Greetings! Eldest Tempest here, with the fifth oneshot in the series of birthday oneshots. This one is for Nora Floriann Leoria, the frenemy of Keima and co. As always, feedback is welcome in the reviews!

To my knowledge, Image Manager still has it out for me. Cover image is, again, supposed to be an anime screencap. One of these days I might actually get to use fanart, although the folks at Pixiv don't seem too terribly keen on letting me use any. Oh well.

* Cue the obligatory manga spoiler warning. *

Enjoy the story!

For once in the recent proceedings of her life, Nora Floriann Leoria was able to enjoy herself without feeling rushed.

That wasn't to say that some of the occurrences hadn't been fun. For instance, deceiving Vintage had proven to be nothing short of amusing. Not to mention the faces of her colleagues when she had been promoted to District Chief in the aftermath.

Still, it was better to proceed at your own pace once in a while – and that was precisely what Nora was doing right now.

Having opted to leave Ryō on Earth, where she wouldn't have to deal with his blatant stupidity, Nora had ventured to New Hell, in an attempt to do something she actually wanted to do. Today was her birthday, after all, and she preferred to spend it in intelligent company. Well, friends that possessed a higher caliber of brainpower than Ryō's, which, admittedly, wasn't all that difficult to achieve.

Those friends in question were her fellow horned devils from Old Hell, Cresta and Camry, who had proven themselves useful during the Vintage crisis. Flanking Nora at all times during visitations to New Hell, they were frequently referred to as 'Nora's henchmen' by Haqua, much to their chagrin.

Speaking of Haqua, Nora wondered why she had declined to come along, when, for once, she had decided to be outright nice to her frequent acquaintance for a change. Her stated reasoning was looking further into the matter of Satyr, pointless as it was, although Nora somewhat doubted that. Perhaps nobody else was aware, but she herself had certainly noticed how awkward the wielder of the Scythe of Testament acted around a certain glasses-wearing gamer.

That brought her onto a topic that she regarded with both revulsion and, loath as she was to admit it, a modicum of respect: Keima Katsuragi.

She had to give him credit for one thing, at least: Katsuragi was skilled at what he did. While the methods he employed were a stark contrast to her own, using love of all things, they got results. He'd acquired an impressive amount of Runaway Spirits on his capturing quota, not to mention freeing the goddesses, and fixing the past timeline. Not many people could boast of being able to do similar actions.

Of course, on the other hand, Katsuragi was a shut-in who only concerned himself with his precious games. Not to mention there was still some bad blood between them, due to some actions on his part that she wasn't quite ready to forgive. She was still somewhat sore about their initial encounter.

She shook her head, snapping out of her train of thought. This wasn't the time to be reminiscing on the past. Right now, she had a number of items on her itinerary to check off, before she would be satisfied.

The only thing that bothered her as she strolled throughout New Hell's shops, head held high, was whether it was a good idea to leave Ryō to his own devices. She figured she would get her answer soon enough.

To speak of the proverbial devil, Ryō Asama was lounging about in his home – and he was deathly bored.

"It's no fun with Nora-san not being around," he grumbled, rolling about on the carpeted floor in the living room.

True, this meant that he was more or less left to his own devices… but Ryō had yet to figure out what he ought to actually do. His partner was the one who called all the shots. Now that she was off having a good time, Ryō was devoid of all purpose. Just what should he do?

His eyes caught a glimpse of something that attracted his attention. From his position of lying flat on his back, he observed what could best be processed inside his mind as an upside-down cookie jar.

It did not occur to him that this was simply the way he was viewing the object.

"Huh?" he wondered aloud to himself. "When did the world change?"

He made to roll over, then a curious thought struck him.

"Wait… what if, by doing that, I condemn myself to an eternity of moving upside down forever?!"

By merit of actually using such vocabulary from memory, even with the redundancy of 'eternity' and 'forever' being placed together, he opted that the best course of action would be to stay put with this version of gravity.

And so he began to slither towards the jar, shifting his body ever onward to his goal.

