Common Tongue

Aiko stared at the man standing across from her. The tip of her sword slowly lowered, until it was resting against the ground. She replayed his words in her head.

"What did you call me?"

The Demon Lord scowled, and looked up at her. Then his expression changed subtly. His brow lowered a little, eyes narrowed just a fraction more.

Aiko pointed a finger at her enemy. "You. You're the Demon Lord."

The Demon Lord's lips pressed together. "No," he said. "I mean… No, what are you talking about?"

"What?" Aiko answered.

"What?" he replied. Then, very slowly, his expression began to change again. His mouth slowly opened. "Wait, do you mean to say that—"

"Oi! You two! What the hell do you think you're doing!" a third voice boomed at them, and both Aiko and the Demon Lord started. "You can't just hold a performance in the middle of the street! Do you have permission to do that?"

Aiko turned and saw a young police officer running toward them. There was another police officer, a woman, running behind him. The male officer skidded to a stop in front of them, and then as he saw Aiko his eyes widened.

"Oh! The young miss! From the river!" he said, and frowned. "What on earth are you doing? We heard a report somebody was using fireworks!"

"Do you know this person?" the other police officer asked. She was wearing the same uniform as her colleague, though her hat was inexplicably a different color. "Young miss, isn't it a little late for you to be out of the house? Don't you have school tomorrow?"

"I…" Aiko wrinkled her nose. "Not child."

"Ah, it's OK, we've met before," the male police officer said.

The female police officer turned back to her partner. "And since when are you out meeting underaged girls?"

"N-Not underage." Aiko held a hand out, but they didn't seem to be paying her any attention. Meanwhile the Demon Lord was just standing there, looking hard done by. Wasn't anybody worried about that?

The male police officer raised both his hands in protest. "No no no, you've got it wrong. It was that whole thing at the river. You remember?"

"With the magic dogs?"

"They weren't magic, I just couldn't find them again is all."

The female police officer turned back to Aiko and the Demon Lord. "It's against the law to hold a street festival without permission. You're both to stop immediately, and we'll be issuing a fine."

"Street festival?" Aiko looked between the police officers and the Demon Lord.

From around them, some of the people who had been watching were laughing. Some were booing at the police.

"Spoilsports!"

"Wet towels!"

"Boo! Let them go!"

Aiko simply wasn't sure what was happening any more. Were the people of this world so out of tune with reality that they did not recognize a duel to the death? Was that sort of thing just entertainment to them? She absolutely did not want to look to the Demon Lord for assurances, but she turned to look at him anyway.

He looked indescribably tired.

The two police officers frowned at the crowd but finally held their hands up in surrender.

"Fine! Fine!" the female officer said. "It's not like you caused any harm. We'll let you off with a warning this time, but no more of this martial arts stuff. Got it? You can't do this sort of thing, for crying out loud. Do you understand? And those weapons of yours, just hide them away or something, could you? Absolutely do not get on a train carrying those things."

"Ah… Umm… I live close…" Aiko mumbled.

The Demon Lord spoke. "Yes. We understand. Sorry." He bowed deeply to the police. Then, looking up at Aiko and seeing that she was just standing there, he hissed, "You too!"

Aiko bowed to the police.

The female officer sighed. "Well as long as you understand." Then to her partner. "Come on, let's get back to the police box."

"Take care there, Miss. You and your friend both," the male officer added.

"Not friend. Enemy," Aiko said, but it didn't seem like anyone was listening.

As the two police officers turned and left, some of the people left watching clapped and cheered, and seeing that everything was well and truly over, started to go back to whatever they had been doing before.

When the police were far away enough, Aiko turned and raised the tip of her sword toward the Demon Lord once more.

He sighed, and rolled his eyes.

"Didn't you hear what they just said?" he said sharply. "And anyway, I'm too tired for this. Sorry, I thought I'd be able to keep this up a while longer, but it's been a long day. Spear. Away." His spear dissolved into a light blue mist, and vanished from sight. "Look, just wait there for a second, Demon Lord." He pointed to the side of the road.

"I'm not-"

"Just go wait over there, and hide that vile sword of yours. Just looking at it gives me the creeps." He turned around and quickly jogged across the street into the convenience store they'd arrived at during their battle.

