Chapter 25: Arata and Hijiri finally reunite for a short while. And even though he knows that they're enemies now, Arata still promises to reach her someday. The kicker? Instead of denying it or saying something along the line of "I'm too far gone", Hijiri acknowledged it, and said that she's waiting for that day.
The reason why Hijiri joined Iscariot? So that she can stop the world from using Arata in it cycles of rebirth. Essentially, even after all this time, even after being "punched" outside of the world, she is still acting for Arata's benefit.
Arata and Hijiri's relationship overflows with this trope. Arata doesn't give a damn that Hijiri was initially sent to observe him, and is now his enemy. He'll save her even if it means fighting the whole world. And Hijiri is equally as devoted. Her reaction to finding out that Arata is destined to destroy the world is to fight the world herself to protect Arata.
Liese is surprisingly a fountain of these. One of the first things she does is suck the magic out of her own sister, Serina, which seems like a terrible thing. Except doing so removes her from the fight and prevents any suspicion that Serina was on her side. Every interaction the two have, even when fighting to the death, is the two of them fawning all over each other.
After Arata defeats her, he hugs her and tells her to come back with him, since everyone is waiting for her. The fact that all her friends still love her despite having become Drunk on the Dark Side and going rogue brings her to tears.
When she reveals that she is trapped in her own super speed time magic, Arata swears to save her and bring her back. He then begins practicing in earnest for the first time with the sole goal of breaking Liese out of her dimensional prison. And guess what? As of chapter 34, he kept his promise.
