The purple light ran from Maou’s palm across his arm, eventually covering his entire body. Suzuno’s eyes opened wide.
“It’s not…demonic force…?”
It wasn’t. There wasn’t a trace of demon energy within Maou, even as he regained part of his original form and began to wield superhuman force once more. There wasn’t any holy energy either, of course. It was just power, in its purest form, making Suzuno’s own holy energy stir as it seemed to overwhelm her.
She had felt something like this before.
“Maou…?” Chiho said, voice weak but firm. She must have noticed something was different about Maou this time as well. Suzuno turned her eyes to her.
Then she remembered. She had seen this once, with Chiho. Over in the city of Choshi, far to the east of Sasazuka—at the Inuboh-saki Lighthouse, the first location in Japan to receive the rising sun’s blessings each day.
“Well, then. Any of you guys willing to risk your life in battle as much as Emi is?”
Now there was something swinging in his right hand. Something filled to the brim with overwhelming strength.
“The…the Better Half… The holy sword!”
Everyone there—Libicocco, the Regiment, Camael, even Suzuno—called out the name. The sword in Maou’s hand was every bit the carbon copy of the Better Half that was now inseparable from Emi’s body.
“As far as I’m concerned, that guy over there’s enough punishment for what you did to this girl. That’s all I feel like doing, as long as you guys leave right now.”
The tanned woman took a step forward, paying the large man and his army no mind as they seethed at him.
“Thing is, though…”
“…What?”
Somehow, there was something coming out from underneath her feet. It was billowing out, in fact, further separating them from the rain-shrouded neighborhood of Sasazuka.
“Mist…?”
“If you keep doing whatever you want to innocent bystanders like this, I’m not really in a position to let that slide.”
“Ah!”
It was pressure, pure and simple. The woman’s eyes shot right through the man’s heart—and with it, a force that was neither demonic nor holy.
“I don’t really care how your world winds up turning out. That’s y’all’s problem to deal with. But we took care of our business a long time ago. So if you start messin’ around with all of our hard work…”
The woman let out a hard snort as she took a step forward, sending water flying.
“We aren’t gonna take that sitting down, is what I’m sayin’.”
That was all it took to make the knights stagger, struggling to handle the onrush of power.
“…?” It puzzled the mud-daubed Rika, who couldn’t figure out why the knights edged away from her after seemingly no prodding. She knew this woman was there to help her, but she doubted a lone woman could handle so many of these people at once.
Then things went in a completely unexpected direction.
“Okay. We’ll go. Something tells me trying to defy you is kind of hazardous to our health.”
The man surrendered as breezily as when he first walked up to Rika.
“But we still have a few things we absolutely have to do, mm-kay? I can take these two with me, yeah?”
“Wh-whoa!” protested Rika. He was obviously referring to Ashiya and Nord, Emi’s father.
“I’m pretty sure I couldn’t beat you even if I threw all my muscle into it, but…you know, if you aren’t willing to give me that much, I’m not gonna have much choice apart from giving it the ol’ college try.”
“Even if all of you die?”
The man readily nodded at the woman’s not-so-veiled threat. “I’d be dead anyway if I let a golden opportunity like this fall through my fingers.”
“Stop all this nonsense!” Rika shouted, the tanned woman helping her recover from the initial shock. “Where’re you taking Ashiya and Emi’s dad?!”
“Didn’t I just tell you, girl?” the strange man said, giving Rika a look. “I’m not taking them. They’re just going back to where they used to be. And I’m assuming, if I’m judging you right, that you ain’t gonna try to get in the way of that, mm-kay?”
“Hey, can…can you help them?” Rika asked. “I need you to help both of them!”
It was do-or-die time. This woman was the only person left to turn to. But as far as the other two were concerned, Rika was no longer a necessary part of the conversation.
“I think you probably already know this, but the older guy’s on this side of things. So’s the demon. They aren’t part of Earth, so…fine by me.”