Nope, I'm sure he's doing just fine, Nora reasoned to herself, now seated at one of New Hell's far classier restaurants, reserved for the crème de la crème of its inhabitants. She held the menu in one hand, whilst sipping from an exquisite wine in the other. New Hell might have the energy conservation measures, but she, and her fellow Old Devils, would be damned if they couldn't get a taste of luxury once in a while.

Her eyes scanned the rather exorbitant prices on the menu, then flitted to her companions next to her.

Just as well she wasn't paying for this, she thought to herself, taking another gulp of her drink. It's too bad she hadn't actually brought Ryō along – dropping the bill on him would have been priceless.

Said Buddy had finally managed, after an excruciatingly long time, to come to a halt just short of the cookie jar. It was a journey of hardship and self-sacrifice, one that would make the very gods, or in this case, goddesses sing his praises for generations to come. Long would he be remembered as the hero who stood against the tyranny of gravity, pushing onwards, despite the difficulties that lay in store. Truly, he was a legend.

Unfortunately, there was just one problem.

The cookie jar was on an elevated platform, which, due to the insanity of the situation, appeared to Ryō as a pedestal facing downwards.

There were two issues with this development. The first, there was the issue of the paradoxical gravity that he had encountered. The answer in obtaining this treasure was simple… but that required him to consent to the madness of this new realm. The second, from what he had glimpsed of certain instances in movies, was that it was a very bad idea to remove any precious treasure from its resting place. The solution, he recalled, had been to replace it with an object of similar size. Unfortunately, he was in no position to do that.

So, he settled on the most obvious and logical choice.

He proceeded to repeatedly headbutt the 'pedestal', until he obtained his prize.

There was, of course, also a third issue, that being him potentially acquiring a concussion, but such thoughts did not cross his mind.

Eventually, through Ryō's constant and unrelenting assault, the cookie jar tilted off of the 'pedestal', and fell towards his waiting arms.

Sadly, it ended up missing those completely, and nailed him in the stomach, eliciting an "Oof!" and a groan of pain.

On the bright side, he had finally seized his prey. The only question now remaining was how to open it…

Times like these were when Nora-san was very helpful.

"Well, I think that's enough for today. Better go check on the idiot, and see if he hasn't accidently electrocuted himself," Nora muttered to herself, as she approached the departure area for devils returning to the human world. She noticed a distinct lack of the Public Safety Department, no doubt the repercussions for involving themselves with Satyr. That was fine by her. Normal customs were easy to deal with, as they were. One whisper of who she was, and her ties, and she was able to breeze by.

All in all, Nora felt that she had spent her day rather well. Whether the same would apply to Ryō would be answered shortly.

Ryō Asama was facing a dilemma the likes of which he had never seen in his lifetime.

The nefarious workings of that force, which he had often heard that Katsuragi guy term as the 'Real', seemed to be doing its utmost to prevent him from obtaining the prize he sought within.

He had, of course, tried prying the lid open, first with his hands. When that failed to bear any fruit, he tried his feet. They were both attached to limbs, after all. Who was to say they couldn't do it?

Disappointingly, he met the same result, so he had resorted to trying to pry it open with his teeth. Asides from some newly found pain in his gums, the jar remained steadfastly bolted shut.

This was quickly proving to be irksome, and he had alternated between the three methods for a couple hours, trying to somehow pry the accursed thing open, to no avail.

It was then that he briefly considered asking Katsuragi for assistance, for he had previously helped him during the crisis with the test. Surely he would come to his aid in this matter as well?

Just as he was going to decide trying to somehow reach the phone in this current state, he heard somebody's arrival. That could only be one person.

"Nora-san!" Ryō shouted, relief coursing through him and the words he had just spoken.

"Ryō?" Nora asked, with a slight tinge of concern. Had something actually happened? "Is something wro- What the hell are you doing?"

Nora Floriann Leoria had seen many odd sights. This was near the top of her list.

