It was dinnertime at the Devil's Castle, albeit a smaller gathering than normal. Ashiya was away working at a temp gig, earning money to pay off another one of Urushihara's unsanctioned on-line shopping splurges, and the usual assortment of regular drop-ins, like Emi Yusa and Chiho Sasaki, were absent, likely discouraged by the blizzard that was busily blanketing the city in snow. That left only the one-time Demon General and voluntarily fallen angel, along with his King, now going by the name of Sadao Maou, to dine on the cooking of their next door neighbor and frequent visitor, Suzano Kamazuki, in their one-room second story tenement apartment.

Leaning back and groaning contentedly, Urushihara declared "Mmm... I love it when Suzuno cooks for us! Ashiya needs to take on temp work more often!"

"She cooks for us even when he isn't working, you know that. We shouldn't presume on her generosity," said Maou.

"I don't mind cooking, especially when Ashiya isn't around to make sure you're fed properly," said Suzuno, their next door neighbor and frequent visitor. "Especially Maou," she thought, "He's so appreciative of everything I do!"

The howl of the wind outside suddenly went up a notch, and the power flicked off, then on again, then emphatically off. Grumbling in annoyance, Urushihara scooted over to his laptop, announcing, "Internet's down. Ugh." Slapping the cover closed, he pulled out his portable gaming system, put on a headset, and proceeded to zone out. Suzano and Maou continued to chat for a while longer until she decided to call it a night.

The blizzard had clearly done a number on the electricity supply to the entire building, as when Suzano fumbled her way next door through the darkened hallway, her apartment was also without power... and freezing, not having had the benefit of multiple bodies and a slowly cooling hotplate to warm it. Crawling into bed, she found herself shivering even in a flannel nightgown and under a winter comforter. "Winter in Japan is brutal!" she thought.

Roughly an hour later, she woke up, shivering even more intensely than before. "I'm going to freeze to death if I don't do something! Maybe Maou-san's apartment will be warmer."

Tucking her numbed feet into slippers, Suzano wrapped a blanket around her and stumbled towards the door. A few moments later, Maou heard a loud thump and crash in the hallway.

"What was that?!" said Maou.

Urushihara, absorbed in his ZX Bita game and wearing headphones, ignored him completely.

"I'm going to go take a look," said Maou.

Urushihara didn't look up. Sighing, Maou stood up and walked to the door, opening it up to see Suzano crumpled at his feet, shivering convulsively. "I'm f-f-f-freez-z-z-ing..." she said, plaintively, teeth chattering uncontrollably. Maou didn't know what to say, so he picked her up and pulled her inside the door.

"Urushihara!" he shouted.

No response.

"Urushihara! Get those things off your head and help me here!"

Still no response. Grumbling in frustrating, Maou yanked the headphones off Urushihara's head and knocked the game out of his hands. "Pay attention when I talk to you!"

"What the... I was one level away from beating the Big Boss!" Urushihara said, indignantly.

"Nevermind that! Suzano-chan appears to be freezing to death! What do I do? How do humans deal with this? Find me an answer on the Internet!" said Maou.

"Umm, dude... powers out. Internet's down, like I said. But maybe I can look up something on Suzano's phone instead," said Urushihara. Maou's antiquated flip phone clearly wasn't going to be of any use in the matter.

"Whatever. Just do it!"

Urushihara went next door and found Suzano's phone lying next to her bed. Fortunately, the screen was unlocked, and the cellphone network was as yet unaffected by power outages, so he was able to do a quick search for "freezing to death" on "Wahoo! Japan".

"We need to warm her up. When nothing else is available, human body heat will typically do the trick," he said, returning to their room.

"What does that mean?" said Maou.

"We gotta wrap ourselves around her until she warms up enough to quit shivering. Probably stay that way too, as long as the power's out." said Urushihara, in an annoyed tone. "Guess I'm not taking that boss down anytime soon. Humans are so annoyingly frail."

"Really?" said Maou, flushing at the thought of close contact with the lovely maiden. "O.K. If that's what it takes. Let's do it!"

"Drag her over to the futon, and we'll get each get on one side of her. Our bodies run at a slightly higher temperature than normal humans, even in this reduced state without our magic, so that should help speed up the process," said Urushihara.

"Her feet are bare without those slippers, so we should put some socks on her before we tuck her in, and we need to make sure there's a double layer of blankets over her legs as well, since that nightgown is likely to bunch up a bit," said Urushihara.

Pulling a pair of fuzzy socks out of the dresser, Maou grabbed one of her feet.

"Yikes! They're ice cold! Dang! We need to warm her up quick," he thought. He couldn't help but notice how muscular her calves were, "She has really nice legs!" He then shook his head, "Why am I thinking about that at a time like this?! I need to focus."

Setting the now delirious, shivering young woman between them, they pulled the covers up and slid in beside her, Urushihara curled up against her back, Maou wrapped around her in front, tucking her hands into his armpits. "BRRRRR! So COLD!" he blurted, "It's like curling up with a block of ice!"

Urushihara just looked at him disgustedly, "Do I hear the all-powerful Demon King complaining about a little chilliness?"

Gradually, as she warmed up, Suzano's shivering decreased, and eventually, she dozed off, "Mmm..." she sighed contently, unconsciously snuggling herself up firmly against Maou's chest and tucking her head into his shoulder. Maou slipped his hands under her waist and around her back, feeling awkward about the entire situation, but not knowing what else he could do.

After a few more minutes, he began to notice... things. Like, how nice her hair smelled, and how soft various portions of her body that were in direct contact felt. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this close to a woman, certainly not since he and Ashiya had landed in Japan, and the Demon women he was familiar with from Ente Isla were far more muscular and less curvy than human ones, even slightly built ones like Suzano. This led to a new round of panic, as he felt his human body begin to react in an all to predictable fashion to the intimate contact.

"What do I do?" he thought, frantically searching his mind for a way to quell his reaction. "She'll never forgive me." Images of a gigantic hammer wielded by an enraged Church assassin smashing everything in sight ran through his head. "Not good. Not good. Not good at all." She mumbled in her sleep, and snuggled against him even more tightly. "Not good at all," he thought, as he felt a new heat where her thighs now met his leg.

Then a thought popped into his head... a character in one of his favorite mangas had been in a similar situation, and had dealt with it by thinking of the most unsexy things possible. What had he listed? "Baseball. Cricket. Shinzo Abe. Xi Jinping. Theresa May. Angela Merkel. Nancy Pelosi. Hilary Clinton." The last few names escaped from him in a low mumble.

Suzano drifted up out of sleep just in time to hear the final part of that list. "What are you mumbling about," she asked, only half awake. "Just a spell to keep us warm." "Oh, O.K." It was so nice and cozy under the covers, curled up against him. She fell back asleep. In the morning, the power had come back on, Urushihara had returned to his spot in the closet, and Maou was up and cooking breakfast.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead!" he said, cheerily.

The events of last night were a blur. "Wha... what am I doing in your apartment?!"

"You almost froze to death after the power went out. We found you collapsed in the hallway outside, and had to warm you up. Was touch and go there for a while, but you managed to pull through with no damage," he said.

"Oh! Thank you! I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you!"

"That's o.k. Small repayment for all the cooking and cleaning you do around here! I'm going to make sure we have a couple of charcoal powered kotasus on hand in case the power goes out again!"