pika318: This is from the same universe as Chapter 4 Unwilling Cooperation and Chapter 6: Stormy Weather
One shot: To the Bathhouse
"Maou-san."
Chiho looked serious.
"W, what is it, Chi-chan?"
"Do you know what season it is?"
"Summer?"
Chiho sighed at Maou's answer, then continued,
"Yes, it's summer, the hottest season of the year, and what have you been doing, Maou-san?"
"Working?"
"I'm not talking about that! You do realise Urushihara-san is a girl?!"
"O, of course."
As Maou answered this, he looked over at Lucifer who was sitting at the kotatsu, looking over with a confused expression on her face. An open Japanese language textbook was in front of her.
"And you haven't taken to the bathhouse ever since she got discharged from the hospital?! T, that's almost neglect!"
We make sure she stays clean…"
"It's not the same! Why have you not taken her to the bathhouse?"
"She never been to one before, and since we're both guys, she'll be at the female side by herself, and we can't leave her alone." Ashiya answered.
Chiho paused. They did have a point. With Lucifer like that, she would find it hard to ask for help if she did not know anything.
She made up her mind then,
"Alright, then I'll go with her."
"Ah, no, I can't trouble you like that, Chi-chan."
"It's fine. I'll just have to teach her once and she can manage by herself next time. Right, Urushihara-san?"
Chiho turned to the other girl in the room, waiting for a response. Lucifer tilted her head slightly, then writing something in the notebook in front of her, she showed it to Chiho.
Chiho read the words written in slightly messy handwriting.
What place is that?
"Maou-san, all the times you and Ashiya-san went to the bathhouse, you never told her where you were going?"
"It, it wasn't necessary…" Maou started to say, but deflated when Chiho shouted,
"You're supposed to teach her these things!"
"We'll be going this way now." Maou said, pointing to the entrance with the blue cloth banner with the character 'Male' on it.
"Yes! We'll see you later!" Chiho answered cheerfully. Beside her, Lucifer gave a small wave before looking warily in a certain direction.
Maou too, looked in that direction before saying, "I'm really counting on you for this, Chi-chan."
"You can leave it to me, Maou-san. Urushihara-san will have no issues with the bathhouse after today."
"Yeah, sure."
Ashiya, who was beside Maou, heard a different conversation entirely,
Make sure they don't kill each other, Chi-chan.
Leave it to me, Maou-san.
Because in that direction stood Hero Emilia.
Chiho led the way to the female side of the bathhouse, wondering how things turned out like this.
It had been a coincidence. Chiho was heading over to Villa Rosa with everything she needed for a bathhouse trip and had met Emi on the way there.
Emi saw the extra bag Chiho was carrying and asked her about them, and Chiho, not thinking too much about the implications, answered that she was taking Lucifer to the bathhouse. Then one thing led to another, and now—-
"Urushihara-san, you can store your clothes in one of the empty spaces. Ah, leave the larger towel here too. You can take the smaller one with you." Chiho explained kindly, and the purple haired girl nodded in reply.
Then as Chiho moved to take her clothes off, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Lucifer appeared to have frozen in place after storing the large towel.
Is she not used to being naked in front of others?
But before Chiho could say anything reassuring, the other girl moved, pulling the simple one piece dress over her head.
What Chiho saw caused her to breathe in sharply.
Lucifer's body was covered in scars. Small ones, larger ones, some were faded, others were still slightly red.
The largest one of them all was the one which extended diagonally across her chest.
Then Lucifer, who was now fully naked, and had used the smaller towel to cover herself slightly, turned to look at Chiho.
Chiho looked away, suddenly feeling ashamed that she had been staring, and continued to undress quickly. After Chiho was done undressing and got all her things, she turned to confirm Emi was also ready and said,
"Let's go in now."
As Lucifer walked through the opened translucent door leading to the baths, her eyes widened slightly as she took in the size of the place.
Satan's apartment was tiny compared to this.
The whole left side seemed to be a bathing area, with ten individual bathing spaces, with their own showerhead, stools, wooden buckets and places to hold the body soap and shampoo they have brought with them.
The thing which took the most space in the room was the large body of water contained within a sunken area, with stairs leading down into it. There was steam emitting off it, which indicated that it had to be warm.
"Urushihara-san, this way."
