Maou refused to frankly address Chiho, and thanks to that, she never truly felt that she had his attention. No matter how mentally strong she might have been, that would make any teenage girl anxious, deep down. And despite never addressing that anxiety at the root, he tried to care for it on the surface—only to obliviously make things worse. Looking back, Suzuno had first picked up on Chiho’s anxieties on that day in winter.
“Chiho has had feelings for you for a very long time now, both when your demonic force was gone and when it was back in your possession. So I assumed things would be all right…but I had a nagging concern. It was back when Farfarello kidnapped Chiho, when you used holy force from me and Emilia to create demonic force.”
As Suzuno put it, anyone intimately familiar with Maou would have picked up on this. But given how her thoughts were based around the same things as Emi’s, everyone who was there for that scene would’ve been able to ascertain the cause of the changes befalling Maou.
“We are both closely involved with you, but we, as human beings, infused you with an opposing force that you converted within you. So I wondered—does that only work when you are feared by mankind? Would nothing happen if you were loved?”
“…”
“And that is exactly what happened.”
Suzuno fell silent for a while.
“Of course, based on what I see, I think that…”
Her mouth was about to make the “Chi” sound when Maou exploded.
“Wait! Wait, Suzuno.”
He asked her to stop. A person had to be watching carefully to see it, but Suzuno’s eyebrows went down a bit, lips frowning slightly.
“Just…let me finish that thought for you, okay?”
“Okay.” Suzuno nodded, waiting for him.
“…I don’t know if I should lob this back to you after asking you to wait, but…um, ahh, Suzu, uh, Crestia Bell, I…”
“Suzuno is fine.”
“Huh?”
“Suzuno is fine,” she repeated, a little more strongly.
“Ahh, Suzuno,” he began again, respecting her wishes. “You are a Great Demon General in the Devil King’s Army. You are a good neighbor, a companion I can rely on…but back on that day, I simply had no answer for your feelings.”
“And not just because you are a demon and I am human?”
“Right. I couldn’t answer up to the love you confessed to me that day.”
Suzuno looked up a bit at Maou as he declared the truth. She smiled, and the smile threw Maou for a loop. He wasn’t expecting that reaction at all.
“Thank you.”
“What?”
“I am happy to see you act sincere with me,” she said, her smile widening. “To you, I am just one of many people who descended upon your life. In fact, I aimed for that life at one point.”
“That was forever ago.”
“It was only a year ago. To a demon as long-lived as you, I am sure it seems like yesterday.”
“Have you ever thought about how eventful this past year’s been to me? It seems like the ancient past to me now.”
“Ha-ha… Yes, indeed.”
She nodded and looked up at him again, that soft smile still plain on her face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. Looking at you, I can tell. When you first heard my confession of love, you were perfectly healthy—and now, you cannot come near me. That alone makes me feel rewarded. After all…”
Suzuno lifted a hand, pointing at Maou’s chest.
“At the very least, I now have a place on the scales in your heart. Am I right?”
She took a step closer. Maou didn’t retreat.
“But this is a problem. If someone like me is causing this to you, it must be even harder to work with Chiho, no?”
A clammy sweat appeared on Maou’s forehead. Suzuno’s sharp eyes spotted it, and that was what made her see the problem he faced.
“I feel so pathetic saying it, but yes. In a few ways.”
His reply to Chiho’s feelings affected him so badly that Libicocco immediately noticed it. He had turned down Suzuno, but not only had she spotted the problem, she worried about him because of it. That may have been the most pathetic thing.
“It is pathetic, but this is not simply a matter about you saying no to me. The fate of Ente Isla is heavily involved in it.”
“…Yeah, it is. That’s why I had to talk to you alone about this. No matter how embarrassing it is.”
Maou had spent many hours being exposed to Chiho and Suzuno’s feelings for him without any problem. Things had suddenly changed, however, and there could be only one reason for it. And that was: For all the feelings those two human beings gave him, his own body was generating feelings of deep affection just as powerful as theirs.
It was enough to gravely incapacitate even the Devil King. If this had been a normal demon and a normal human, the demon might very well have died from it. And as they planned to help large numbers of demons immigrate to spots across Ente Isla, they might interact with humans, just as Maou and Ashiya did—and over decades and centuries, maybe love between demons and humans would become perfectly normal. But if they were incompatible on a molecular level like this, not only would they not interact—they would be living separately again, hating each other at the root and perhaps waging war once more.
