The words made Sayaka fly into a rage. Meiga’s attitude, and his obsession with Yukina, really rubbed her the wrong way.
“Like hell I will! It’s ten years too soon for the likes of you to speak Yukina’s name!”
“Kirasaka, quit it—!”
Before Kojou could stop her, Sayaka turned her long sword over, slicing toward Meiga with it.
Meiga’s vermillion bullet shot out. Tracing a complicated arc, it was an octagonal mass flying at high speed.
Sayaka just barely lured it in and swatted it down with Lustrous Scale. This feat of supreme skill, worthy of being called a work of God, brought an approving smile over Meiga.
“Pseudo-spatial severing, is it…? As expected of a Shamanic War Dancer. What fine skill. However, you have wandered too close—”
“Eh…?”
As Meiga levied his sarcasm, Sayaka’s combat pose suddenly crumbled. Strength drained from her entire body, leaving her to wobble and crumple on the spot. Even so, Sayaka managed to rise up again, but all she could manage was a stagger; she could not stand upright. Her semicircular canals had been thrown awry, and her eyes were not focused on the same spot.
“Don’t tell me…you poisoned the air…”
Sayaka let out an anguished groan. The radiance of The Cleansing, the vermillion particles around Meiga, freely altered the very world. If it had enough power to turn an entire building into a pillar of salt, surely turning the air into a poisonous gas would be trivial.
“If Yukina Himeragi hears your screams, she’ll come running, right…?”
As Sayaka fell to her knees, Meiga looked down at her as he thrust his black spear without warning. The warped spear was aimed at Sayaka’s right shoulder. He surely meant not to finish her off in one blow, but to rob her limbs of freedom and prolong her suffering.
“—!”
Even as Sayaka’s face contorted with fear, she levied an obstinate glare at Meiga.
“Meiga Itogami! You little…!”
Kojou dragged his injured body along as he rose to his feet and rushed at Meiga, fist drawn back. Immediately behind Kojou, the heavy thunk of a round being loaded reverberated.
“Sir Boyfriend, get thyself down!”
What he heard was Lydianne’s voice, synthesized to sound deep and threatening. Lifting its ritual magic camouflage, her robot tank came into view, unloading every weapon at its disposal.
These included large-caliber antipersonnel machine guns in the legs, micro-missiles hailing from the back, and stun grenades and wireless Tasers. The main gun had fired a fragmentation round for riot suppression. Meiga’s black spear could not block solid attacks such as these.
Meiga controlled his vermillion particles to deploy a bulwark around himself. This bulwark, in the shape of a dodecagon, halted Lydianne’s cannon fire.
“An anti-demon robot tank… I see. Did you think that physical attacks not reliant upon magic could defy the world-altering power of The Cleansing? How very futile—,” Meiga murmured with scorn.
Lydianne continued firing without pause, but none of her attacks reached Meiga. Every single one bounced off the vermillion wall surrounding him.
With the dodecagon-shaped wall still deployed, Meiga created new bullets, octagonal ones around the size of hand grenades. If those bullets could turn a building into a pillar of salt, they would surely neutralize the armor of Lydianne’s tank with ease. But before he could unleash his bullets, the air ripped with a heavy clang.
“No, it is not futile at all—”
“What?!”
With a great roar, a golden chain reaching tens of meters in length collided with Meiga’s wall. The apparition of an enormous knight emerged at Natsuki’s back, swinging the golden chain like a whip. This was Natsuki’s contracted demonic vassal—the Guardian of the Witch of the Void.
Meiga, still fending off Lydianne’s bullet hail, could not evade that attack. Sustaining the collision from an unanticipated direction, Meiga and the wall were both sent flying.
“Kirasaka, you all right?”
During that time, Kojou picked up the fallen Sayaka. Hovering around her was a strange, powerful scent that made his nose throb. The poisonous gas Meiga had created had yet to fully dissipate.
“Lydianne, take care of Sayaka!”
“Understood!”
Carrying the immobile Sayaka in a sub-arm, Lydianne’s tank retreated. Thanks to the sustained volley, the robot tank was pretty low on ammo. She’d no doubt judged that continued combat would prove difficult.
“And you, Sir Boyfriend?”
