“Ohhh… And since I was looking all angry, you probably thought we were fighting, huh?”
Emi expelled a deep sigh.
The call Maki mentioned was probably the one Emi had picked up in her bathroom the previous day. As for that other one…
“Though looking back…I guess she was kinda all over the place. I’d spot her grinning to herself, then she’d start looking all troubled. It’s like her mind wasn’t on her work at all.”
Maki grinned a bit herself as she sought Emi’s appraisal.
“Do you think Rika found a new guy or something?”
“Gnnh!”
The groan was perhaps louder than Emi meant.
“M-Ms. Yusa?”
“Oh, um… It’s noth—”
At that moment, the scene in front of Sentucky Fried Chicken played back in her mind.
“No! Stop stop stop stop! Cut me a break!”
“Ms. Yusa?!”
Ignoring Maki’s surprised yelp, Emi placed her head on the desk.
Chiho, she couldn’t do much about. She had already been intimately familiar with the demons by the time they met. But Rika joining the fray would make Emi’s stress levels accelerate to the stratosphere.
“Why’s it always on a day like this…?”
“Oop. …Thank you for calling the Dokodemo Customer Support Team! This is Shimizu. How can I help you today…?”
“Yes, hello, thanks for calling the Dokodemo Customer Support Team…”
“Thank you for your phone call today! Are you there, sir…?”
“Why do I have to be so busy?!”
Emi felt like she wanted to cry.
The calls came without a break from the moment her day started.
The morning roundup e-mail mentioned that all feature phones and smartphones equipped with digital HDTV support were facing issues with signal reception today.
“Ugh, this is the TV company, people! It’s not our fault!”
“Ms. Yusa…?”
Maki covered the mike on her headset and frowned.
That must have been loud enough to be audible. Emi winced and brought her hands together in apology. Another call came onscreen.
“…Hello, and thank you for calling the Dokodemo Customer Support Team. This is Yusa…”
Another complaint about TV reception.
The common thread among the complaints was that the screen flashed white whenever users launched the TV app.
That, and this flashing ate up the phone’s battery like wildfire.
It didn’t happen wherever there was a weak cell signal.
The phenomenon tended to happen to everyone at generally the same time.
And, while it didn’t particularly matter, a strangely large number of people reported it happening when they used the TV app inside their own homes.
“If you’re at home,” Emi muttered to herself, “just watch your own TV, you freaks.”
Dokodemo HQ’s operational team had yet to give the call center any guidance about the cause, so all Emi and the rest of the staff had to offer customers were their profuse and heartfelt apologies.
It could have been a lot worse, at least. Anything involving people’s voice, text, or Net connections would have been murder. Most users, by comparison, didn’t bother with TV on their phones that often—not when even the biggest screens didn’t offer more than a small, occasionally choppy image. In an era where people could record multiple HD broadcasts at the same time, mobile-phone TV was mostly a toy unless you absolutely had to have the current live broadcast on your phone.
It was to the point where the TV-reception hardware was gradually being phased out of phones in Japan to make room for improved voice, Net, and app performance.
In other words, even though Dokodemo still offered a full line of phones with TV reception, the number of complaints for the current outage was still slow enough that Emi had time to trouble herself over Rika.
When the company had a Net outage a while back that made texting unavailable for a mere thirty minutes, that was enough to knock out the phone systems of every call center nationwide, a disaster epic enough in scale to make the national news.
“TV, though, huh…?”
Emi’s talk with Rika the day before made her mind blank out for a moment, but as the conversation went on, she learned that Ashiya apparently had asked Rika for advice on purchasing appliances.
She had no idea why Ashiya had Rika’s contact info, but apparently Rika promised to give Ashiya some advice on buying a cell phone not long ago.
That ongoing issue fell by the wayside with Maou’s Choshi trip, only to be rushed back to the forefront by Rika’s somewhat hushed voice over the phone.
Emi wavered, unable to dissuade Rika from avoiding Ashiya for reasons she couldn’t reveal. Instead, she advised Rika to just “be herself”—about the most slapdash, generic advice one could give at a time like this—and hung up the phone.
