Golden Days

by Gakuto Mikumo

  “Yes, I am fine. However, the one who aided us in the end—”

  “Paper Noise…I presume. I would like to think she escaped on her own power, but…,” Natsuki replied in Kojou’s place. Her voice sounded less resilient than its normal, cruel tone. It felt as if she was confessing I couldn’t save her.

  It was then that Kojou finally remembered that she was wounded.

  “Natsuki… Those wounds…”

  “Not a problem. This body is nothing but a vessel, after all,” Natsuki said with a slow shake of her head.

  In a certain sense, Natsuki’s wounds were more horrid than Kojou’s. For all the lack of identifiable bleeding, her damage ran from the rips in her dress to the deep cracks he could see gouged into her flesh and the way her left arm dangled limply. The wounds were from when the mysterious girl—whose appearance rivaled that of a bloodied apparition—had shot her.

  “However, it is true that even I cannot employ my full power like this. Damn that Priestess of Abel, she got me good…”

  Natsuki’s lips curled in visible displeasure as she suppressed the awkward movements of her left arm.

  Natsuki’s real flesh-and-blood body continued to sleep within the other world known as the Prison Barrier. Natsuki’s body in the real world was a doll—a clone she controlled via magic.

  Even though it was a magically created clone, destroying it left Natsuki with no way to move around the real world. At the very least, the damage her clone body had sustained robbed Natsuki of some of her combat capabilities. Naturally, even she would be reluctant to engage in combat with Meiga in her current condition.

  All the same, there was no way Kojou could fault Natsuki; the sudden appearance of the ghostly girl had been something completely beyond their capacity to predict.

  “That Priestess of A… That ghostlike girl. What is she?” he asked.

  Natsuki gave a cold laugh. “Ghost is an oddly apt description. That girl is a survivor of The Cleansing of old. Though, since her body has long since perished, it sounds odd to describe her as a survivor.”

  “Meaning she is a…vestigial consciousness?”

  Yukina narrowed her eyes in apparent surprise. Natsuki nodded a little.

  “Properly speaking, a corpse infused with a vestigial consciousness. There was a report that she had been smuggled into Itogami Island, and the Attack Mage Branch was dispatched in that direction, but Meiga Itogami’s backers seem to have put a stop to it.”

  “Then the one controlling The Cleansing at this moment is…”

  “Right. It is that woman, not Asagi Aiba. If Asagi, the true Priestess of Cain, had been handling the calculations, The Cleansing would not have ended at such a meager scale.”

  “I think this meager scale was plenty dangerous enough…”

  Kojou set his cheek on his palm as he let out a sigh. The world-altering power of The Cleansing that Meiga controlled was far too much for a single individual to possess. Changing a building into a pillar of salt, nullifying the Beast Vassals of the World’s Mightiest Vampire—it deserved the off-the-wall name of Forbidden Ritual.

  However, if Natsuki’s words were true, the real Cleansing must have had enormous influence, dwarfing what he had faced. And if that was so, it was an ability frightening enough that it could destroy Itogami Island—or the world, for that matter; enough to think that those Nalakuvera and Wiseman’s Blood were little kids in comparison.

  “That woman, who once lost her life from being enveloped in The Cleansing, bears a strong power to resist alterations to the world,” Natsuki explained. “It is like developing an immunity to a transmissible disease. That is why, even though she is not the proper Priestess of Cain, she is somehow able to control The Cleansing.”

  “So that’s why you call her the Priestess of Abel, huh…?” Kojou did not conceal his irritation. “In the end, what is The Cleansing anyway? I dunno about this Senra Itogami guy, but why’d he wanna bring something like that back?”

  “If you wish to know about The Cleansing, why not ask an expert in the field?” As she glared at Kojou, Natsuki closed one eye and shot him a mischievous-looking smile.

  From out of thin air, she took out what looked like a plain cell phone issued by the Attack Mage Branch. Scrolling through her address book, she found a number and called it.

  “Expert?”

  Who? Kojou tilted his head, looking to Yukina for clarity. She, too, seemed perplexed as she shook her head.

  Meanwhile, the other party had apparently answered Natsuki’s call. She wore an especially emotionless look as she said, “It is I, grave robber.”

  Speaking in an unsociable voice, Natsuki switched the call to speakerphone.

  Coursing over the phone was the especially clear voice of a man all too familiar to Kojou.

  “Ahhh? Oh, it’s you, li’l Teach. Sowwy, but Nagisa’s coming to visit me here in the hospital. If I’m making nice with women other than my bride, she’s gonna chew me out again, so I’m hangin’ up.”

  Kojou’s father—Gajou Akatsuki—was rambling in his usual, shady tone.

  Why the heck does Natsuki know Gajou? thought Kojou, seriously thrown for a loop. The unexpected confirmation that Nagisa was all right was the only good thing Kojou could see coming out of it. Apparently, Gajou had yet to hear anything about the unrest at Keystone Gate.

