The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 8 Page 11

Ashiya was solidly against the ropes.

  Just as Suzuno came back to Devil’s Castle upon closing the windows in her room, she received a phone call. It was from Chiho, and while he would’ve guessed Chiho would seek Maou’s aid first, attempting to complete an Idea Link from Sasazuka all the way to Chofu was probably too long a distance for her to grapple with quite yet.

  But did all of this have to happen right now? At this very moment? With her along for the ride?

  It had been just over a month since Chiho gained her Idea Link skill. She had just used it for the very first time.

  Two weeks on from Emi’s unexplained disappearance, they all knew inside that this was worthy of being termed an emergency. One where every second potentially counted. But why did Suzuno and Urushihara have to act that way? Chugging their energy drinks, tossing them on the Devil’s Castle floor, then:

  “Let’s go. Stay close to me.”

  “Sure thing, dude.”

  They opened the window right before Rika’s eyes. What were they thinking?

  “W-wait, you two! Stay calm for a…”

  “Hey, what’re you guys doing? You’re gonna…?!”

  Ashiya and Rika both tried to stop them, albeit for differing reasons. But as the two of them unhesitantingly opened the window and plunged down into the hurricane-force storm:

  “Huh?”

  They didn’t plunge from the second floor at all. They flew horizontally forward before alighting on the roof of the building across the street.

  “Wha…what?”

  Rika, eyes open wide, couldn’t help but open her mouth. Behind her, Ashiya’s head was deep within his hands.

  They must have flown up there to confirm where the threat came from. Suzuno pointed in a seemingly random direction, and with that, the two of them began bounding from roof to roof, making superhuman leaps into the air as they disappeared into the storm.

  “Ah…?!”

  “Ah…!!”

  The look on Rika’s face when she turned to Ashiya was like nothing of this world. She had been, in her own way, a great help to him, and among human beings, he enjoyed her company nearly as much as he enjoyed Chiho’s. That was what made her face at that moment—eyes filled with shock, suspicion, and a longing for some kind of explanation—such a trauma for him to behold.

  So Ashiya found himself kneeling at the tale, writhing under Rika’s stare from the other side, for approximately fifteen minutes after the other two left.

  “Rrgh…”

  “Hm?!”

  Rika’s eyes dug deeper into him. He would be provided with no attorney, no right to remain silent. He knew Rika wouldn’t be willing to accept any of this without some kind of justification.

  But he wasn’t just giving her the silent treatment. He honestly had no idea how much he needed to explain to her. Rika wasn’t part of the human-being contingent of the Devil’s Castle regulars. She was Emi’s friend, and he could tell from their past interactions that Emi had revealed nothing to her. If Ashiya decided to lay out all of Emi’s secrets now, he couldn’t imagine what kind of drama that would wreak upon her return. At the same time, he didn’t have enough of the demonic power he’d require to erase Rika’s memory later on, nor any way to replenish it—not like Urushihara, who apparently received his demonic (holy?) strength out of a bottle.

  They were supposed to be comparing notes about Emi’s disappearance. Why’d it have to turn into this? In a corner of his mind, he complained to himself about how talentless he was proving to be.

  “Well…it’s like this.”

  “Yes?!”

  “Kamazuki, you see…and Urushihara, as well…”

  “Uh-huh?!”

  “They were doing…focus-group testing, for these energy drinks…”

  “And?!”

  “I suppose…those are the results?”

  “Caffeine doesn’t make you do that!!”

  Rika slammed a fist on the table. The bottles wobbled in the center as Ashiya’s back shot straight into attention.

  “I mean, when Red Buck says it’ll give you wings, they don’t mean it literally!”

  She stood up and stormed toward the window.

  “From here, to the house over there, it’s got to be at least thirty feet! You can’t jump that far without even a running start! If you could, you oughta be competing in the Olympics!”

  “Y-yes, I know…”

  “…Look, Ashiya. I’m not trying to accuse Urushihara and Suzuno of being space aliens or supermutants or anything.”

  Ashiya was sure Rika was picturing something close to that in her mind, but there was no point saying that.