Then she immediately placed a call to Suzuno, who reported that—as expected—Maou had come storming back from the real estate agent, supreme victory written on his face, with Ashiya behind him looking like the sky was falling directly on his bank account.
The rent remained the same, they owed nothing for the home repairs, and since the MHK television fee was paid by the landlord on a collective-housing contract, it was already factored into the rent.
“And as I discussed last night, I intend to join them on the hunt. I thought this might perhaps be a fine opportunity to purchase a television of my own.”
That report lightened Emi’s heart a little. Just a little. A wiped-down kitchen counter in the frat house party of her life.
Rika wasn’t going alone with Ashiya. Suzuno and Maou would be with them.
“…But is that gonna be all right?”
“M-Ms. Yusa?”
Stress and talking to herself went hand in hand with Emi, who was too lost in thought to acknowledge Maki’s concern.
Rika sees Ashiya as a regular young man.
There was no point trying to pretend otherwise.
With every ounce of willpower she could muster, Emi attempted the grueling act of picturing Ashiya for who he was. Shirou Ashiya: Well-built, muscular, and tall. Hair that just barely escaped taglines like
shaggy
or
unkempt
. And a face taut and wizened by ages of dealing with poverty. To an impartial observer, he probably looked like a forlorn liberal-arts major with a background in the—
“Rghh.”
It made Emi sick thinking about it, but that was the conclusion a lot of people would make.
And beyond that, he was polite and amenable around others, never came off as arrogant or cocky, but was still strict enough to upbraid his master Maou for his mistakes and spew venom at Urushihara all day for…being Urushihara.
His main minus was his near-total lack of income, but that was chiefly by his own design. If he completed the steps necessary to find a job, he would no doubt excel at whatever he tried his hand at. As a demon, he was just as much an expert with languages as Emi was.
And since his dirt-poor lifestyle left him with next to no money for entertainment, you never had to worry about excessive drinking or smoking.
And he could cook, clean, and do laundry.
Perfectly.
Chiho Sasaki, by modern teenage standards, was so exceptional that she ought to be classified as a national monument and preserved for generations to marvel at. But looking at it this way, Emi had to admit—as a man, Ashiya was pretty prime pickings, too.
Maybe Rika fell in love at first sight. She couldn’t do much about that.
“Does Rika know…Bell and the Devil King are coming along?”
Now a different sort of frustration began to make itself known—not from the Hero Emilia, but as Emi Yusa, Rika Suzuki’s friend.
Over the phone last night, Rika sounded like she was trying (and failing) with all her heart to hide her embarrassment…and her excitement.
She never used the word
date
, but Rika must have known that Ashiya recognized her as a special woman in his life.
But…
“Is that registering with any of them…?”
This shopping trip involved buying a TV for Devil’s Castle. Rika, Ashiya, Maou, and Suzuno coming together seemed natural enough.
Given how fiendishly well organized Ashiya always was, he might have let Rika know about that by now.
But Rika must have had some kind of faint…expectation in mind, at least. Nothing strong enough to call hope, but it was there.
The expectation that she’d be alone, out together with Ashiya.
And Rika knew, in her own way, that Maou and Suzuno would be there, but she still saw that as a disappointment…
“…No! That’s wrong!” Emi shouted.
“Wh-what’s wrong?!” Maki, awaiting a call in her booth, shivered in surprise.
But Emi had no time to worry about her.
Where did Emi go wrong?
Ashiya is a demon.
He just looked human right now because he was drained of his malevolent force. There was no way Emi could allow a demon like him to ever be alone with a valued friend of hers.
Ever since the previous day, her mind had been going off in all kinds of odd directions.
There was an uneasy truce between her and the demons, but it was one they were both forced into. From head to cloven hoof, they were the enemies of all mankind.
And with Suzuno around, she could protect Rika if anything happened. And Ashiya. And Maou.
“…I don’t
care
about the Devil King and Alciel!!” Emi pronounced aloud.
“Eep!”
Maki, next door, sounded close to tears.
