09. Chapter

The Admirer Has a Surprise

2 weeks passed after the battle with Laura and everything seemed to return to normal. Maou, Emi, Urushihara, Ashiya, Suzuno and Chiho countined with their life, while Sayaka dissapeared (once they freed Suzuno). Everything was rather normal, only Urushihara was a little bit cranky, as he missed the girl. He returned to his NEET life, even though Ashiya and Maou gave him the permission to go out if he wanted to. However, the fallen angel didn't see any point of going out without Saya. So he returned to his usual computer games-routine.

As he was one afternoon checking the camera he mounted on the window, he was surprised. A girl figure went in the garden, putting something in the mail box and darted out. Her face wasn't recognizable, due the baseball hat she had, but Urushihara realized due the familiar hairstyle, black backpack and roller-blades, that that was Sayaka herself.

He ran out of the apartment, ignoring Ashiya's and Maou's calls and appeared on the street.

"Hey!" he called out for the girl on the roller-skates, but she was already away.

"What happened?" The two demons asked Urushihara as they got out of their apartment.

"That was, Saya-chan." Urushihara replied. "And she put something in the mail-box."

"Again candies?" Ashiya went to the mail-box. However, instead of a candy box, it was a green-yellow flier. Maou and Urushihara took a peek.

"A flier for a herb shop?" said Maou.

"It seems so. It's called Yami no Hana and it'll open tommorow." said Ashiya. "Surprisingly, it's at the same adress where the Dark Orb was."

"That's for sure Saya-chan's doing." stated Urushihara, finally understanding where the teen was in the past two weeks. He checked again the mail-box and found a tiny letter as well. It was adressed to him, Maou, Ashiya and Suzuno. "'I'm inviting you to dinner at 8 o'clock PM. Come to the Herb Shop.'"

"And again without the name of the sender." Urushihara smirked.

"Dinner? I'm in." said Maou, licking his lips.

xXx

The four approached the herb shop in front of which Emi and Chiho were waiting as well.

"So you also got the letter." said Maou as he saw the two.

"I'm actually surprised that Akemi-san managed to re-arrange the antique shop and transform it into a herb shop in such a short time." said Chiho as she looked at it. The shop window was covered with plants and flowers, some of which were dried. "Shall we go inside?"

"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't." said Maou and boldly marched in. The bell rung and the group was surprised by the nice scent inside the shop. They were surrounded by shelves of oil, dried plants, medicine bottles, etc. Sayaka, wearing a purple apron, was behind the pult, pulverising some dried plants in a white bowl. She lift her head and smiled happily.

"So you managed to come. What do you say? Cool, ain't it?" she said.

"What happened to all those antic stuff?" asked Suzuno.

"I sold it." Sayaka said casually. "I never liked antiques and besides that, I also wanted to piss off Laura. She LOVES to collect old things." She took off the apron and put it on the pult. "Also, I can finally do something I like."

"Making poisons?" Emi pointed out with an ironical tone in her voice. Sayaka sweatdropped.

"I already told ya, I'm done with that." she locked the front door. "We'll be having dinner upstairs at the apartment. It's already getting cold and I spend the whole day working on it."

"What's that smell?" Ashiya felt something coming from the kitchen.

"That was my first try to make the dinner. I was happy I hadn't have to call the firefighters." Sayaka replied. She sighed. "Cooking ain't one of my strenghts."

The team looked at each other worriedly.

"Well, food is food, no matter how it's prepeared." Maou shrugged.

The others didn't seem to really agree with him.

xXx

Apperantly, the dinner turned out to be surpringly good. Sayaka prepeared a few traditional japaneese dishes and all of them looked delicious. Maou, Ashiya and Urushihara litteraly drooled over the food.

"Dig in, guys!" said Sayaka. The group was a little bit reluctant at first. Sayaka sweatdropped. "Believe me, it ain't poisoned."

"Alright!"

The three demons, but the girls as well, enjoyed the dinner - also, it was free, so Sayaka saved Ashiya from headaches over on which food he'd spend the money.

Emi tried one one of the cutlets which were rather small and simple made.

"This is unbelievably delicious!" she said, surprised at the good taste and turned to Sayaka. "How did you make it so good?"

"It's all in the spices I used." said Sayaka.

"I hope those are different from the ones you usually use." said Maou, mouth full with meat. Sayaka sweatdropped.

"How long are you going to continue rubbing salt in my wounds?" she asked dryly.

"Sorry." The Demon Lord shrugged, as the girl sighed.

"Ashiya-san." she turned to the Demon General. "If you want, I could give you some of my herbs for free and the recepies. I'm sure it would help you improve the food's taste."

"I'd gladly accept that. Thank you." said Ashiya.

"There's something I'm curious about. How did you manage to send the candy boxes without getting caught?" asked Suzuno.

"Now when she's saying that... I'm wondering it too." said Urushihara.

"Easy!" Sayaka smiled. "I'm keen on teleporting stuff, so I simply hid in the nearby street and teleported the candy into the mail-box."

"But you delivered the fliers on your own. Why?" asked Maou.

"Well, the re-arrangement of the shop costed me some magic and, well, I don't have much left." said Sayaka.

"But you can refresh it, can't you?" asked Emi.

"Yes, but here's the trick. I didn't have any negative feelings over the past two weeks. Sure I was tired of everything, but for some reason, I couldn't stop smiling the whole time." said Sayaka and frowned. "Altough, when I think of what Laura did to me, I have darker thoughts. I didn't hear from her ever since I beat her, but if we ever meet again, she's done for."

She looked at the fallen angel.

"BTW, Urushihara..." the fallen angel lift his head. "I have something for you."

"For me?" Urushihara blinked in surprise.

"Yepp. Come with me." Sayaka stood up, and the confused fallen angel followed her down to the shop. Sayaka entered the storage, which now had windows as well and was much lighter, as well as filled with plants.

"Here, I want you to keep this one." she handed over a red pot with a strange flower. The flower had purple, heart shaped petals.

"Umm, thanks." said Urushihara, a little bit confused with the gift.

"This flower is really sensitive so you need to tend it carefully. It blooms twice a year. Also, it needs to stay half a day in the shadows and half day in the sun. Water it twice a day and for heaven's sake, don't leave it in the rain. It'll only damage it, due the acids in it. If you see that the flower starts to rot, call me." Sayaka explained.

"Okay."

"You know, this flower is from Ente Isla." Sayaka added.

"Really?" Urushihara blinked in confusion.

"Yeah, although, the ground in which it grew was poor with minerals. I found several of them dieing until my mother suggested we should plant them in better soil. I didn't believe her that the plants would recover, but they did. She leater explained me that the change of enivorment can sometimes make miracles." She leaned over to the boy. "I now realized she was indeed right with that."

She kissed him in the cheek, making the fallen angel blush.

"Wait a sec, didn't you say you hate me?" he asked.

"Consider it as a love-hate relationship." Sayaka replied and smirked slyly. "BTW, I was that Lord of the UnderWorld who kept on constantly beating you."

"WHAT?!"

Maou, who went down to check on them, snickered, enjoying Urushihara's burst out over being beaten by a girl.

"Poor Lucifer." he laughed as he rejoined his friends.

FIN