Dream Hospital, third floor.
With a creak of the door, a pair of trembling middle-aged parents entered the ward.
"Dad! Mom!"
The moment she saw her parents, Kurioka Tsubaki's eyes lit up. She sprang from the bed in delight and ran into their arms, savoring the warmth and closeness she had long dreamed of.
As they came into close contact, the middle-aged couple's bodies stiffened. Like wound-up machines, they patted their daughter's slender back and head. The rigid flesh on their cheeks forced up wrinkles as they put on loving smiles.
"Tsubaki, you're awake? That's good. Once we finish your discharge paperwork, we'll take you home."
"Home?"
Hearing that familiar, affectionate word, Kurioka Tsubaki grew even more excited.
Her parents nodded frantically like pecking chickens, terrified that any delay in their response might displease their daughter. An almost fawning eagerness radiated from within them.
It was as though the girl standing before them was not the tool they had once created to achieve their goals, but a demon grinning viciously with a whip and chains in hand.
Of course, they were not wrong to think so. To evil people, the angel sheltered by the Gate of Heaven, surrounded by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and protecting the innocent, was also a demon delivering Doomsday Judgment and scourging sinners' souls.
Ever since that person had branded them, all they could do was desperately please their daughter—or rather... their master.
Thanks to someone's twisted sense of humor, the couple had also been fortunate enough to attend Hell's "Crash Course for Qualified Parents." They had not only needed to study every aspect of education and interpersonal relations, but had personally sampled every Hell-exclusive punishment and disciplinary measure.
The moment the slightest malicious thought or resistance arose within them, the burning sensation in