  “But even if this was some kinda Hollywood stunt with wires or whatever, you could still tell a little that it’s fake! But they did that all by themselves! Who are they, anyway?!”

  There, at that very moment, Ashiya discovered a glimmer of hope. Rika was preoccupied solely with Suzuno’s and Urushihara’s apparent superhuman skills. It would do little more than buy him some more time, but maybe he could put the blame on their shoulders and play dumb about the whole thing! Would that work? It wasn’t much to cling to, but it gave Ashiya a little hope.

  “And you saw them go off without acting one single bit surprised! You were just trying to stop them or whatever! That can’t be the first time you’ve seen something like that from them!”

  Curse the women of Japan! So sharp-eyed and observant! Even in his current pit of despair, Ashiya felt deeply astonished. Astonished, and back at an impasse again.

  “…If I could be honest, Ms. Suzuki, I have my doubts whether you would believe me or not…”

  Ashiya sighed and resigned himself to his fate. He had never formulated some grandiose scheme to actively hide his true identity, and besides, it was Suzuno who caused all this anyway. Who could admonish Ashiya for being forced to reveal everything in circumstances like these? They all would once they found out, yes, but…

  “…I’m not a stupid enough woman that I wouldn’t believe what I saw with my own eyes, Ashiya.”

  Perhaps recognizing his imminent defeat, Rika sheathed her verbal sword and sat back at the table.

  “And I think I’m…kinda prepared for the worst, y’know?”

  “The worst?”

  “Yeah. What you told me before, about how you ran a company with Maou… That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t really true either, was it?”

  “…What makes you think that?” Ashiya asked, eyes squinted nearly shut.

  Rika shrugged. “Oh, I dunno. I just kinda thought it. Like, when you were picking a phone after you bought that TV. You said normally, you and Suzuno shouldn’t be getting along at all, right?”

  “Yes, I…think I might have said something of the sort, perhaps…”

  “But when you were talking about Suzuno upstairs at Sentucky Fried Chicken that first time, it sounded like you actually really cared about her, right? Maybe you never got along with Emi, but at least with Suzuno, you treated her like an actual neighbor and stuff. But you didn’t know her at all before she moved next to you, right?”

  “Um…”

  “’Cause if not, why did you say you shouldn’t be getting along? Two neighbors who hated each other’s guts wouldn’t go on shopping trips together, and it’s like… I dunno. Like, maybe you didn’t realize it, but you actually knew each other a long time ago, or maybe you just knew about each other before now. And I’m guessing that’s how it is with her and Emi, too.”

  “Ms. Yusa?”

  “Yeah. ’Cause, like, nowadays, Emi treats Suzuno totally different from when I saw her at the office for the first time. At first, she was so cautious around her that I thought maybe she had worked for Maou or something in the past. Nowadays, though… They get along so well, I’m a little jealous, even.”

  Now, alongside his continued astonishment, Ashiya was cursing himself for all the little mistakes and giveaways they had made.

  He didn’t know when Emi had discovered Suzuno’s true co
lors, but at the time of their little Sentucky outing, Suzuno was nothing more to him than a girl living next door who had just given them an enormous box of udon noodles. Any care he had betrayed for her at the time wasn’t an act, really, but once he learned the truth, he inadvertently went off script. He knew he should’ve kept up the façade of neighborliness around Rika, but he hadn’t. And Rika wasn’t a dull enough woman that she let that inconsistency escape her.

  “And even before then, I thought you guys kinda had a lot of stuff between yourselves that I didn’t have a window into, but it wasn’t until that shopping trip when I started thinking there was something y’all were keeping from the world. Like, between Suzuno, and Emi, and… Well, I know we only just met, but considering that circus act just now, probably Urushihara too, huh? So what was that, anyway?”

  “…” Ashiya steeled himself. He had mentally prepared for this eventuality long ago. If it meant Rika would be too terrorized to come near them any longer, that was simply destiny playing its hand. Part of him figured that she wouldn’t try selling the story to the media. They had not known each other that long, but on that score, at least, he was confident.