This agreement from the ponytailed woman was nothing like what Rika had hoped for. An overwhelming presence loomed in her mind, enough to make the very rain around her seem to evaporate.
“I’m not allowed to interfere with anything like that, so go right ahead. Just stop screwing around over here, got it?”
“Got it. Thank youuuu!”
“No! No, come on! Please!”
At the man’s signal, the knights once again picked Ashiya and Nord off the ground, along with the man previously smashed against the outer wall. All Rika could do was watch.
“Hey, what’s your name?” asked the tanned woman.
“…Gabriel. The archangel Gabriel, although I’m kinda ashamed to say it lately.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
This crazy gang of armed soldiers was kidnapping two men, and she was just standing there in the rain, smiling like she enjoyed it.
“All right. So, Gabe—”
“You’re giving me a nickname already?” the man called Gabriel moaned.
“You probably know this, too, but…I know I said I won’t get in the way, but I can’t guarantee that certain other people won’t.”
“Sure, sure. We can handle that. I promise we won’t bother you anymore.”
“We’ll see about that. That’s kinda the top two lies a man tells a woman, ain’t it? ‘I’m sorry,’ and ‘I won’t do it again.’”
“Hah! Got me there. I’ve been around for a pretty long time, but compared to you, I’m still just a kid, aren’t I?” The concept made Gabriel crack a smile. “I’d love to get your name, too, mm-kay?”
“…Nngh!”
Ashiya, carried by a knight behind Gabriel, chose that moment to twitch back to life. Rika immediately noticed.
“Ashiya!!”
“Oop, guess we went a little too easy on that human body of his,” a disinterested Gabriel said.
“Wh-what on…? Ngh! Take your hands off me!”
Ashiya attempted to struggle, but his body wasn’t up to the task. Several knights stepped in to hold him in place. He lifted his face upward in despair.
“Grh… M-Ms. Suzuki, are you all right…?”
Then he noticed the woman standing next to the muddied Rika. He recognized her. And the moment he did, his mind began racing. Gabriel visiting Sasazuka right when Emilia was away from Japan. The Efzahan knights from the Eastern Island. Himself and Nord, captured.
“Amane!!” he shouted. It was all clear now. He had been saved by Amane Ohguro, seasonal proprietor of the Ohguro-ya snack bar off the Choshi coast. She should’ve been occupied enough, running her little sanctuary for the dead over there, but now she was in Sasazuka for reasons Ashiya couldn’t guess. He was at a loss as to why, but right now, she was all he had.
“Tell Maou I’ll be waiting at the National Museum of Western Art!!”
“Hey, shut him up,” Gabriel commanded.
A knight quickly placed a gauntlet over Ashiya’s mouth—too late to keep him from getting across what he had to say. But it was a huge relief: Now, Maou ought to be able to handle the rest.
“You’re Amane, huh?” Gabriel continued. “Hmm…”
“Yep. Amane Ohguro,” she brightly chirped. “Not a bad guy, trust me. Oh, and roger that, Ashiya. That’s all I gotta tell ’im?”
“Heh. Yeah, not a bad guy.
Well, at least I didn’t have to actually fight you, I guess. We sure lucked out this time, huh?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t count my chickens quite yet. Those kids can be pretty tenacious.”
“I know, mm-kay? I’m just not so sure that last ray of hope he’s got is gonna come through this time. After all…” He turned up to the sky. “He’s dealing with a guy that rules over everything ‘red’ in our world. With an iron fist, so to speak. I ain’t too sure the Devil King can handle that right now.”
“Everything ‘red,’ hmm?” Amane shrugged. “I don’t remember hearing he can do that, but whatever. That’s all your business, anyway, not mine. So, hey, are you leaving or what?”
“Wait… Wait a second!” Rika shouted.
“You got it, miss. Say hi to his boss for me, all right? I’d love to have him over sometime, actually.”
And with that, they all disappeared. Before Rika’s eyes, the dozens of men flicked out of existence like a TV screen, taking Ashiya and Nord with them.
