AN: This took me way too long. I'll be honest and admit that I needed a break from this story. After 23 chapters my motivation needed to recharge by writing something different for while. Don't know how the update schedule will be, since I have two stories to write now. (With a third I consider on a real hiatus)

I'm a bit nervous after returning to this after such a long time. If you have the time, please tell me what you think about this chapter.


KONOSUBA!


A single thought ran through the mind of Kazuma Satou on his calm walk through hell.

Why did it have to be so hot?

He had the luck or misfortune, depending on your point of view, to experience both sides of the eternal war and preferred how heaven chose to present itself to visitors. Functional and non-cliche with a starry void and some simple furniture to add something familiar. In contrast, the magma-filled burned landscape of hell looked like any interpretation from a multitude of movies and games he consumed as a kid, down to the demonic creatures circling in the sky on leathery wings.

The denizens of hell kept their distance and the reason became more clear as time passed during his search. The fact he had to search for his target at all told Kazuma enough about the current situation to worsen his mood further. His visit had been expected, which dashed the last glimmer of hope for an easy explanation.

Easy as in not emotionally draining.

The landscape began to blur in his field of vision. Something or somebody changed the scenery. One eye blink later, the smell of freshly cut grass entered his nostrils under a blazing summer sun. The chirping sound of cicadas filled the air as the black brimstone under his feet changed to dusty road, flanked by both sides with endless rice fields. Kazuma passed a tree with markings carved into, mostly japanese names and dates with his own at the place he remembered.

A few more minutes of walking and he would reach the house he had lived in for seventeen years. Anxiety began to build with every step towards the place and he dropped the plastic bag in his hand, it's assorted content of games and snacks spreading across the ground. Kazuma couldn't even remember what he bought that day and it impressed him that whoever made this illusion could without problems.

Thankfully, his target had decided to meet him halfway and spare the boy further walks along memory lane.

Devil-chan liked to subvert expectations. A cute red-haired girl was as far away from the image of almighty devil as possible, excluding maybe some of the less respectable pieces of his old manga and anime collection. Chances were good she chose this form especially for him. Her current clothing supported the theory, red flip-flops, matching red shorts and a white t-shirt several sizes too large for her small frame. Her signature red twintails had changed to a lazily fixed ponytail. She sat on a park bench, eating a dripping popsicle and watching him approach with her eyes hidden under a pair of sunglasses.

The highest authority figure of hell offered him a green one, the exact shade of his old tracksuit and he kept staring at her.

"Why did you do it?"

The little girl visibly deflated, taking off her glasses. "Please sit down."

Only the softness and obvious discomfort in her voice made him even consider the request. The image of Aqua bleeding out on her mattress wouldn't leave his mind and the thought of sitting next to the person responsible made his stomach churn in revulsion. Curiosity won out in the end, the young man desperate to find a credible reason for something he couldn't fathom under any circumstance.

Nothing could justify hurting somebody he loved, which made dealing with Devil-chan difficult on so many levels. So instead of fighting an epic battle for the sake of his soul, both sat under the magic replication of a hot summer sun in rural japan and remained in an awkward silence. One couldn't put her thoughts into words and the other didn't even know what to think anymore.

"I trusted you."

"You shouldn't have. Being deceitful is in our nature."

And yet she was always blunt and to the point when speaking with him. The fate of the current Devil-King should have made it abundantly clear what kind of person the little redhead really was underneath all the cuteness. Once he had stopped being useful, she took the first opportunity to get rid of him. The hope of things being different between him and her had always kept Kazuma more vulnerable than his cynical nature would tolerate otherwise.

A wilfully ignorant approach biting him in the ass.

"Did you ever give a shit about me at all?"

It took every ounce of willpower to stay composed and seated on the bench when the four feet tall girl beside him began to laugh. Deep, hysterical guffawing rang through the fields and she seemed to be having trouble breathing as Devil-chan's head turned the same shade of red as her hair. This was no villain laughing about her nefarious deeds. She was laughing as if he had told her the most hilarious joke.

"You can't even imagine why this is so funny to me." she wiped a single tear out of her left eye and stared at him with a small smile. "I did this because I give too much of a shit."