  “Ms. Suzuki.”

  “…!”

  “So. All of us…are—”

  “Eep?!”

  “?”

  All that resolve, all that resignation that drove Ashiya to expose himself, was extinguished by Rika’s short scream. She was pointing a shaky finger at the window Urushihara and Suzuno had flown out of. He turned around, following it…

  “Agh!!”

  …and let out a yelp of his own. He couldn’t help it, considering what was there.

  “Ashiyaaa…open uhhppp…open da window…”

  It was a sopping-wet, semiconscious Maou tapping at the window.

  “H’loooo… Ashiyaaaa…”

  He was the very definition of the word pitiful as he tapped away, plastered against the wall like a drowned rat instead of being out in Fuchu passing his road test.

  Overcoming the first wave of surprise, Ashiya hurriedly rushed to the window and flung it open. It was definitely Maou on the other side—but what flew inside along with the wind and rain was something else entirely.

  “M-my liege?! What are you doing out there?! And who are these people?!”

  “Nnhh… I’m freezing… Uhh, I’ll explain later. Lemme get this guy down. Ngh…”

  Instead of entering the room, he kicked a large, just-as-soaked middle-aged man inside. He lifted his head up from the tatami-mat floor.

  “…Who’s this?”

  “I-indeed…”

  Neither Rika nor Ashiya had ever seen him before.

  “Oh… Rika Suzuki? You’re here? Well, umm… I’m kind of in a hurry, so let’s talk later… Ashiya, can you get this guy in a new set of clothes for me? He says he’s got battle experience, but right now, we can’t afford to let him go free.”

  “My, my liege, what is the meaning of—”

  “L-later, all right? Sorry. Suzuno’s gonna freak if we’re delayed any more. I guess Chiho’s in trouble…eh-choo!”

  “Ah! Huh? It’s only been fifteen or so minutes since Ms. Sasaki contacted us…”

  Maou couldn’t have predicted all of this in advance, Ashiya thought, and there was no way he could’ve covered the distance from Fuchu in such a short time.

  “May I, too, come out, Maou?”

  “Sure, go ahead. Oooh, it’s cold…”

  They turned toward the unfamiliar voice, only to find an unknown woman who was quite literally and unabashedly floating in the air. Ashiya turned to Rika, only to find her eyes darting rapidly between him, Maou, the woman, and the middle-aged man.

  “Your Demonic Highness! This girl…!”

  “Oh, once I’m at my destination, I’ll make her come back here, too—”

  “Okay, here we go!”

  “I’ll explain laterrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…”

  Before he could finish, the two of them left the waterlogged man behind and flew off the way Suzuno and Urushihara had. It took a few moments for Maou’s shouting to fade into the distance.

  Ashiya and Rika watched them go, completely forgetting to close the window behind them for a moment.

  “……”

  “……”

  “……”

  “Well…um. Do you have, ah, the clothing?”

  “Who in the blazes are you, sir?!”

  “Did she just flyyyyyy?!”

  It would be a while before order reigned once more.

  Just a bit before Maou received Suzuno’s Idea Link call:

  When she saw him, walking carefree across the school courtyard in the pouring rain, Chiho almost fainted on the spot. Not out of horror—just out of the sheer suddenness of it. It probably should have paralyzed her in fear, but she had already met one of their kind face-to-face (although that one had looked just a bit different). And after everything she’d heard about them, she knew that this guy must’ve been fairly high up among the demons in Ente Isla. One of the bosses, the leaders of the Malebranche tribe.

  That one who had Erone with him… Farfarello! That was the name. He was one of the new guys, it sounded like, but from far away, the Malebranche stalking school grounds right now looked a decent amount larger.

  She was too shocked at first to notice, but he was dragging something along in his right hand. She realized it was Peace and Truth, a sculpture donated by alumni to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the school’s opening. The design was bizarrely abstract—a sphere with geometrical patterns on it, surrounded by three naked men with their backs arched, arms open wide. Ever since it was installed on school grounds, students treated it with equal parts disdain, discomfort, and denial of its artistic qualities. Now it had been either uprooted or snapped off its base by the Malebranche, who was cheerfully walking around the courtyard as the sphere dug into the soil behind him.