“No…way…” Rika whispered, still on her knees in a puddle. And then:
“…Oop.”
She fell and fainted, finally overtaken by her fear and confusion. Amane gently held up her body, deftly carrying her piggyback as she looked around the area.
“Oh, brother… The Sephirots over on their world must be in a huge tizzy right now.”
Adjusting Rika’s position on her back, the ever-serene Amane walked up the Villa Rosa Sasazuka stairway. Room 201 was luckily unlocked—Rika and Ashiya must’ve forgotten to lock it as they ran from Gabriel.
“Sorry for barging in. This girl’s gonna get a cold if I don’t put some new clothes on her.”
After stepping in, Amane placed Rika on the wooden floor in the kitchen area as she started looking for a towel. “Wow,” she said as she marveled at the neatly folded pile of laundry. “He runs a tight ship… Hmm?”
As she plucked out two towels for herself and Rika, she noticed a sheaf of papers next to the laundry, something like a handwritten map written on the top sheet. She picked it up, toweling off her hair as she gave it a glance.
“Hmmm… So that’s how it is. Ah, but I gotta change this girl’s clothes first,” Amane said as she began to remove Rika’s ruined clothing. “You better not pick this exact moment to walk in, Maou.”
Despite all the chaos that had just taken place, Amane sounded like this was an incredibly fun experience for her.
“Maaaaan, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
The half-demon Maou gave his sword a couple of test swings to see how it felt. It was light in his hand.
“This ain’t demon force, is it? Something tells me the rebound from turning into this is gonna be a total bitch. Hopefully not, but I dunno…”
Maou might have been uneasy about his newfound powers, but despite his whining, he had just made five Heavenly Regiment soldiers eat dirt in a matter of seconds.
These soldiers wielded nowhere near the force of the archangel they served, but Camael’s men were still massively more powerful and better trained than Gabriel’s. Suzuno probably could have handled them, actually, if she didn’t have to hold Chiho at the same time, but it was easy for Maou to imagine the difficulty she faced anyway.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, really. Every time Maou made a move, the roof of the building shuddered as a lightning-fast storm raged over it, the wind and sound barely keeping up. The Regiment soldiers fell like flies, as if the noise itself had stunned them. No one could even follow the action.
“Ooh… If it wasn’t for Urushihara’s spell, you’d be breaking a lot of windows right now…”
The sight was majestic enough for a rueful Chiho, her spirits now fully rallied, to get teary eyed as she watched.
Camael was still apparently satisfied with watching events from above, but all Libicocco could do was watch as the Regiment accompanying him was utterly routed.
“They aren’t…dead, are they?” Chiho asked.
“I don’t care.”
Their shining red armor was all but flattened, shattered like a cookie someone had stepped on.
“You, Malebranche.”
“…Yes.”
Maou didn’t bother looking at Libicocco. He didn’t have to. His voice, along with what the demon had just witnessed, was enough to make him fall to his knees and grovel. He was not the Libicocco of the past. His head was to the ground, and he no longer tried to staunch the blood coming out of his stump.
“You better not ask me who I am by now, all right? ’Cause I am not in a good mood. I know you’re kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place, but like I give a crap about that. You move even an inch, and I make you pay for it.”
“…My liege.”
Even if it wasn’t demonic in nature, the force projected by the Devil King right now told Libicocco he had no choice but to yield.
“Right.” Maou nodded as he lightly kicked off the ground and leaped over to Urushihara.
“…I’m…cuttin’ it pretty close this time, dude…”
He was still on the roof, still unable to move so much as a finger, but not too weak to keep himself from carping at Maou.
“Yeah, well, hang in there. I’ll take you to the hospital once it’s all over.”
“…Nice of you. That ain’t too common.”
“I didn’t think that he”—Maou pointed at the figure in red high above them, still not moved to take action—“was dumb enough to go shootin’ for your lazy ass first. You kept Chi and Suzuno safe, didn’t you? Pretty good job.”