Lucifer looked in the direction of Chiho's voice and saw that she was setting up in front of one of the unused bathing spaces. As she approached and stopped in front of the younger girl, Chiho started to explain,
"This is where we can shower. If you see the wooden basin overturned on top of the stool, it means no one is using it. You can put your soap and shampoo here." Chiho pointed to a small shelf on the unused bathing area beside the one she was at and Lucifer did as she was told, placing the small bottles on it.
"You can put your towel there too when you're showering so it doesn't get too wet. Then the tap here turns on the shower and you can adjust the temperature by turning the tap handle." Chiho explained patiently, turning the tap so that a little water came out of the showerhead. Turning the tap handle to the right, she held the showerhead over Lucifer's hand.
It feels nice.
The gentle spray of water on her hand was much better than the attempted baths Maou and Ashiya tried to manage with using damp cloths and the flow of water from the sink.
Then Chiho turned the tap to the left, and her hand slowly warmed up when the temperature of the water increased.
Lucifer decided right then that she liked warm water better.
"That's about it, will you be able to manage?" Chiho asked, a concerned look on her face.
Lucifer nodded, and sat down on the stool after removing the wooden basin. A few spaces away from her, Emi had already started showering, though Lucifer suspected that the Hero had one eye on her the whole time.
It took some time, but after getting the water temperature to what she liked, Lucifer started to shower, wetting her skin, applying soap on her body and washing the bubbles off, liking the feeling of the flowing water on her skin.
It felt like it had been a long time since she felt this. Especially not since…
Can't breathe.
So, do you feel like talking now?
It was getting hard to breathe.
"Urushihara-san, do you need help washing your hair?"
At the voice, Lucifer dragged herself back to the present and turned towards Chiho at her right, the younger girl already had her hair tied up in a towel.
Had I taken that long?
Lucifer took a deep breath, suddenly feeling the fatigue creep up on her.
"Urushihara-san? Are you alright?"
She nodded.
"I see…would you like me to help you wash your hair?"
Why was she being so nice?
As if the younger girl heard her thoughts, she continued rambling on,
"I don't mean to be intrusive, and you don't have to agree if you don't want to, but erhm, seeing that Maou-san never brought you here after you left the hospital, I was thinking that your hair will be cleaner if I helped you with it instead of you washing it yourself? Ah! It's not like your hair is really dirty right now or anything…"
Lucifer could not help but smile slightly on reflex.
Chiho's rambling reminded her too much of Satan's behaviour when he was nervous.
No wonder he likes her.
When Emi travelled around the Western Continent to kill the demons and liberate it, she saw all the damage done, all the deaths, the abandoned villages, and the orphans.
Therefore, even before she met Lucifer, she had already viewed the Demon General as a vicious, cruel being.
When she arrived at her village and saw the burnt fields, and could not find her father or any of the people she had known growing up, this only further served to solidify her opinion, and nurture the growing seed of hatred in her heart.
Which was why when she finally clashed with Lucifer in the royal capital, even if she had been surprised at how small the Demon General was, as well as the fact that she was female, Emi did not hold back, attacking relentlessly until the fallen angel fell from the sky, bleeding from a fatal wound.
Now, even after the end of the war in Ente Isla, she was determined to carry out her goal to kill the Demon King and his Generals for good.
If so, why in the world am I feeling pity for her right now?
It had started since the fight with Olba. She had seen how Olba had forced Lucifer to bend to his will, and how reluctant she was to go against Maou, and for the first time in her life, Emi disliked a human more than any of the demons present.
This was the first time she saw Lucifer after that incident, and when she realised Lucifer could no longer speak, it look all her willpower not to show any signs of sympathy.
In the end, she only showed a fleeting expression of surprise before looking away to talk to Chiho.
Then she saw those scars.
Which led to her current conflicting mindset of feeling pity towards her enemy and also the guilt that she even felt that way.
It did not help that Lucifer now looked so helpless, even if she was sitting there, allowing Chiho to wash her hair.
Also, since she was watching the purple haired girl so closely, Emi did not miss the haunted look Lucifer had while she was showering, or the way she tensed up when Chiho ran her hands through the purple strands, only relaxing after a very long while.
What has she been through to act like that?
Against her will, Emi begin to wonder about this.
Then Chiho finally turned off the water and gently squeezed the water out of Lucifer's hair, wrapping it with a towel. This prompted Emi to finish up and also wrap up her wet hair.
"Ah Yusa-san, you're done as well?" Chiho asked, sounding cheerful.
