“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…”
Pushing back his fatigue, Maou did his best to explain his Chiho-adjacent illness, from when it first began post-summit to the present day. He received a kiss from Chiho. When he gave her feelings serious thought and attempted to reciprocate them, he felt ill like never before in his life. He even revealed his convalescence with Sariel, leaving nothing unsaid.
The response was just that flat, emotionless “hmmm.”
“Look, I’m baring everything I have for you here…”
“No, I mean, it sounds like nothing but you talking about how much you love her to me. Not even my father goes on at that much length.”
Emi’s serious exasperation seemed to make a laughingstock of all the resolve Maou had drummed up for so many things.
“And you treated me like a child earlier, didn’t you, saying I’m only one year older than Chiho?”
“…What about that?”
“Well, I don’t need you lording it over me if you’re laid up because you kissed a cute girl and replied to her love confession.”
“…Ngh…”
He had no response. The debate was completely one-sided.
“But all right. So in the end, all you have to do is stop hiding things from Chiho. Just talk to her. Face up to her. Right?”
“Stop hiding things? I can’t really do much about that right now.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you can or not. What’s important is that you make yourself face up to her… Why do I even need to tell you all these things?”
“Is that how it is?”
“Go ahead and doubt me if you want. It’s your and Chiho’s problem; do whatever you want. We’re gonna have to beat Ignora before things start to calm down anyway. Why don’t you just take your time, let it simmer, and get dumped in the end, regardless?”
“Hey…”
“Wow. Now I feel really dumb worrying for you. I wish Chiho could understand how spineless you really are.”
“Hey…urgh…!”
Maou got up to complain, unable to weather this tirade any longer. But his elbows and shoulders still didn’t work the way he wanted. He collapsed back onto his futon. Emi didn’t turn around.
“Did you eat anything, by the way? There’s not really anything in the fridge that’s good for a convalescent. It’s all just fried stuff.”
“………………Lately…Libicocco’s done all the cooking.”
Frustrated, Maou had his head buried in his pillow, no longer caring how he sounded to Emi as she nagged him.
“Oh, but you’ve got some frozen rice. I could make some porridge for you, but can you eat that?”
“I don’t need any.”
“Why are you sulking?”
Emi turned toward Maou, who was mumbling into his pillow after his valiant attempts to sit up had failed. Despite her harsh words, her face had an oddly gentle look to it.
“Well, once you get your appetite back, if you eat something greasy that’s been sitting in the fridge for a while, you’ll wreck your stomach. I’ll make sure this is okay to heat up later, so let me make it, all right?”
“Nnh…”
Maou replied with a groan as Emi took out some miso and chopped vegetables and prepared a simple rice porridge.
“Eat this once you feel better. And stay hydrated, too, please. I put a few sports drinks in the fridge. I’ll leave one bedside for you, all right?”
“…Mmh.”
Maou remained facedown on the futon, whether he couldn’t get up or just didn’t want to.
“You’re gonna asphyxiate.”
“…”
“If you lag behind in battle because you’re dragging all this Chiho stuff, I’m not gonna help you out.”
“…Like that’ll happen.”
“I don’t know…”
Despite the bravado, Emi kept her breezy smile on. Maou never stood a chance.
“But if you’re sulking that much, I’m sure you’re all right. I’m going home, so take care.”
Double-checking to make sure she’d turned the gas stove off, Emi picked up her shoulder bag from a corner of the room.
“Ugh, my hair’s a mess…”
She used a comb to smooth out her bed head as she walked toward the front door.
“…Hey.”
“What?”
“…Why were you sleeping?”
“Huh?”
Emi, in the midst of putting her shoes on, turned back around. Maou was on his back again, looking up at her.
“Why were you sleeping next to me?”
“It wasn’t me originally. It was Alas Ramus.”
“Huh?”
“She saw you were sick and wanted to make you feel better, so she latched right on to you. I told her to stop because she might catch it, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
“…Oh… Really…?”
“So I lay down so she was between you and me, and when she fell asleep, I put her back into my body. But you still weren’t waking up and I was a little tired myself, so I just took a nap, is all. I set an alarm because even if you didn’t wake up, I wanted to leave before eight. I have to feed Alas Ramus and take a bath and stuff.”