  “I have no intention whatsoever of making nice with you. I am merely calling to ask a question.”

  Bluntly ignoring the bewildered Kojou, Natsuki continued her conversation with Gajou.

  “Question?” Gajou replied, making no effort to conceal his displeasure.

  Are you really okay with giving attitude to Natsuki Minamiya, the Witch of the Void? thought Kojou, seriously concerned for his father’s well-being for once.

  “What is The Cleansing? For what purpose was it instigated?”

  In front of Kojou, by then quite on edge, Natsuki repeated the question with far higher pressure than he had.

  On the other end of the line, Gajou unleashed a conspicuous sigh. “What, that? And here I was sure you were gonna ask me what kind of girls I prefer.”

  “Enough nonsense. Answer me.”

  When Natsuki threatened him over the phone, Kojou practically felt Gajou’s shoulders sink.

  Then his voice abruptly changed. It was sober, serious—one Kojou had never heard before.

  “—Legends, you see, might look like mere fabrications, but they often reflect history at the time to a surprising degree. The legend of a hero dispatching a dragon might conceal behind it a king who prevented a river flood with riparian works. A legend about obtaining a holy sword might be an allusion for the spread of metallurgy.”

  “………”

  To some degree, Natsuki had apparently expected Gajou’s explanation. She nodded but once before instantly asking a question in return.

  “Then what does The Cleansing…? What does Cain, the Sinful God, allude to?”

  “Well, that’s a pretty simple story: a great genocide of demons at the hands of humanity.”

  “You are saying that humankind slaughtered demons?” Natsuki repeated for confirmation.

  Gajou tossed a laugh as he said, “Well, that’s how it turned out from our perspective. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t call ’em demons at the time.”

  “Then what were they called?”

  “Devas—alternatively, ancient superhumans—or perhaps gods.”

  “Gods…?”

  Kojou and Yukina listened with bated breath as Natsuki and Gajou continued to converse.

  They both knew about a race referred to as ancient superhumans. It was they who had created various ancient weapons like the Nalakuvera and who had sealed the twelfth Kaleid Blood—Avrora—in a ruin. Indeed, they had fought a sorcerous criminal who claimed to be descended from the Devas.

  But that they and demons were one and the same—this was complete news to them. It was not something easily believed.

  “You are saying demons are,
in truth, gods?”

  “The folks that win a war declare the gods of the defeated nation to be demons and monsters. That’s the cliché play, made by the ruling side all around the world, ain’t it?”

  “This would not be a story warmly welcomed by mankind.”

  “Well, of course not. There’s no way in hell the scholastic world would recognize a thesis like this. So I don’t mind if you pass off all the stuff I said just now as my own personal delusion.”

  “I do not care about that. Continue.”

  Natsuki prodded him to keep going.

  “Li’l Teach is so inquisitive.” Gajou laughed. “…The individual we call Cain was also once part of the people known as gods, but for whatever reason, he must have been exiled from this world. Speaking from my experience, it’d be trouble relating to money or women,” said Gajou in a dead-serious voice.

  “Then, in the world Cain was exiled to, he met humankind. Twisted as he might be, he was still a god. Taming a powerless humankind must’ve been child’s play. Through the worship of the people, Cain turned into a real god. So having become the ruler of this other world, whaddaya think Cain’s next desire was?”

  “To return to this world—and exact his revenge on the gods that exiled him,” Natsuki replied without hesitation.

  “Right answer. But Cain alone couldn’t win against the gods. That said, humankind was way too powerless to fight the gods themselves. It was then that Cain gave humanity the knowledge and the tools to fight against the gods. One was magic. And the other—”

  “The sorcerous devices of The Cleansing.”

  “That’s li’l Teach for you. Quick study.” Gajou raised his voice in what seemed to be genuine admiration. “So for those reasons, he got plenty of troops under him, but the gods’ power was overwhelmingly vast. Humankind had no chance against them in a straight-up fight. So Cain had this thought—humankind cannot kill a god. If that is an iron rule of the world, then just rewrite the rule.”

  “And that is The Cleansing’s purpose, then?” Natsuki snorted and grinned. It sort of came off as annoyed and frigid, though.

  “That’s right. Through the ultimate Forbidden Ritual that altered the world, Cain changed the very nature of the gods. The gods were changed into demons. Humankind cannot kill a god. But if they’re facing demons, that’s a different story.”

  “And as a result, a great genocide was instigated?”

  “I told you, this is all my personal delusion. It’s not like anyone’s gonna accept that humans were the usurpers. Besides, there’s no proof whatsoever that the folks they called gods were benign beings of some sort. Plus, if you told demon folks that they’re descended from ancient superhumans, ain’t like they’re gonna accept that, either,” Gajou said in jest. Surprisingly, Natsuki did not refute him in any way.

