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The flames burned brightly, reflecting off of Maou's glowing red eyes as he gloated over his prey.

"How does it feel? To be as helpless as you are? To be burned into a crisp?"

"Maou."

Laughing maniacally, he went on. "I will feed on your flesh, guts, and your very bones, and they will sustain me, allowing me to further my ambitions."

"Maou, stop it."

Lifting up his hand, a chopstick encased in his grip, Maou said, with a crazed smile, "It's time for the feast to begin!" Lowering his chopsticks, he chose his victim. "And the first one to be sacrificed, shall be you-!"

"Maou!"

Raising his gaze to stare at Emi, Maou favored her with a blank look.

"What do you want, Emi?"

Emi, with her face flushed with both anger and embarassment, lowered her voice, whispering harshly.

"Stop threatening your food! People are staring!"

Maou took a brief look around, sweat-dropping at the looks the other customers were giving him.

"I guess they are..." he said, before he perked himself up by eating the cooked meat. "But can you really blame me? Offal's delicious."

Emi shook her head at his antics, opting to stay quiet and eat. Picking at the roasting meat in the center, she asked, "So, what's the occasion? Why are we eating out?"

Maou puffed himself up proudly. "Well, I thought we should eat out, since I managed to get a nice raise at MgRonald's."

Emi rolled her eyes at Maou's inflatable ego. Luckily, she had a pin with her. "And we both know how hard it is to get one, don't we?"

"Say what you want, but at least I have a job." Maou said, as he closed his eyes and crossed his arms, an angry tick forming on his head.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Emi asked, using all her willpower to remain cool. She so wanted to deck Maou, right in the middle of his smug, prick face.

"I'm just saying, maybe getting a job and actually working for once is too much for the Hero Emilia" Maou said, as he closed his eyes, a challenging smirk on his face.

"I can too get a job! And I bet I'll get a higher paying job than you could ever get, even faster than you did!" Emi shot back, as she ruthlessly stabbed a piece of cooked meat onto her chopsticks. If one were to look closely enough, they would be able to notice a faint, blood-red haze around her.

"Oh really?" Maou asked, as he leaned back one hand behind his head, while the other held his food. "You can get a job within a day? Remember, miss Kisaki pushed my resume through through sheer luck."

Emi froze.

"And I entered work the next day, remember?"

Emi slowly nodded.

Maou smirked.

"Well then, I guess you have your work cut out for you, don't you?"

Raising his chopsticks, Maou popped the meat into his mouth. And ate it.

"I'm screwed."

"No you're not, Emi."

Emi was currently at the table at 'Castle Overlord', with her head buried within her arms. If front of her, laid countless newspapers, each turned to various pages.

While Maou was at work, Emi had taken the free time to start her job hunting. Needless to say, it wasn't going well.

To her left sat her friend Emeralda, wearing a red blouse and black pants, which Emi had loaned her to replace her earlier clothes. Emeralda, along with Albertio, were hiding from the church in Sasasuka, as the situation in Ente Isla would've turned lethal if they went back. They did help break out a demon, after all.

"Look, why are you even doing this, you two are doing fine, even with the free-loader." She said, as she shifted through the papers and random applications.

"Hey, I resemble that statement." Lucifer said, turning his head only enough to glance at the pair over his shoulder. In front of the purple-haired demon was a fairly low-end laptop, opened on it's Internet Explorer. "Why are you even looking for a job? Isn't Maou making enough cash to pay for this dump?"

Emi turned to him, offended. "What do you mean, dump? The only trash around this place is by your stupid laptop!" She yelled, before going on. "And I'm getting a job so I can get away from your worthless ass. Seriously, clean after yourself, you bum."

Facing the screen, Lucifer's eye twitched. "Really, that's it? And here I was, thinking you wanted to prove yourself to Maou."

"'Prove myself?'" Emi asked, as she turned to glare at the NEET. "As if! Like I would want to prove myself to the Demon King."

"I don't know about that." Lucifer said, as he scrolled on his laptop.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Emi yelled, as a vein visibly throbbed on her head. "You stay here with us!"

"I stay in the closet." He said, pointing to the aforementioned closet. "You two still sleep near each other, and yesterday, you two were out on a dinner date. If that doesn't scream couple, I don't know what does."

"He has a point, Emilia." Emeralda said, before Emi could come up with a retort.

She deflated, pouting. "Traitor."

Lucifer sighed, turning back to his laptop. "Look, why don't you just ask your other friend to help you land a job?" He said, as he surfed the web. "She works at a help line, right? All you would really need is a manual on hand, and your all set."

"...Why didn't I think of that?" Emi asked herself, as she face-palmed.

Grinning madly, Emi walked out of the tall Docodemo building, Rika smiling besides her.

"Thank you so much for helping me land the job, Rika." Emi said, as they walked back to Villa Rosa. "And especially on such a short notice."

"Ah, it was nothing." Rika said as she waved off the gratitude coming from Emi. "Besides, that place needs to liven up a bit! Everyone is so serious in there, there is like, no emotion!"

"If there's anything I could ever do for you..."

"You can forget about it." Rika said, they walked along, entering a Moonbucks. "It's what friends do, after all." she said, smiling at Emi.

"Besides," she went on, as she got in line for her order, "I know you're getting this job to impress Maou."

"Rika~a!" Emi was definitely not whining, Heros don't whine, no siree.

Albertio wiped some sweat off his brow as he took his break. Maou had been helpful enough to supply him with a list of jobs a week back, and now, he was working at a construction site.