She was treated to the view of Ryō lying as close to the ground as he possibly could, all while trying to wrestle with a cookie jar. A peculiar sight to begin with, Nora also noticed Ryō-shaped indentions in the floor, indicating that, unlike a normal person, Ryō had opted to slide across the floor.

Nora pinched the bridge of her nose in despair of her Buddy. "Explain."

"Well, Nora-san, you see, without you, I got incredibly bored," Ryō began. "But then, I noticed something awful: Everything but me was upside down! Even you are right now, Nora-san. It was even worse when I saw that the cookies were subject to the same treatment. Therefore, I decided to liberate them from their oppressive environment, like so!"

"I'm somewhat impressed you used that many words properly," Nora deadpanned. "However,"—at this, she began to stride over towards where Ryō was splayed out, snatching the jar from him once she arrived—"this jar has been empty for at least three days. You ate the last cookie yourself."

Ryō froze in shock, as whatever brain was housed inside his body began to process her words. His face then contorted into a look of abject horror.

"My entire life has been a lie!" he wailed.

Nora then kicked him. "Quit moping, and get up. Nothing about this world's gravity has changed. You're just looking at things from a strange angle."

"Oh." Comprehension dawned on his features. "That would explain a lot…"

Ryō sheepishly began to climb to his feet, until a piece of paper was thrust in front of him. "What's this?"

"Groceries – and expenses. Today is my birthday, so you need to do something for me," Nora stated.

Ryō glanced over the words written on the paper, brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of it all, an intense look of concentration revealing itself in the process. He noticed, with satisfaction, that cookies were indeed on the list. The expenses, however…

"Nora-saaaaaan!" Ryō exclaimed, but the devil was already walking away.

And so the hero's tale ended ignominiously, with little reward, and much sorrow, for all of the cookies bought that day went to the devil residing with him.

Yes, it was a good birthday indeed.

So, this is something slightly different. Firstly, this is by far the shortest of the stories I've done so far. I suppose that's rather fitting, as Nora's not one of the characters I particularly care for. Enthusiasm was ergo not something I had particularly much of during the course of writing this story. That being said, I still felt obligated to put something up anyway, especially as I stated in the previous oneshot that I would. Foolish past me.

I tried a different style with this story, something that I refer to as 'comedic simultaneous action'. Ever see those moments in shows where one character is doing normal day-to-day activities, while elsewhere, the other one is doing God knows what? That was the aim with this story. In this case, I opted to use Ryō, because I had a bit of fun writing him during his own oneshot. Always amusing to write the dynamic between these two, at least. Hopefully, the characterizations were on point.

I intended to write two omakes to accompany this piece, due to its short length. One was going to be Ryō trying to learn table manners, the other was if he had actually been brought along the trip to New Hell... and subsequently forced to pay for everything. Even though he has none of the currency used. However, considering he's still being charged for expenses at the end of the story, and I couldn't quite find a way to make either idea work, I ultimately decided to leave them out.

Regarding birthdays, things are in an indeterminate flux before October. Shalya, also known as Shari, a manga-exclusive devil, has a birthday on August 31st, though I won't be writing anything for that, as she appears in about... four or five scenes in the manga, tops? I'm still perplexed that incredibly minor characters get birthdays, but Yokkyun, the epitome of everything Keima sees in the 2D, doesn't. September 7th also plays host to the birthday of Haqua's Buddy, Yukie Marui. I might write something for that. Might. I think it's unlikely, but who knows?

And then we've got October itself, which is one heck of a cluster. Tooru Amami, Keima's first conquest in the light novels, has her birthday on October 7th, followed three days later by Yui Goidō on the 10th. (Psyched for that one, personally. Really like Yui.) The reason why it's going to be a cluster, though, is because I've got real world birthdays to celebrate on the 6th, 8th, and 9th, with my own being on the 9th. Go figure. Should be interesting to work around.

Sadly, I wasn't able to get any other story out before this one, like I had hoped in the previous oneshot. Most likely because I discovered a certain franchise called Puella Magi Madoka Magica... and got hooked, to say the least. My apologies.

See you all soon!