“I’m fine. I’ll back Natsuki up. You two fall back to somewhere safe!”
Speaking those last words to Lydianne, Kojou wobbled as he walked forward.
Natsuki continued her attacks, but the tide of battle had already turned. The might of her magical gear, Dromi, was formidable, but it could not break Meiga’s wall. On the other side of the coin, Natsuki seemed to be barely evading Meiga’s vermillion bullets through the use of teleportation.
Even so, Natsuki’s expression remained composed.
“Kojou Akatsuki—beneath.”
Natsuki was using some manner of magic to speak directly into Kojou’s ears.
“Beneath…?”
Perplexed, Kojou shifted his gaze to his own feet. The only thing there was a concrete surface, with not the slightest thing unusual about it. This was the exterior event space on Stratum Three of Keystone Gate. Beneath it was the unmanned parking space and a supply warehouse. And beyond that—
“So that’s it! C’mon over, Natra Cinereus!”
Gathering his remaining demonic energy, Kojou summoned a new Beast Vassal: an illusory, shelled beast enveloped by thick, silver mist. Its giant forelegs crashed into the plaza, transforming the concrete surface into mist.
The area under his feet literally dissipated, and Kojou’s body tumbled beneath the ground’s surface. What he saw beneath him was an underground chamber encased by a metallic barrier wall—Keystone Gate’s Stratum Zero. In that chamber, filled to the brim with seawater, an object floated that had not previously been present.
It was a streamlined vessel encased in a metallic, ultramarine-colored shell—the submarine called Cain’s Coffin.
“So that was your aim, Witch of the Void… It would seem you are indeed my most difficult foe!”
Scattering scarlet radiance all about, Meiga leaped down to chase after Kojou.
If Kojou and the others took back Asagi, confined inside the sub, Meiga would lose the power of The Cleansing. There was no mistaking that he acted out of fear of that very possibility. So Asagi really was held captive inside the Coffin.
“So this is Cain’s Coffin…? Where’s the entrance—?! There—!”
Bounding upon the submarine’s hull, Kojou ran toward the hatch. Seeing this, Natsuki gasped, her expression hardening.
“Wait, Kojou Akatsuki! Do not approach carelessly—!”
“Huh…?”
Having touched the submarine’s hatch, Kojou was suddenly enveloped in glowing red miasma. He let out a voiceless scream at the ferocious pain piercing his entire body. A cube-shaped cage had surrounded his body. This polygon, bearing the element of fire, transformed into a burning hell to torment Kojou. Foreseeing Kojou’s action, Meiga Itogami had laid a trap beforehand.
“Shit—! C’mon over, Al-Meissa Mercury!”
In terrible pain, Kojou found a way to breathe as he summoned a Beast Vassal. This was Beast Vassal Number Three of the Fourth Primogenitor—the twin-headed, quicksilver-scaled dragon bearing the ability to gouge holes out of space itself. He tried to employ that ability to destroy Meiga’s trap.
But even the maws of the Dimension Eater Beast Vassal could not break the fiery cubic cage. Bathed in a backwash of vermillion particles, it was Kojou’s Beast Vassal that took the brunt instead.
“Damn…iiit.…!”
Seemingly depleted of strength, Kojou collapsed on the spot. He had insufficient demonic energy with which to summo
n a new Beast Vassal. He had suffered too much damage from Meiga’s attacks.
“And so the first one falls—”
Eyes on the immobile Kojou, Meiga fired off new bullets. These were cubic bullets bearing the element of fire. He fired nearly twenty simultaneously. These, he launched, ready to shoot right through the fiery cage, and Kojou with it—
“Snowdrift Wolf!”
It was a small girl fluttering down from the heavens who knocked them down.
Then she swung, and a dazzling silver light lashed out.
3
The purging spear able to pierce any barrier pulverized the fiery cage that had caught Kojou. Then, still wielding her silver spear, she landed at Kojou’s side without a sound.
Impeded by the silver spear, the scarlet bullets shot out by Meiga never reached Kojou’s body. The world-altering power of The Cleansing and the radiance of the Divine Oscillation Effect had canceled each other out.
“Are you all right, senpai?”