"Explain."

Genuine surprise appeared on her face, as if the notion of getting a chance to justify her actions seemed the most alien concept imaginable. She had to take a moment to gather her thoughts into something coherent, landing on something very simple as an opener.

"You're not an expert when it comes to love, romantic or otherwise."

"Stating the obvious here." Kazuma grumbled.

"You're also not very picky with the source of affection and take what you can get like a starved dog, even if it comes from a lackluster source."

The dots connected for the half-devil and the conclusion drove him almost mad. "Are you telling me, all this bullshit happened because you don't approve of my love life?"

"One of your choices." Devil-chan's expression darkened to a scowl. "Especially when I would gladly shower you with beautiful females, eager to fulfill all your deepest desires. Ask me, and I will make it happen."

As to prove her point, red-haired versions of Aqua with horns in skimpy bikinis appeared and presented themselves in enticing poses.

Their advances were ignored by the half-devil. "Only to make me happy? No ulterior motives?"

The copies of Aqua vanished in a puff of black smoke. "I won't pretend that I wouldn't benefit from this."

At least she was always honest when asked directly, something he could appreciate if nothing else right now. "Where does killing my goddess play into this? All she wants to do is drink, eat and sleep. You couldn't find somebody less threatening to your bottom line if you tried!"

"My goddess… just listen to yourself." Kazuma was taken aback by the concern she showed. "You're not doing yourself any favors by associating with the blue airhead."

No objections came from him, because Devil-chan was right. He could have had a simpler life by disassociating from Aqua, but simple didn't equal the most happy in his experience. The path of least resistance had no appeal to him anymore after witnessing what he could gain from actually trying.

"How do you feel these days? Experiencing sudden mood swings? How about bouts of anger and loss of control?" She continued with a disgusted expression. "What did you feel during and after plowing the ditzy deity?"

Uncharacteristically aggressive, even to their standards. He had loved every second of sleeping with Aqua, but there had always been that tingle in the back of his head driving him to act rougher than intended. An urge to dominate the writhing woman under him into a quivering, submissive mess. The afterglow from bedding a goddess was more akin to an afterburn in comparison to his first time with Darkness.

Not any less amazing, just different in the mood. After sex with the crusader, he wanted nothing more than cuddle. Aqua made him feel like a victorious conqueror hungry for more.

Then he thought about how he handled princess Iris afterwards.

"And there it is." Devil-chan said with satisfaction, seeing realization dawn on his face. "What did you think would happen when you pawn away half your humanity? What took its place can't peacefully coexist with a living, breathing beacon of divinity without taking its toll on your mind."

A revelation surprising nobody. Kazuma wasn't stupid enough to think his powers came without tradeoffs, regardless what Eris might have believed. "And you decided to act in my best interest with Mei as a convenient tool."

"Our goals are aligned and she will stop at nothing to reach her goal."

Kazuma didn't have to take the devil's word for it, the proof was in every action of Mei so far; murdering her brother and god knows how many more, overcoming even death and gaining the favor of Devil-chan. Everything because of him, the lazy shut-in who had decided on a whim during going home to do the first selfless thing in his life after wasting said life standing in line for pointless kitsch.

"Why is she so fixated on me?" Kazuma couldn't wrap his head around the reason for Mei's obsession. "She never was in any danger from that stupid tractor. I died for nothing!"

Devil-chan put a hand on his thigh for reassurance. "I would say it was the thought that counted, but your goddess didn't stick around long enough to see the aftermath."

An ambulance passed them on their bench, sirens blazing as Kazuma was gifted to see his drive to the hospital from an outside perspective. A police car followed a few seconds behind and Mei sat quietly on the backseat with a haunted expression.

"Every person involved in an accident, however minor, is required to run through a medical checkup. And since somebody actually died, everyone involved made it a point to be extra thorough."

"And?" Kazuma asked, getting a real bad feeling.

"They found a multitude of nasty welts and bruises under her clothes. A curious find, considering she didn't even take a tumble from your shove to get her out of the way."

Kazuma went dead still.