Aiko, not sure what else to do, went to the side of the road where the Demon Lord had told her to wait.

"What are you doing? Strike him down, Mathilda," her sword said.

It was speaking the old language, Aiko realized. Had it been doing that all along?

"Shut up. He called me the Demon Lord."

"A trap. Strike him down when he returns. That is your duty."

"Sword. Away."

Her sword vanished, and she crouched down next to a wall. Her eyelids felt heavy, and there was a heavy fog over everything she did. Her muscles ached from the unexpected strain of saving her own neck. All the things in the street felt distant and out of focus. Aiko didn't wish that Koharu was here, and yet she wasn't happy that Koharu wasn't here either.

"Here," said a soft voice from above in Japanese. The Demon Lord was standing above her, holding out a bottle of sports water. "Go on, it's not poison."

Aiko quietly took the bottle, and after cracking the lid open drank almost half in one go.

"Th-Thank you."

"I don't need your thanks. Listen here, Demon Lord-"

"No. Not Demon Lord." Aiko shook her head.

"Alright, would you prefer Mathilda val Stattico Deathbringer, then? That's your name, if I recall it correctly?"

"Yes. No. Not… Not now. Aiko." She shook her head. Somehow just hearing her whole name from start to finish made her stomach turn.

"Aiko. You've gone native. Well, fair enough. The name of this body is Hoshino Yuuki, if it pleases you. Let me ask you something, Aiko. Did you summon those wraiths? The birds? The dogs?"

Aiko looked up at the man who was calling himself Yuuki. He was staring down at her, entirely neutral. Aside from those unnaturally blue eyes, he looked nothing like the Demon Lord that she remembered. Aiko had always had trouble understanding how people felt, so she'd learned how to look for hints. Were they frowning? Smiling? This man had no hints at all. She didn't know what he was thinking.

"No. I didn't," she said.

"Me neither," he replied. "You fought them? I stopped being able to feel their presence. Was that you?"

"Yes." Aiko looked back down at her knees. "Why do you keep calling me Demon Lord?"

The young man folded his arms, and pressed his lips together a while. Finally he asked, "What are you then?"

"The hero," Aiko said meekly.

The man who called himself Yuuki let out a long breath. He leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You've got to be kidding me. I don't… I have work tomorrow, I don't have time for this," he muttered to himself, then looked down at Aiko. "OK, so, I think this is the first time we've ever spoken to each other in a common tongue, isn't it?"

Aiko nodded.

"In my language, we have a word for your kind, you know what it is? Imps. That's the name for the people of Impalia. Now. Would you like to guess what happens when you translate imp into modern Japanese?"

Aiko shook her head.

"It translates to demon."

Aiko hugged her knees. She didn't like where this was going.

"You terrorised Jel'Almore, my home, for a hundred years, without ever aging. Always the same monster, skin pale as snow, eyes red as fresh blood. You would stroll into our territories and slaughter whole villages, then return the next generation and kill them again. You are a plague, you ill-gotten despicable murderer. You killed my father, and his father, and his father before him. And each time you did, their deaths at least bought us a few years of peace before you wandered back down from the mountains to terrorize us again. God knows what you did in the time between."

"That's not true." Aiko shook her head. She hugged her knees tighter. "I'm the hero."

"You're a murderer. The Demon Lord. You think nothing of hurting people. The first thing you did when you arrived in this world was to kill somebody. What did you do to the owner of that body? The Aiko that used to own that body, what happened to her?"

"I… She's dead."

"You made me kill somebody too. When you brought me through that evil relic, shoved my soul into some witless body from this side. I'll never forgive you, Demon Lord. I carry enough hate for you to satisfy every single one of my relatives that you have ever slaughtered. But… I'm not like you. I'm not a murderer. I'm too tired to fight you anymore. Please just die of your own accord."

Aiko looked up at the young man's face, twisted into a sneer. He shook his head, and sighed. And then, as he turned and walked away, Aiko finally saw Koharu, who had been standing behind him.

Koharu looked down at Aiko with another unreadable face. Maybe, if Aiko was better at reading emotions, she might have understood what the hints were, but as it was, she simply had no idea what the other girl was thinking.

Koharu turned, and ran off into the night, leaving Aiko by herself, on the side of the road.