Urushihara glanced at the capsules surrounding them. Kinanna was finally crawling out of his capsule, much as Urushihara had. He closed his eyes on all fours, and whether asleep or awake, he lay still thereafter.
“Emilia… Why do you think the relics of the Devil Overlord Satan were bequeathed to me?”
“Huh?”
“Why did they keep them at all? I can’t carry a spear that big around, and it’s not like the Nothung is that great a sword, even. Even if I bothered reading the Sorcery of the False Gold, it’s not like it would help me in the demon realms. And the thing in Kinanna’s neck… What is that anyway?”
“…Well… I don’t really know what you demons think of as the treasure of your realms, exactly, but… Wait, why are you asking me?”
“Because you’re the most likely out of anyone here to know.” Urushihara pointed at Alas Ramus. “Like, if Maou says right now that he’ll take in Alas Ramus and raise her himself, what would you do?”
“Huhh? He’d never do that.”
“You’re that sure, huh?”
Maou winced at the knee-jerk skepticism, but the thought of paying for her education took the edge off his retort.
“What if he had lots of money and Alas Ramus said she wanted to live with him alone?”
“That’d never happen in a million years.”
“It’s a hypothetical, okay? Stop dismissing it.”
“Even as a theoretical construct, I hate it. There’s no possible way the Devil King could be a single dad for Alas Ramus. He can’t merge with her, he can’t take care of a little kid…and, ugh, when I heard he didn’t even give her a futon to sleep on when she was at his apartment…”
“Well, Ignora probably thought the exact same thing. So, Maou, disregarding what Emilia thinks, if you were living with Alas Ramus and some unfortunate disaster happened to you, what then?”
Maou looked at Urushihara, Alas Ramus, and then Emi before turning around. He observed the large terrarium holding the Yesod root as he spoke.
“If I was living alone with Alas Ramus and something happened to me… Well, isn’t it obvious?”
An impulse drove him to put a hand on Emi’s shoulder. She didn’t brush it away.
“I’d have her go to her mom. What else?”
“So there you have it.”
It wasn’t likely meant as a signal. But Maou, Emi, and even Urushihara couldn’t help but think that those words were meant to trigger something.
“The sword, the spear, the sorcery, and the gem… They were nothing but a last will and testament, to guide us to the root underneath. Satanael gave them to four demons he trusted in case he lost them—these four ‘keys.’ He used them to guide me here and get me back to where my mother was. But before I could accept his last wishes, I was taken away from Satanas Arc. The demons that took Satanael’s relic keys couldn’t search for me, and with the exception of Kinanna, they all died. And your dad was among them, Camio.”
“Cheep… My ancestor…”
The shaking gradually grew stronger.
“…But what’s with this rumbling? Don’t tell me this whole thing’s gonna lift up like Satanas Arc and turn into a spaceship.”
“It’s nothing as stupid as that. I have a hunch it’ll stop real soon.”
The voice was the same, but this time it was Copyhara responding instead of Urushihara.
“The root’s started to move. So the thing the Devil Overlord took away long ago can be reunited.”
“Reunited…? Wait.”
Maou looked at Gabriel. He needed to be sure. The “split up” thing that he’d mentioned when discussing the past with him in Nerima could be only one thing—the moon of Ente Isla.
“I guess you can’t blame a kid for the sins of his parents, right? But it’s too late, dude. How laissez-faire were you with my upbringing anyway?”
The moons, split apart at the end of a “family argument” between God and the Overlord, were now approaching each other once more.
“The whole moon…?”
Amane looked up. “…Hey, Maou? I think you better hurry up and contact Kamazuki or Emeralda soon. They’re over in the Central Continent, or whatever you called it, right?”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right. If I don’t tell them when something happens, they can get scary with me.”
Maou hurriedly took out his phone and began tapping out a text.
“But, you know, this really opens up some prospects for us…but at the same time, we got a whole lot more to do, all of a sudden. Um, what should we start with once I contact them? Actually, Ashiya’s over in Efzahan now—maybe I should contact him and inform the other summit members. After that…”
“Um, hold on a second, Devil King.”
Just as Maou was restlessly considering his future plans, Emi suddenly stopped him cold.
“So we really have set up the whole path to finishing this, right? Then isn’t there something we ought to do now, while we can?”
Her stern voice made Maou lower the hand holding his phone.
“The things Lucifer made me realize… I think we need to address them, even if we have to start now. I mean…”
Emi frowned.
“At the end of this battle, at least one of us might wind up dead…and then we’ll lose that chance forever.”
Maou, realizing what Emi was getting at, turned toward Urushihara.
“You’re right. Which means we’ll have to work out plans with you, Urushihara, and Ashiya and Suzuno, too.”
Urushihara, a bit confused by having his name called out, looked back at him.
“Huh? What’re you talking about?”
“You just said it, man.”
“What?”
“But first we need to quiet down the turmoil across the demon realms. I’m gonna return to Devil’s Castle and see how things are over there and in heaven. Given the scale of what we just did, heaven might decide to storm us as soon as they can. We can decide what to do after we gauge the situation. All right?”
“That sounds good to me,” Emi agreed.
Maou put the phone back in his pocket.
“Urushihara, Camio, back to the castle.”
The resolve in his voice was unmistakable.
“Before the final battle, Emi, Urushihara, and I need to go and make some amends. We gotta let Ashiya and Suzuno know right now.”