“…I’m not…gonna give you anything…for that compliment…”
“Can you act appreciative for a single moment of your life, man? I’m the one dishing out favors right now.”
If this was your normal, everyday demonic transformation, now would be the time when Maou would lend him some demonic force to heal him. But there was nothing demonic, nor holy, about what coursed through Maou now.
He turned his eyes to Camael.
“And you up there. What is this, like, the nth time you guys have messed around with me in Japan?”
He had to have heard the taunt, but Camael didn’t move an inch.
“Not that I mind if you feel like meddling with us, but didn’t your mom ever tell you not to be a bother to other people, no matter what?”
It was patently ridiculous, a demon lecturing an archangel on morals. But it was clear that a lot of angels up there had been violating the rule quite a bit lately.
“Whether you’re scouting other people or transferring stuff here or there, people in this country say hello to each other first. They say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ They pay money for it. Sometimes they even sue each other. What they don’t do is something as barbaric as start ripping the place apart the moment they show up.”
“…Devil King,” Camael finally said, his voice low and gravelly. “Satan.”
“Yeah?”
“Devil King… Devil King Satan.”
“Wh-what?”
With Libicocco yielding to him, the rain and wind had died down quite a bit. That was how Maou could notice that the trident spear in Camael’s hand was rattling loudly in his gloved fingers.
“Devil…King…Overlord… Satan, Satan… Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan Satan!”
“Wh-what’re you doing? You’re acting all weird.”
Camael’s voice ratcheted upward as he repeated the name, like a fuse burning toward some explosive end.
“Yet again, a demon by that name must get in my way?!”
“Wh-what? You’re the ones always getting in my way!”
“Satan! Satan!!”
“Yahh!”
It came at a speed easily the equal of Maou’s when he defeated the Regiment. The tips of Camael’s trident glinted for just a moment—and the next, the spear was hurtling downward, ready to skewer him.
“Gnh!”
“Nrrgh!”
With blazing speed of his own, Maou reacted quickly enough to deflect the spear with his sword…
“Hyah!”
…and whirled around on the spot, throwing the sword toward Camael’s armored chest.
Even as off balance as he was after the attack, the angel quickly took action. He swung his spear downward, hoping to absorb the force of the incoming blade. But the sword, which had crushed Regiment armor and cut off Libicocco’s arm before he even realized what happened, was far keener than either of them even imagined.
“Eh?”
“Ngh?!”
Maou thought it was blocked. Camael must have thought so, too. But there was just a slight moment of resistance, when their weapons met—and then Maou realized he had made a clean follow-through.
“Ergh!”
Camael’s muffled groan struck Maou’s ears. Maou, for his part, was dumbfounded. Not only did the sword neatly lop off the top of the trident halfway down the handle, it then went on to slash right through the crimson armor like it was made of construction paper. It didn’t make contact with skin below, it seemed—but not even Camael, who had reared back an instant after his weapon was cut in two, could believe the blade touched him.
Thoughts of battles fought long ago flashed in Maou’s mind. Despite the overwhelming force now at his fingertips, he couldn’t help but smile.
“…Man, I never had a chance against her, huh?”
His guard remained up, sword readied in front of him, as he kept a watchful eye on Camael’s next move. Camael threw the hilt of his now-useless weapon aside, ran a hand across the newly-formed gash in his armor, and began to mutter.
“Satan… Satan, Satan…?”
“Uh?”
Maou could tell that his breathing was gradually becoming more labored.
“Sataaaann!!”
“What, what? You’re freaking me out—whoa, whoa, whoa!”
He had thought Camael has lost his wits for a moment, but suddenly, the archangel took the remainder of the spear—the part with the pointy bits—and lunged forward.
“Satan!!”
The points of the spear were close to him now, close enough that Maou could see the eyes behind the iron helmet—but he still blocked them easily. It wasn’t that he didn’t expect this surprise attack, but Camael’s bizarre, and terrifying, behavior was starting to unnerve him.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 8 Page 17