When Yukina peered at him out of concern, Kojou stared back in abject shock. He was too surprised and flustered for words. After repeated, ferocious coughs, he finally managed to get a raspy voice out.
“Himeragi?! The hell are you doing here—?!”
Didn’t she know that if she kept using Snowdrift Wolf, she would vanish?
Why hadn’t Yukari Endou stopped her—?
Kojou harbored those various questions, but sudden, crude, and loud laughter erased them from his mind.
“Ha-ha! …Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! For you to seek me out… Let me show you my appreciation, Yukina Himeragi. Thanks to you, I have been spared a considerable waste of time… Heh-heh!”
A crazed smile came over Meiga as he shouted, almost like he was a different person than his usual, composed self. As if to defy his bloodlust-filled gaze, Yukina turned her silver spear toward him.
“Himeragi, watch out. This guy’s attacks rewrite the world’s rules. Even your spear might not be able to defend against it…!”
“…Yes. I understand.”
To Kojou’s words, and the bitter warning they formed, Yukina slowly nodded. For a single instant, she looked back at Kojou with a smile; then she closed her eyes, as if blowing something aside.
“Even so—!”
Yukina’s entire body was imbued with a pale radiance. Characters were traced in midair, complicated magical symbols identical to the ones emerging upon Snowdrift Wolf’s surface. The symbols adopted the form of wings, spreading forth from Yukina’s back.
“Himeragi…!”
The vast spiritual energy Yukina was giving off pricked and burned Kojou’s skin. He knew that sensation. It was damage from being bathed in high-density divine essence, as he had been when he had fought the Faux-Angel Kanon Kanase once long ago.
“This divine essence… I see, so that is it…!”
As Meiga continued to laugh, a dark glint of hatred rested in his eyes. All around him, he created vermillion bullets beyond all counting. These he fired in a single volley, bearing down on Yukina from all directions.
“I will never accept…you stepping into the realm of Touka… This shall not be… For Touka to be used up and cast aside…for the sake of the successor to Snowdrift Wolf—as if I could ever accept that?!”
“Urk…?!”
The scarlet bullets pressed down upon Yukina’s wings, corroding them. The Cleansing under Meiga’s control was created as a god-killing, Forbidden Ritual. Even a complete Faux-Angel could not defend against the attack. The only reason Yukina could barely hold out was because Meiga’s power was as yet incomplete.
“Ms. Minamiya! Rescue Aiba while you still can—!” Yukina shouted to Natsuki. She declared that she could withstand the attacks.
“Do not give orders to me, Sword Shaman,” Natsuki sourly muttered as she landed at Kojou’s side. “This one says this, that one says that.”
Due to Yukina, Meiga’s trap laid upon the submarine’s hatch had already been disarmed. The Coffin’s interior barrier was still active, so she could not teleport in, but it was surely possible to open the hatch and enter that way.
Natsuki slightly furrowed her brows, clenching her closed fan as her movements came to a halt.
She was staring at the strange, faintly glimmering silhouette floating amid the darkness. Light particles of The Cleansing accumulated, gradually transforming into the form of a girl—unsightly yet beautiful with harsh scars.
“Thou shalt not…!”
The translucent, glimmering, ghostlike girl launched bullets toward Natsuki like rain. They were bullets formed of the same radiance as The Cleansing that Meiga controlled.
“What’s…with that girl…?!”
Launched at point-blank range, the girl’s attack gave Natsuki no chance to evade. Bathed in countless bullets from close range, Natsuki’s small body was blown away. Fragments of her broken folding fan scattered downward; torn pieces of her extravagant dress danced in the sky.
“Natsuki—?!”
Kojou stared blankly, shouting as Natsuki was struck down.
“Ha-ha!” Meiga Itogami sounded delighted. “I thank you, High Priestess—”
As he spoke his thanks to the ghostly girl, Meiga lashed out with his black spear. Scattering from its tips was Fangzahn’s black spiritual energy–nullifying aurora.
“Ah—”
Slashed and rent by the dark-colored aurora, Yukina’s wings vanished. Vermillion bullets poured like rain. The bullets were too numerous for her Snowdrift Wolf to intercept. Having lost the blessing of divine essence, she was at a disadvantage, crushed by the greater number of cards in Meiga’s hand.