"Yes." Emi replied, then looked towards the warm body of water in the middle of the room, "Are you planning to go in there?" She added.
Chiho looked at the onsen, then turned to Lucifer, "Do you want to try it out?"
Having the question suddenly directed to her, Lucifer looked lost for a moment, then Emi saw it again.
A haunted look in her eyes.
A few seconds later, Lucifer shook her head. Emi noted that the other girl suddenly looked really tired.
"Oh…alright. Then let's get dried off, change and meet up with Maou-san and Ashiya-san then!" Chiho replied, sounding a little disappointed, but it changed into a cheerful tone.
Lucifer nodded and stood up, and Emi did the same. Then the three girls left the bathing area.
"Demon King-sama, even if you rush and leave, you will still have to wait for Sasaki-san and Lucifer outside."
As if Ashiya had sensed Maou's nervousness due to the speed Maou was showering, he pointed this out, causing Maou to look rather sheepish.
"Yeah…I know that. But I just can't settle down, you know?"
Ashiya sighed and turned his head towards the opposite wall, which was the wall separating the male and female baths.
"I'm sure we would be able to hear something if they really get into a fight. It's quiet now, so it should be fine. As reckless as Emilia can be, I doubt she will try anything if Sasaki-san is around."
"But if Lucifer…" The moment Maou said that, he swallowed the rest of his words.
In the past, when they were still in the Demon World, Lucifer had been a rather free spirit. Even if she had been kind to her allies, she was quick to lose her temper with those she perceived as her enemies, especially if they posed a threat to the ones she cared about.
Of course, the term 'kind' was an exaggeration, it just simply meant that she was willing to listen to reason first before thinking of killing them if they angered her.
Maou let out an involuntary shudder at that thought, thinking of all the times she dropped him off a cliff on purpose to teach him how to fly. Even if she did catch him before he really died from hitting the ground, Maou still could not forget the sheer terror he felt the first few times she did it.
Come to think of it, it was also that temper that caused her to leave him the first time to ally with the Malebranches.
But that was the past.
Maou still did not know exactly what had happened to Lucifer in the close to two years they had been apart, but he could tell that she had changed.
The confidence she had before was gone. There was no more fiery spark in her eyes. She was submissive.
Was Lucifer really in the state to start a fight right now?
"Demon King-sama?" Ashiya asked, noticing the change in Maou's behaviour as Maou's voice trailed off.
"No, it's nothing." Maou replied. "You're right that Chi-chan being around will stop Emi from doing anything stupid. I should just relax."
Ashiya stared at Maou's face, trying to gather more clues to Maou's state of mind. But being unable to obtain any, he looked away, continuing his shower.
When Ashiya looked away, Maou also continued to shower. He turned his head towards the opposite wall.
You definitely lost something in those two years. But even if it takes me hundreds or even thousands of years, I'm going to get that back.
"Maou-san! Sorry, did you wait long?" Chiho called out when she saw Maou and Ashiya waiting outside the entrance of the bathhouse.
"It was just five minutes, Chi-chan, don't worry about it." Maou replied, internally breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that Lucifer was unharmed.
She even looked content.
"Did you enjoy it?" Maou asked with a gentle expression when Lucifer walked up to him.
She nodded. Maou noted that she looked rather sleepy.
Maou did not mean to do it, but his hand moved on its own.
Lucifer stiffened when Maou's hand made contact with the top of her head.
Seeing her reaction, Maou removed his hand hastily, "Sorry, did I scare you?"
Lucifer shook her head quickly. Because of the dim light and her long hair, Maou completely missed the fact that she was blushing slightly. Then she tugged at Maou's sleeve, a clear signal that she wanted to go home.
Seeing Lucifer's gestures, Maou turned to Chiho and Emi, saying,
"Chi-chan, thanks a lot for today."
"It's nothing. I'm glad Urushihara-san liked it." Chiho replied.
"Emi, make sure Chi-chan gets home safely alright?"
"You don't have to…" Emi started, but Maou did not even listen to the rest of her sentence, turning his back on her and giving them a backhand wave before walking back to Villa Rosa.
"Gosh, seriously…." Emi said, feeling annoyed at being ignored. Then she turned towards Chiho, "Come on, let's go back."
Chiho showed a troubled smile at this interaction and followed Emi, marking the end of their bathhouse trip.
END