  Not long ago, she had made Maou and the others worry for her thanks to an overhasty decision. But, likewise, she knew she couldn’t handle this alone, so she tried to contact Maou. He had mentioned that he was going off for his retest today, but this was probably more important.

  But she couldn’t reach him. Avoiding the students and teachers currently awestruck at the sight of the Malebranche, she had focused on her cell phone with all her might, yet failed to link up with Maou at all. Not even this amplifier was enough to reach Chofu, she inferred.

  She knew that Emi was still missing, and that meant the only one of them capable of taking on that demon in combat was Suzuno. While the attention of everyone else in the classroom was focused on the courtyard, she grasped the phone inside her bag once more and attempted an Idea Link to her. This time, it worked, with Suzuno promising to rush over as quickly as possible.

  “Hey, Sasachi, what do you think that is?” blurted out Kaori Shoji, her best friend at school, as she pointed at the courtyard. Chiho wasn’t about to explain to her.

  “Um… Boy, who knows? Hope it’s not a rabid zoo animal or anything…”

  She silently apologized to the demons of the world. And while it couldn’t have been in response to that, the Malebranche roughly tossed away Peace and Truth like a baby growing sick of their toy.

  Chiho, and everyone else, gasped as the work of art hurtled its way to a corner of the courtyard like a meteor, smashed against one of the soccer goalposts, and shattered. If they had been less lucky, it could’ve hit the school building itself.

  “Maybe I could do something for…a little bit?” Chiho said to herself. Divert his attention, for example. Maybe she could make the Malebranche move away, to someplace where students wouldn’t see him. She grabbed at the phone, seeking Suzuno’s opinion, but realized that Suzuno would never want her acting on her own. It was probably better to sit back and observe how things unfolded, Chiho reasoned to herself—

  “Grooooorrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhh!!”

  “Aahh!”

  The Malebranche roared, its loud howl echoing high
like a wolf in the wilderness. Chiho reflexively covered her ears.

  “Ah…”

  Then she heard someone gasping in fear nearby.

  “Y-you okay?”

  “I think we better run away…”

  “What should we do, teacher?”

  “What? D-don’t ask me…”

  The classroom was starting to fall apart. Chiho had the vague feeling this was how the seeds of panic unfolded. She looked at the Malebranche, still far away, and came to a conclusion inside her mind. Maou and Suzuno might yell at her later, but there was no time for indecision. If the Malebranche outside did something like that again, that’d just add fuel to the flames of panic.

  “…”

  Chiho slipped out of the anxious classroom and sprinted down the hall before anyone noticed. It was probably the first time she’d run down a school hallway at full speed since kindergarten.

  Soon, without anyone noticing, Chiho was on her way to the rooftop of the old Sasahata North school building. The school had been in operation for over seventy years, and the older building was past half a century old. Renovation plans didn’t look like they’d come to fruition during Chiho’s time at the school, but apart from the classrooms for the third-year students, the building was chiefly used for meeting rooms, student-council facilities, and other activities that didn’t involve hanging out there all day.

  Everyone was too focused on the horror at hand to notice Chiho as she flung herself into the old building, now empty as she sped down the hall and up to the roof. But just before she reached it:

  “…Ah?!”

  She stopped.

  Right next to the third-floor stairway—the only way to the rooftop—was a classroom the students commonly called the “forbidden chamber.” Not that a student died or got locked up in there or anything; it was once the home-ec classroom, but now there was one in the comparatively spiffier, thirty-year-old “new” school building, so it had merely fallen into disuse.

  There was a padlock on the door, but the fitting it hung from was flimsy enough that a child with a screwdriver could’ve pried it open. Chiho had gone here earlier to “witness” Emi making the leap between worlds through her Yesod fragment, but now she could see that someone had bashed in the forbidden chamber’s door from the inside. The hallway was also plastered with comically large, muddy footprints.