“Shit! C’mon over, Sadalmelik—”
Struck by a sense of urgency, Kojou tried to summon a fresh Beast Vassal, but Meiga reacted swiftly.
“Out of my way!”
Meiga fired at Kojou, who was helpless just prior to the summoning. Supernatural power–robbing bullets pierced Kojou through his left shoulder and abdomen.
“Senpai—?!”
For a moment, the sight of blood spurting from Kojou as he fell distracted Yukina; it was a fatal opening. With the dark membrane shredding the divine essence emanating from Yukina, Meiga slammed the black spear home.
“It’s over, Yukina Himeragi!”
With her spiritual energy negated, Yukina could not protect herself against the jiangshi’s strength. Meiga’s black spear knocked Snowdrift Wolf away, and with Yukina’s guard broken, he thrust the black spear’s opposing tip in pursuit of her wide-open throat.
“No, not yet—”
That instant, sound vanished from the world. It was a momentary tranquility, as if time itself had gone silent.
Together with a ferocious noise, that pure-white tranquility was shot to pieces; the next instant, Meiga sailed backward as if his body had bounced off something. Even Yukina, bearing the ability to peer into the future, could not tell what had happened in that moment. Meiga had been supposedly attacking Yukina when, at some point, his body had been riddled with nine bullets.
“The absolute right of initiative…?!”
Meiga slowly rose to his feet despite suffering damage that would have instantly killed any normal person. What trickled from his lips was fresh yet stagnant blood…and the low reverberation of invective.
“So you were alive, Paper Noise…!!”
Red particles spewed from Meiga’s entire body. A vast number of bullets of light, their number incomparable to what had come before, scattered all around the area in a burst of anger. He was trying to flush out the unseen Paper Noise with an indiscriminate attack.
The submarine base of Stratum Zero was filled with a firestorm, with broken fragments of the metal barrier wall blowing around like blades. However, there was no sense of him having felled his opponent.
“So she ran away.”
Waiting for the smoke screen to subside, Meiga quietly sighed.
The heavily wounded Kojou Akatsuki and Yukina Himeragi had vanished from sight. Tha
t was probably Natsuki Minamiya’s doing. She used a teleport to whisk them away during the time Meiga’s attention had been occupied with Paper Noise.
“Troublesome, but it is fine. There is one additional person who must be destroyed—”
Speaking these words, Meiga shifted his eyes overhead. Through the smoke screen that had yet to dissipate, an enormous, imposing building came into view.
The girl covered with wounds cackled as she hovered behind Meiga.
A dark, twisted smile rose upon her face, the sort known only to those utterly consumed by revenge.
4
Hurled violently against a hard surface, Kojou let out a brief yelp.
It was a tiny park alongside a waterway. On the opposing shore, he could see Keystone Gate spewing black smoke.
Judging from the scenery around him, he was probably on the southern bank of Island North. It was a good couple of kilometers from there to Keystone Gate.
“It seems you are alive somehow, Kojou Akatsuki.”
Natsuki spoke haughtily as she looked down on Kojou, who was lying faceup. It was indeed she who had brought Kojou out just before Meiga had begun his indiscriminate attack.
“Yeah, somehow.”
Kojou weakly murmured as he slowly got his blood-soaked body into a seated position. The wounds from where Meiga’s bullets had shot through him ran far deeper than he had imagined. Thanks to that, recovery was strangely slow, even with a vampire’s regenerative ability. The powers of The Cleansing really had dampened Kojou’s abilities.
And yet, the overwhelming demonic power of the Fourth Primogenitor was defying the effect of The Cleansing through sheer force, but he had no idea how long he could hold out if he took any more of those bullets. Having come in contact with the supposed forbidden god-killing magic, all that appeared to be no exaggeration.
“You all right, Himeragi?”
Kojou shifted his gaze to Yukina as she lent him a shoulder of support. From what he could see, Yukina bore no external wounds, but even at a glance, it was all too clear she was exhausted. There was no mistaking it: This was an effect of using divine essence during her fight with Meiga. However, as if to conceal that, Yukina gave him a cheery smile.
Golden Days Page 15