It was a perfectly sensible reply. It still took Maou aback. He sighed.
“…Oh. That’s fine, then. Sorry.”
“It wasn’t because I wanted to sleep beside you or anything.”
“Did anybody even say that?”
“You asked me because you were anxious that was it, didn’t you?”
She saw right through his mind.
“Well, sorry. I’ve really got no idea what women are thinking lately.”
“Do you act that way around Bell, too?”
That stabbed Maou once more where it hurt. But he didn’t have it in him to resist the tsunami any longer.
“I don’t know. Suzuno and I have talked a few times but never alone. And even with Chi, you saw how we interacted normally with each other until just before we talked today.”
That made Emi stop tying her shoes.
“So as long as you’re not alone with her, conscious about that sort of thing, you’re all right?”
“…Maybe. I can’t say for sure yet, but…”
Emi took her shoes off and sat back down next to Maou, placing a hand on his forehead, then his chest. Maou had no idea what to make of this mysterious behavior, worrying that his heart palpitations would be interpreted the wrong way.
“Mmm… I bet Bell could see it with one touch, but not me, I guess. This is going to sting a bit.”
“Huh? Gaghh?!”
Suddenly, a shock ran up and down Maou’s body. The hair on his head stood up, as if loaded with static electricity, and he could virtually feel the shock in his fingers. It was a familiar feeling to him.
“Wh-what are you doing?! You trying to kill me?! ’Cause I could really die right now!”
Emi had injected a sonar blast of holy energy into his body.
“I thought so,” she said flatly, ignoring his protests. “Devil King, does it feel like the demonic force inside you is being upset? That force makes us sick as it is, but it’s sloshing around in the weirdest way in there.”
“I think that’s what’s happening. That’s why, after I took Copyhara to the demon realms, I began feeling better pretty quickly. Like, if you were gonna scan me for that, then say something first.”
“Like you’d say yes to it. But in that case, no matter how bad off you are, if you can fill up your demonic force, you’re fine, huh?”
“That’s what I thought, too. But I’m not completely out of demonic force like last time. I had a decent amount stored up, but this is still happening. I guess if I don’t have enough to put me in demon form when I go back to that realm, then probably…”
“Hmm… I see.” Emi removed her hands and fished through her shoulder bag. “Then it’s simple, isn’t it? It’s not gonna solve your problem with Chiho at the root, but if you have enough power to become the Devil King, that’ll fix you up, right?”
“What’re you talking about? I can’t do that in Japan, and that’s the problem—”
Maou couldn’t finish the sentence. Too weak to even turn over in bed, he had no way of resisting it. A warm, soft sensation stopped him cold, a sweet liquid flowing into his mouth. Emi’s low mutter came into his ears from a position closer to him than she had ever been before. Even if he wanted to escape, his head was held down, his mouth kept shut; there was no way to stop the flow.
“Nhh… Ooh…”
It lasted just a few seconds, Emi’s face occupying his entire vision, but to Maou, it lasted long enough to have his life flash before his eyes.
“Pahh! Wha-ah…”
When his view opened up again, Emi was holding what looked like an opened energy shot in her right hand. Then he felt the liquid—forced into him mouth to mouth—burn like a searing flame inside him. But it wasn’t strictly the 5-Holy Energy β causing his throat, stomach, and intestines to writhe in agony. Emi’s own powerful holy energy, filled to the brim by her recent stay in Ente Isla, had gone along for the ride. The already agitated demonic power was blown away. He could feel it being crushed, eradicated from every cell in his body.
“Don’t worry. I put up a barrier.”
By the time Emi leaned back and wiped his lips with her handkerchief…
“…Come on, Emi…”
…Maou was in Devil King form, brimming with demonic force from head to toe, and already sitting up on his futon.
“Hey, we already proved it works, right?”
She was right. If a human body was flooded with more holy energy than it could process, it sustained an inversion and transformed into amplified demonic force. Everyone around Maou knew about that; he’d had Emi and Suzuno help him pull off that exact trick to turn demonic before.