"The authorities looked deeper and gained quite the insight into Mei's personal life." Devil-chan stood up from the bench and positioned herself behind him, gently massaging the shoulders of the tense boy. "I will spare you the grisly details. Let's just say I expect the people responsible for her past situation to be here with certainty. I hope sooner rather than later."

The massage turned into a hug from behind. "So, in a very real way, you gave your life to save Mei. Your death had meaning."

Four simple words with more power and effect on him than any weapon or spell. Despite the wisdom he imparted on Yunyun about modifying your true self until it became reality, some parts about yourself couldn't be willed away. Deep seated regret was one of them, and not many things were more regrettable than knowing your actions were pointless.

Devil-chan had given him a gift.

"Imagine her reaction when she realized how the world honored your sacrifice with apathy at best and mockery at worst."

And the present had a bad aftertaste.

"The classmates who ridiculed you, the parents who forgot you, and the sibling hell-bent on replacing you." She rubbed her cheek against his, freezing up from the wetness on his skin. "And then there's suddenly a goddess, so similar in her rhetoric towards you like the people she hated enough to murder."

Kazuma wiped his face, eyes red and puffed up. "So what happens now?"

"She will continue to act in your best interest. Or what she perceives to be anyway."

A sobering thought, to be sure, but to be expected even before he knew the motivation behind Mei's actions. All that knowledge did was alter Kazuma's planned approach, not the wanted outcome of her stopping interfering in his life.

"You will too?"

"What do you think?"

The whole situation turned out to be even more frustrating than Kazuma had feared. How do you handle two people taking the wrong actions for the right reasons? People who loved him and wanted him to be happy, thinking it can't be possible with Aqua at his side. It would be so much simpler if they had been stereotypical villains with an evil plot to thwart.

It would make his next move so much easier. "I think you won't have the time to interfere in my life for the foreseeable future."

The small devil raised a questioning eyebrow and tensed when Kazuma brandished his sword. He had never seen a person as sad as in those three seconds before turning away from Devil-chan, hearing the palpable sigh of relief from her small body. Chances are she would prefer getting stabbed in comparison to what he would do next.

"Heaven is in a big uproar, isn't it?" Kazuma said, twirling the katana in his hand in a casual manner. "Losing not one, but two goddesses because of a devil should make them paranoid enough to jump at the smallest provocation."

Kazuma stopped playing with the sword and took a stance, both hands around the hilt in preparation for a two-handed strike. All of his power unleashed in a single cut towards the horizon. At first you saw nothing, then a white line appeared, running through the complete length of the visible sky. It functioned like a zipper and opened slowly to reveal a white void behind.

"What have you done?!" Devil-chan screamed in abject horror as hell experienced holy light for the first time since its creation. Through the breach, she saw the first white winged dots engage the demons in the sky, soon to be followed by thousands more descending like a disturbed Hornets nest.

"I forced the issue prematurely," Kazuma said, unaffected by the heavenly forces forming a charge. "If you want to fight each other so badly, there's your chance to do it. Leave my new home out of this mess."

The demons and devils recovered quickly from the surprise, amassing a counter charge in a wave of black and red as they took to the sky to meet their angelic foes. Fire, light and smoke soon obfuscated every visible part of the broken firmament.

Devil-chan, flabbergasted how the eternal war went from cold to hot in a matter of seconds, stepped on the bench to mitigate their height difference and gave him a scolding look. "This will have dire consequences. In the great scheme of things, you've been a nuisance at best. Now heaven will treat you like a real threat."

Still taller than her, He buried his face in her red hair. "Aren't parents supposed to look out for their children and clean up after their messes?"

The push against his chest came with all the strength of a kitten. "Get out of here before you are caught in the crossfire!"

Kazuma opened a small portal and stepped through, turning around just before vanishing with half of his body in hell and the other part back in Arcanretia. Familiar voices called his name as the only person in hell he cared about stayed silent. There were still things left unsaid, still things left uncertain between them. All Kazuma managed to do today was stalling for time to figure out something that actually solved the problem.

He left Devil-chan with words he knew to be true, despite everything that happened.

"I love you mom."

The portal closed behind him.

"Love you too… son."