“This is not an issue we can immediately address. We have too little sample data to divine a cause, and for all we know, it might be something related to your own personal nature. But either way…without Chiho’s help, you are not going to get anywhere.”
“Yeah…”
“Is Chiho aware of this?”
“I don’t know. I want to tell her about it once I give her my real reply.”
“I see. Well, all right. We cannot address this issue right now, but let us file it as a concern we need to solve going forward. So…”
“Hmm?”
“What kind of reward should I expect for tackling this issue?”
“…What?”
“Because otherwise, why would I bend over backward to help my romantic rival establish true love with the man who dumped me?”
“I, no, um…”
“They say you should not step into lovers’ spats, but what kind of work should I do, and who should I work with, to make your relationship work? It makes my head hurt.”
“No, that, uhhm…”
“…Pffft.” Suzuno laughed a bit at the sight of Maou flailing in front of her. “I promise you that I will seriously address the issue, for the sake of future peace in our world, but I do expect a commensurate reward for it…my beloved Devil King.”
“Ooh, ahh, all… All right…”
Maou stepped back, unable to take any more of this. Suzuno watched him, still a bit amused.
“Well, I need to go back. I am a busy woman, despite appearances. With Alciel joining the assault on heaven, I need to give the Central Continent and Efzahan the care it needs.”
“…Oh… Oh.”
“We got somewhat sidetracked, but I did come here to relay that message from Lady Wurs. It seems to me that our victory is assured, regardless of what Ignora is preparing for us, but still, you must stay on high alert.”
On this topic, at least, Suzuno put her smile away, dead serious as she watched Maou.
“And do not do anything that will bring regret to Chiho’s life afterward.”
“…I know. I promised her dad as much.”
“Good. Farewell, then.”
With that, Suzuno walked past Maou and down the corridor. As Maou turned to watch her:
“…!”
He felt a slight heaviness on his back, preventing him from turning at all.
“Devil King?”
The voice of Suzuno emerged from behind him. He couldn’t see her face.
“Whatever you do, please return safely. We are all awaiting you.”
It was just a single moment of contact. And when Maou tried to respond, the weight was gone—and by the time he finally turned around, Suzuno was through the feather pen–driven Gate and away.
“…That was bad of me, wasn’t it?”
Left alone, Maou crouched on the floor for a bit, groaning to himself. But then, with that voiced regret, he toddled off (“toddled” is the only way to put it) to his throne room.
And someone was watching him go.
“Wow, that’s how it’s going with him?”
It was the classic face Urushihara made—curious, to put it nicely; to put it not so nicely, grinning like a rubbernecker. But Urushihara was never particularly mindful of other people’s subtle emotions.
“It’s weird, though. Is that the nature of demons, or is the Tree itself affecting him…? Maybe I should keep a closer eye on him.”
Copyhara kept muttering to himself as he went in the opposite direction from Maou, heading down to the castle’s lower levels. Along the way:
“Ah!”
“Oop. Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
He almost ran into Emi in the hallway.
“You’re Copyhara, right? Not Lucifer?”
“Right. But what’s up? Satan went that way, and Crestia Bell’s back in Ente Isla.”
“Oh. Well, good, then. I have a favor to ask of you. You mind coming with me real quick, before the Devil King finds us?”
“Me? What do you need?”
“I want you to join me in Ente Isla. You said Bell just went back there? If we hurry, we oughtta be able to catch her.”
“And you’re not gonna tell Satan about this, dudette?”
“No, I want to keep it a secret. I’ll explain things to Bell and Eme once we’re back in Ente Isla…but before that, I want to confirm something with you. For the sake of peace in Ente Isla, after the assault on heaven.”
“Sounds pretty grandiose.”
“So you appeared from the Yesod fragment in Chiho’s possession, right? How far back does your memory of us go?”
“Anything that happened after Chiho Sasaki took possession of my fragment, I have pretty much the same memory of as you.”
Emi gave this a satisfied nod as she took out her angel’s feather pen, opened a Gate, grabbed Copyhara’s hand, and flew in, as if every second counted.
“In that case, you remember right after the ring with your fragment was put on Chiho’s finger…”
The next moment, the Gate disappeared, and they were on their way to Suzuno.
“…Was someone here?”
And by the time Maou staggered by, sensing the residual energy, no trace of Emi and Copyhara was left.