.”
Rika opened her eyes wide. “Really? With your magic or whatever?”
“It’s two different things, actually. The Devil King uses demonic force; we use holy force. But the effect on the target’s the same, I suppose. And you haven’t h
eard about the Shuto Expressway falling to pieces, right? Like, people would be talking about that for five, ten years after the fact. But the Devil King put up a barrier to keep anyone on the outside from watching, and then he erased the memories of everyone inside for only a few short moments. Which makes it sound easy, I guess, but you’d need to be a Devil King to pull that off. For us and Suzuno, it takes a lot of effort just to erase one person’s recollections.”
“Wow, this sounds like something really freaky I’m hearing…”
“I know I lied to you about where I was from, Rika, but I swear to you that I’ve never done anything to your memories.”
“Ooh, yeah. I remember Maou saying he could erase all the scary ones when we first started talking about Ente Isla. There were all these crazy revelations at the time, I was like Come on, can you really? But if you think about it, yeah, pretty frightening. There aren’t any criminals or whatever on Ente Isla that take advantage of that?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. I heard there was a sort of antidote magic that could restore memories, so I don’t think the holy-magic approach totally eliminates them. I only studied the fundamentals so I don’t know for sure, but Bell probably would…”
“Ah, that’s fine; not like me knowing about that in detail would help me much. It does seem kinda weird, though…”
Rika had picked up on something. Emi knew what it was but asked anyway.
“What’s weird?”
“Like why Maou didn’t erase any of Chiho’s memories with all the rest of them.”
“…Yeah.”
Emi nodded deeply.
“Maou treats Chiho as really, really precious, I’d say. But…not to be mean. I wasn’t hurt or anything, but after that Gabriel guy freaked me out and I came down with a fever and all that… I mean, hey, that was a lot of trauma! And she nearly died, too. I don’t know how any normal person can overcome that kinda fear…”
“Yeah. And she’s seen all of them in full demon form, too.”
“By ‘demon form,’ do you mean how Maou and them all look normally? Um… I haven’t seen that yet, but were they, like, whoa, real monsters? Like I’m picturing them?”
“It depends on how you define monster, but if you’re asking me whether a normal high school girl would want to hang out with one, I’d have to say it would be pretty unlikely. Did you want more details?”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 13 Page 8