Then a large shadow appeared behind Emi as she rubbed her head and squirmed in disgust at herself. Emi didn’t notice, but Maki looked on like a woman saved from the gallows at the last minute.
“……”
Fifteen minutes later:
Emi was plucked out of the office by the floor leader managing the call-center crew.
She was normally a hard worker, one who had pretty good relationships with everyone on the staff, so she avoided a serious reprimand. But:
“Are you tired or something? You can just head home today. Having you around is messing up the workplace atmosphere.”
It hit hard. Enough so to darken Emi’s face considerably. But it was true. She was preoccupied with so much today, it was getting hard to function like a normal human being.
And she was rough on Maki for no good reason. She’d need to apologize later.
Emi looked at her watch.
It was three in the afternoon. She was being sent home a good two hours earlier than usual.
She might as well use that time for her own needs, then.
Judging by what Maou and Ashiya had said the previous day, the four them were somewhere in Shinjuku right now.
She turned on her cell phone to contact Suzuno or Rika…but stopped herself. It took all her remaining strength.
“…It’d be too weird.”
Rika had approached her with this news just yesterday. If Emi showed up while she and Ashiya and the others were out shopping, that would put Rika in an incredibly awkward position.
Tailing the four of them unnoticed wasn’t an option, either. Emi’s past few months of experience told her that Ashiya would never be anything but a perfect gentleman toward Rika. And if Maou noticed Emi following after them, he’d never let her hear the end of it for the rest of her mortal life.
Given the current situation, trying to follow them and getting spotted could even potentially cause cracks to form in her and Rika’s friendship. The idea offered no benefit to Emi.
“In which case,” Emi whispered to herself, “maybe I should work toward my own goals every now and then…”
She could no longer simply walk up to Maou and slay him. Not with Alas Ramus fused into her holy sword.
Even if Suzuno’s hunch was right and someone decided to kidnap the Devil King and his general, that didn’t mean Emi was obligated to stick by them at all times. Until something actually happened, it’d be unwise to approach Rika, either.
Which opened up other opportunities.
Emi unfastened a pocket in her shoulder bag, inserted a finger, and plucked out a small, stone-like object.
It was a Yesod fragment, misshapen and smaller than a marble.
It had been embedded in the sword held by the Devil Regent Camio. Maou had tossed it over to her on the way back from Choshi, claiming he didn’t need it.
Remarkably enough, Alas Ramus didn’t offer much interest when shown it.
This was the first time Emi had obtained a fragment by itself, but considering Alas Ramus’s behavior and past, she assumed the child would extract whatever power the stone had and merge it with her own, or something. Just as Emi’s Better Half inadvertently led her toward Alas Ramus in the Devil’s Castle on Ente Isla. Just as the fragment on the other side of Ciriatto’s Link Crystal led his horde to the holy sword.
And…
Emi was trying to hunt down another Yesod fragment she was pretty sure existed in Japan right now.
At the time, she hadn’t noticed it as such, but later Maou had named it a Yesod fragment.
The jewel with the power to return Alas Ramus to normal. Carried by a woman who knew Alas Ramus’s name. A woman in white who approached her at Tokyo Big-Egg Town back on that day, wearing a ring festooned with a purple jewel.
Could she be…?
“…I better just leave it at that in my mind for now…” Emi shook her head, chiding herself.
This was a person who shouldn’t have been here at all. A person she knew only through what other people told her. Someone who crashed with friends for days at a time, but never showed her face to Emi. It might have been her.
“I can’t go breaking out my holy sword in public, either…”
Ever since she obtained the fragment in Choshi, Emi had been putting together a way to make use of it.
Yesod fragments were naturally attracted to each other.
But the only ones Emi had so far were the Better Half, Alas Ramus, and her Cloth of the Dispeller.
No matter how much she toned down her holy force, the sword would never shrink down beyond the size of a knife. Once her energy fell below a certain level, it would disappear entirely.
She considered using the fragment in the sword’s scabbard, but that would require her to materialize the Better Half anyway. If the woman in white was in an urban area somewhere, Emi and her unsheathed weapon would be reported to the police in an instant.