The silver lining of writhing in the burning pain was that Konrad didn't pass out.
He fell, blinded and with legs like jelly, but found no real wounds on his arm.
Lucifer's arrogance and intentions—whatever they were—saved their lives.
He couldn't attack when he wanted them back in Kasserlane, after all.
But the stench of singed skin told him someone actually burned.
By the time he forced his eyes open, the angel was long gone.
The dragon was not.
Kaede didn't move. Some of her thick scales have melted or fallen. She wasn't bleeding, but her wounds were real. Those bolts must have hit her hard.
"Shit," the Demon Lord groaned, massaging his arm. "Never hated having mana this much."
He was on the floor, too, his nose bleeding from the sudden transfer and the discharge.
But Konrad couldn't have cared less about him.
He dragged himself to the dragon's side, avoiding the sharper debris on the ground. Everything was a mess, the entrance warped as if a black hole bent gravity inwards.
The first aisle was also in ruins. But that would have been the easiest thing to fix.
Everything else seemed impossible to hide in this world. And the worst of them was—
"Kaede," he whispered, kneeling by the dragon's head. "Wake up."
She was warm, her scales pulsing with her heartbeat.
Her breathing was slow, but it was still there. Weak, but she was alive.
Except, she wouldn't open her eyes, no matter what.
"The fucker hit her hard," the schoolboy said, shuffling up behind him. "She won't wake up anytime soon, but dragons are tough. Give her a month, and she'll be back stronger than—"
"We're not in a place we could leave her," Konrad snapped, trying to shake the beast awake.
Even in her smaller-than-usual scale, she was still many times his size.
Her head couldn't fit in his lap, the elongated jaws longer than his entire torso.
Impossible to move, very easy to spot.
It would have caused quite a shock in Tokyo.
"Right," Midori-kun mumbled, wiping blood from his nose. "I could explain vandalism to the police, but a dragon? If you still have some mana, she could turn back, but—"
Not while she was unconscious.
They both knew that. And while Konrad still had around a hundred and fifty points left—
Even if he remembered right and had six hundred in reserve back home, that was not enough. With some optimisation and luck, he could still make the teleport work, but—
What was the point?
Kaede was the only reason he wanted to return. That way, he could've brought her future self back, at least he hoped. But not if she died here, or someone found her in this form.
"Can you heal her?" Konrad asked, his hands still holding the dragon's jaws.
"Not without mana, no," Midori-kun stated the obvious. "It'd take like fifty points for her to turn back, too. For another fifty, I could stabilise her enough if we're lucky, but—"
"I have enough," he offered, his eyes wide and eager, which made the schoolboy jump.
"Hold on. I haven't recovered from the last transfer. It can actually kill us both, you know?!"
"We need to hurry," Konrad pointed out. As if to stress his words, a siren's echo drifted towards them from the distance. "She has to turn back before anyone sees this mess."
He grabbed the kid's arm—his right this time—channeling half his remaining mana into him.
"For fuck's sake," the Demon Lord groaned, trying to pull away, gritting his teeth in pain.
And it hurt Konrad, too.
But not as much as the thought of losing his first love, past or present.
"Man up," he demanded. "You're the Green Mage, and she saved our lives."
"I am well aware, child, but if you knock me out, I won't be able to do shit," Midori-kun grunted. But with only about seventy points, the transfer ended before the pain got too bad.
Konrad pulled away, watching the kid stumble closer to the dragoness.
He went straight for her wounded side, touching the singed scales without subtlety.
Even in her sleep, Kaede's crimson body jerked—but if anything, this was a good sign.
"I'm telling you in advance, this won't heal her all the way," Midori-kun noted. "I don't want you to think I stole your mana or anything. Treating dragons is no simple task."
Looking at his glowing palms, Konrad didn't even consider it before.
Why did he trust his mortal enemy? Having no other option was a great motivator.
But that also gave him some food for thought.
"Why did you never try to banish Lucifer before?" he asked, caressing the dragon's muzzle.
Maou Midori's unique spell was something the angels already feared. He said Lucifer would force him to play by his rules, but couldn't he get rid of him as he did now?
"Think about it, child," the mage said, not looking up. "It would have only angered him."
"So?" He couldn't care less about pissing off his guardian at this point.
He didn't do him any favors. He used him as a—
Yeah. As a farm animal. He put him into the worst possible situations to feed on his suffering.
Ah, but that also meant—
"You think he needs to be here to make our lives hell?" Midori-kun asked. "He has minions all over. The same way as his sister sent you and this crazy dragon against me—"
Right. He was also a pawn in heaven's game; he should have known that better than anyone.
"It was easier to act like a loyal toy to lessen my suffering."
That sounded counterintuitive, given that his whole game was about causing problems.
But they have burned that bridge now, and the schoolboy worked hard on treating Kaede's burns, too. Konrad had only enough mana left to help her shift back, if she woke up.
Then he'd run dry, too, until he got home.
From the sounds, the police would arrive here much sooner.
It must have been hard to miss that bright flash of the Demon Lord's banishment spell.
Which gave him a strange thought.
"If you could remove him from this world," he said. "Why didn't you try to use the same spell on yourself before? You wanted to leave Kasserlane, right? Wouldn't that have worked?"
The boy paused, his palms losing some of their glow.
The way he looked at him said more than a thousand words.
"I'm sure the angels told you why. Or why it wouldn't work on you, for example," Midori-kun said, shaking his head. "Take a look at the door again. The place where he stood last."
The door did warp inwards, and—
Oh. Parts of Lucifer's clothing were still there, charred and scattered all over the shop.
"The spell rips their soul out of their body," he explained. "You can't kill angels, but you can destroy their spare vessels. Then, they won't be able to come back. But you? You'd burn."
Okay, that was a stupid question.
But Konrad had already forgotten about it as the dragon's big, yellow eyes fluttered open.
Ten seconds later, confused policemen pried open the shop's warped door.