Flashback — Five Years Ago]
Lightning cracked the blood-red sky as the Hero and the Demon Lord clashed one final time.
Their swords roared with celestial energy—Ragna's obsidian blade wreathed in dark fire, Sakura's radiant katana gleaming like a sliver of heaven. The battlefield was nothing but rubble. Heaven and hell held their breath.
"This ends now, Demon Lord!" Sakura shouted, blood dripping down her cheek.
Ragna grinned, despite the gaping wound in his side. "I was hoping you'd say that."
With one final, blinding strike, they slashed at each other—light and darkness colliding in an explosion that cracked the very heavens.
And then—
Poof.
The world shimmered.
Then vanished.
---
[Modern Tokyo — Some Minutes(?) Later]
When Sakura opened her eyes, she was standing in the middle of a crosswalk, surrounded by honking cars, screaming pedestrians, and a convenience store clerk filming her with a phone.
She was still gripping her sword.
Her armor sparked.
A voice beside her groaned, "Ugh… what the hell is a traffic light?"
She turned her head.
There he was—Ragna the Obsidian Flame, Demon Lord of the Ninth Hell—completely shirtless and very confused.
The two stared at each other for a long beat.
Then Sakura screamed.
Then Ragna screamed.
Then someone threw a soda can at them.
---
[Later That Night — Under a Bridge, Looking Pitiful]
"You broke reality," Sakura muttered.
"I broke reality? You divine-hopped with that sacred katana of yours! You probably did it!"
They sat on opposite ends of a torn blanket, each clutching a convenience store rice ball.
Their weapons were stuffed in plastic bags beside them.
"We're not in our world anymore," she said softly. "There's no mana, no divine channel. Nothing's responding."
Ragna bit into his onigiri. "No demons, no armies, no royal bathhouse. This world is boring and dry."
"…You miss the bathhouse?"
"I had rose oil imported from the Abyss! That stuff is expensive!"
She threw her rice ball at him.
He caught it.
A weird silence followed.
He slowly handed it back.
"…Thanks."
---
[Day 3: First Encounter With Earth's Greatest Evil — Rent]
They were discovered sleeping in a park by an old lady in a tracksuit named Mrs. Tanaka, who ran a nearby apartment building and mistook them for a runaway couple.
"You poor things!" she sniffled. "Fighting so hard for love!"
"We're not a couple," Sakura said.
"We're archenemies," Ragna added proudly.
Mrs. Tanaka clapped her hands. "Lovers from rival clans! How romantic!"
She offered them a room in her building. It was tiny. It smelled like curry and mothballs. The toilet made a moaning noise when flushed.
It was paradise.
"...We're splitting rent," Sakura declared.
"You'll have to cook," Ragna said.
"You'll do the laundry."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Also, I get the bed."
"I will fight you."
---
[Day 10: The Working World]
Ragna found a job as a dishwasher at a ramen joint.
He got fired in two days for setting the stove on fire and insulting a customer.
"I said his soul was weak. That's a compliment where I come from."
Sakura facepalmed. "You made a kid cry."
"I told him to embrace darkness!"
Meanwhile, Sakura, now in cheap officewear and uncomfortable heels, had taken a temp job at a corporate printing firm.
Her boss kept calling her "Miss Swordswoman." She smiled through it. Barely.
"You need to blend in," she told Ragna that night, stabbing a sausage with chopsticks.
"I don't blend," he scoffed. "I conquer."
She threw soy sauce at him.
It turned into a nightly routine.
---
[Day 24: A Rainy Night and a Broken Umbrella]
It was cold. Tokyo was soaked in rain. Ragna stood outside a convenience store staring at an automatic door.
It had denied him access five times.
He muttered dark spells at it. It beeped mockingly.
Sakura finally stepped forward and waved her hand, triggering the sensor.
"…Magic?" he asked.
"No. Science."
"Disgusting."
They stood beneath a broken umbrella, their shoulders touching slightly. Both were soaked.
"You don't hate this world?" Sakura asked quietly.
Ragna looked up at the neon lights. "I don't hate you, surprisingly."
She blinked. "...You're getting soft."
"You like it."
"I don't."
"You really like it."
"…Shut up."
---
[Day 50: Ragna Opens a Restaurant]
Ragna had discovered his true calling: food.
"Human cuisine is rich in flavor and fury," he declared, eyes gleaming. "I shall create dishes that make mortals weep!"
He borrowed money from Mrs. Tanaka and opened a tiny eatery: HELL'S KITCHEN.
First day, he burned the curry so badly it summoned a local priest.
"I AM STILL MASTERING THE FIRE BEAST!" he roared as the smoke alarms wailed.
Sakura helped him redesign the menu.
She taught him how to use a rice cooker.
He told her her miso soup was too bland.
She stabbed him with a chopstick.
He asked for seconds.
---
[Day 83: Confession at the Coin Laundry]
It was midnight. Their clothes were tumbling in a rusting machine. Sakura sat beside Ragna on a cracked vinyl bench, drying her hair with a towel.
"I think I like you," he said casually.
She froze.
He continued, "It's annoying. I wake up, and you're yelling about the electric bill, and I don't want to disintegrate you. I even think you're kinda pretty. In that uptight, sword-up-the-butt way."
She stared at him.
Then shoved him.
He fell off the bench.
"Why would you say it like that!?"
"You didn't deny it."
"…Shut up."
---
[Day 100: The Kiss (and a Magical Explosion)]
They kissed for the first time outside their apartment after a successful restaurant festival.
Fireworks boomed overhead.
So did half the neighborhood.
(Neither of them realized their suppressed divine/demonic energies had re-synced in the moment of passion, temporarily causing an explosion that took out five vending machines.)
Mrs. Tanaka said it was the most romantic thing she'd ever seen.
---
[Present Day — Back in Lily's Room]
Lily stared at her parents.
"You kissed, and the sky exploded?"
Sakura blushed. "We didn't mean to cause property damage…"
"I caused property damage today and you yelled at me!" Lily protested.
Ragna laughed. "That's our girl."
Sakura groaned. "We're raising a menace."
Lily hugged them both, giggling. "I like your story. But Mama definitely fell in love first."
"I did not—!"
"She definitely did," Ragna said smugly.
"You were wearing nothing but a towel the first week!"
"...And you remember that vividly."
"Shut up!"
They argued.
Lily smiled.
In her little heart, she thought:
> Even if they came from war and fire… this is my family. And I'm gonna protect it too—no matter how crazy it gets.
---
To Be Continued…