Oh sure, he could've chosen one of the easier jobs offered, but frankly, he had no idea what most of the jobs would ask for.

Just what the hell was an 'electrician', anyways?

Shaking his head a bit, Albertio sat down on a bench and opened his lunch, grabbing the sandwich inside.

'You know, this place isn't so bad,' he though. 'I could get us to this. Plus, a job like this would help me stay in shape.'

"WHERE THE HELL AM I NOW?!"

Raising an eyebrow, Albertio looked over to a boy with an enormous backpack on his back, consulting a worn map of Japan.

"Hey kid, you lost?"

Ryoga looked up, finding a white-haired man wearing a white shirt under an orange vest, wearing a worn set of blue jeans.

"Er, you wouldn't know the way to the Tendo Dojo, would you?" He asked a bit sheepishly, embarassed at his outburst.

"Can't say I have."

After thanking the man, Ryoga walked off, leaving a confused Albertio behind.

"Wait, isn't this place blocked off?"

Emeralda looked up as an argument broke out in the apartment above hers. So, Maou found out about Emi's new job.

*Whump*

"Noooooooo!"

"Mou, Urushihara-san needs to learn when to keep quiet."

It was a massacre.

Urushihara laid on the floor next to the wall, curled up into a fetal position. Ignoring the crippling pain in his gut from Emi's blow, he cradled his laptop in his hands, the monitor completely separated from the keyboard.

"It's going to be okay... I-I'll take you to the shop, a-and they'll fix you up, good as new!"

Emi and Maou stared at the gibbering wreck that was the fallen angel.

"Ano, I think we broke him, Emi" Maou said, sweat-dropping as Urushihara let out a crazed laugh.

"I think so too."

A moment of silence passed, before Emi suddenly and very violently removed Maou from the apartment.

Leaning over the now-broken window, Emi called out to the body below, "And that's for not believing I got a job!"

"I-ite."

Maou slowly sat up, rubbing his sore head.

"Man, did Emi have to hit me so hard?" He asked himself out loud, as he noticed the light, or lack thereof, in the sky. "Oh man, it's nightime already!?"

"Are you okay?"

Turning to the sound of the new voice, Maou turned, finding a young girl, wearing a navy-colored traditional kimono with cyan-colored flowers designed into it. Her midnight-blue hair was tied off to the side, held in place by a small, flower-shaped decoration. Her wide, innocent eyes framed her small, childlike face, making her seem younger than she must've been.

Absently rubbing the goose-egg that popped up from Emi's rather violent actions, Maou grimaced. "I'm fine."

The girl raised an eyebrow, as she eyed the broken glass around him and looked up to the broken window above them. "You do not appear 'fine'. At the very least you must have a concussion, if not broken bones. Allow me to assist you, Mr..."

"Maou. Sadao Maou." He replied, as she nodded and bowed deeply.

"I am Suzuno Kamazuki. Pleased to meet you, Sadao-san."

"Oh, you're back."

Maou glared at the Hero as she filed her nails. "No thanks to you. The new neighbor helped me in."

Emi's eyebrow rose. "New neighbor? Since when?"

"Since today." Maou said, as he idly scratched the bandage wrapped around his head. "Didn't you notice? I mean, she lives right next door."

"She does? When did she- I didn't even hear a thing!"

"Of course you didn't" Maou said narrowing his eyes at her. "You were probably thinking up new torture methods to implement into the food. That 'katsudon' you made last week kept me in the restroom for hours on end!"

The Hero blushed. "I told you already, that wasn't intentional! It's not my fault I didn't notice the electric stove cut its power! I didn't notice it was undercooked until we all took a bite out of it!"

"Aha! A likely story!" Maou exclaimed, pointing a finger accusingly in her direction. "Then why is it that you were unaffected? HUH?!"

"Because you haven't ever tried Albertio's cooking!"

"Hey!" Albertio yelled, his voice travelling through the floor. "Leave me out of this!"

"And don't even get me started on you!" The Hero yelled, as years of forcing food into submission finally burst out of her. "Have you even heard of spices?!"

"Now wait just a minute-!"

In her room, eyes wide and awake on her futon, Suzuno Kamazuki listened in without even trying, cursing the thin walls of the building. 'What have I gotten myself into?'

"AND ANOTHER THING!"

A bit short, majorly over-due, and mostly just...

...filler, I suppose?

Anyways, I've got some plot bunnies on my phone, and can't decide whether to post them up as they are in some graveyard, or attempt to go through with them.

The Fallen Hero

When darkness falls across the land,

and the midnight hour is close at hand,

the weak shall cry for their gilded savior,

whom the Church has doomed with their traitorous behavior.

Fear the wrath of the Fallen Hero,

who was found by a Demon with the wings of a sparrow,

She wields the blade of Light, and the armor of the Righteous,

and uses it with Hate, wielding magic of the Darkness.

The Devil and the Hero- who has fallen from grace,

shall both be the bane of the Human race,

While the priests and the nuns are hiding in fright,

The Hero and the Devil shall bring to them the fight.

-The Lost Prophecy, Central Isle, origin unknown.

Role Reversal

While the appearance of the Hero was certainly unexpected, Emeralda Etuva was Queen Emilia's right-hand in ruling over the Demon Army for a reason. She had a brilliant tactical mind, and was one of the most prominent magic users in the Demon Realm, second only to the Queen herself. So it only took an instant for her to identify and exploit the Hero's current weaknesses, buying her and her highness valuable time.

She checked the lock on the door, and slid the chain in place.