  “If this story is the truth, then Cain is indeed the First Sinner, and so, too, the Father of all demons.” Natsuki’s face twisted into a complex expression of sympathy and resignation.

  “I suppose so,” Gajou bluntly replied.

  It was Kojou who forced his way into the adults’ conversation. Natsuki bristled as Kojou half stole the cell phone right out of her hand.

  “Hold on. I get why the first Cleansing happened. But what gives with the folks trying to re-create that thing now? No one needs a genocide anymore, dammit!”

  “Ah? The hell?”

  Gajou raised an annoyed voice at the sudden intrusion of Kojou’s question.

  “Not that I care, but someone there just asked a really stupid question. The whole world’s full of people who’d love to get their hands on the power of The Cleansing. If there were no more demons, they could help themselves to the dominions’ natural resources. Even without fighting a natural war, having a weapon that powerful in their grip would make one hell of a bargaining chip.”

  Kojou groaned, his words caught in his throat. It hurt to admit it, but Gajou was right.

  “So how do you stop The Cleansing?”

  “Whaaat?”

  “There’s obviously a way to stop it after it’s begun. Demons weren’t exterminated, and humanity doesn’t rule over them, so if there wasn’t a way, none of this makes any sense. The one who got destroyed was Cain, dammit!”

  “I don’t know what idiot’s talking, but that’s one stupid, circular question you asked there. I’d like to give your father a piece of my mind,” Gajou grumbled, really throwing Kojou for an emotional loop. “Isn’t it obvious? Cain was destroyed because someone killed his ass.”

  “Killed…?”

  As Kojou murmured in astonishment, Gajou stated toward him in a jovial tone that seemed to see through everything:

  “To kill Cain, the one surviving god unaffected by The Cleansing, the folks once known as the Devas built a weapon for killing a god. That’s what destroyed Cain and ended The Cleansing. That was the world’s mightiest artificial vampire—some idiot they called the Fourth Primogenitor or something.”

  5

  Still gripping Natsuki’s cell phone, Kojou was frozen and silent for a while. His head had gone blank, unable to think of anything. Gajou’s words were so earth-shattering, he couldn’t swallow them properly.

  And so Kojou remained until his ears heard a boisterous voice in an affectation from a period drama.

  “Sir Boyfriend! Art thou in good health?!”

  A red robot tank approached, parting the park’s foliage by force. The shell-like cockpit hatch opened, and Lydianne poked her head out.

  “Oh my? What dost this atmosphere portend?”

  Noticing that Kojou was out of his right mind, the visibly curious Lydianne posed that question.

  Kojou, roughly pulling on his cheek to drag him back to his senses, said, “Uh… Mmm, don’t worry about it. More importantly, is Kirasaka all right?”

  “Lady Shamanic War Dancer…? That is, ah… I am uncertain as to whether I can classify her as ‘all right’…”

  “Huh?”

  As Kojou knit his brows in visible concern, the stopped robot tank lowered itself flat on the ground. Sayaka Kirasaka half tumbled her way down from its back.

  When she turned her hollow, unfocused eyes toward Kojou, a wobbly, defenseless smile came over her as she said:

  “Ah… Kojou Akatsuki…!”

  Speaking those words with a rather sexy expression, Sayaka went to embrace Kojou. Her completely unanticipated action made Kojou’s entire body go rigid.

  “K-Kirasaka…?”

  “Geez, where did you go off to, leaving me alone like that?! I was worried about you! Yukina might disappear on me, so if something happened to you, too, I… I’d… Uh… Waaah…”

  Pounding Kojou’s chest again and again, Sayaka suddenly began to break into tears. With half-lidded eyes, Natsuki stared at the sight of a Shamanic War Dancer of the Lion King Agency in such a state with a look of scorn. Yukina could only do the same.

  When Kojou looked harder, Sayaka’s cheeks were faintly red and flushed, and as she clung to him, her entire body felt oddly soft against him. There was a sweet scent like that of ripened fruit wafting up from her whole body.

  “Ugh,” Kojou groaned, his breath stopping when he realized the nature of that aroma. “…The hell? …You smell like booze…”

  “’Tis the work of Meiga Itogami. Somehow, that man hath altered the content of the air to create ether alcohol—”

  Lydianne mixed a sigh into her words as she slowly shook her head.

  “Alcohol? So that wasn’t poison, then…”

  Kojou covered his eyes in annoyance when he recalled the action Meiga had taken to drive Sayaka off. Thinking about it calmly, at the time, Sayaka had been heading in to slice Meiga at point-blank range. There was no way he could have transformed the air around him into lethal poison gas under that circumstance, for even if he was an immortal jiangshi, the risk was just too great.

  “Even alcohol can slay a person if consumed in sufficiently large quantities. In either case, Lady Shamanic War Dan
cer hath been in this state ever since.”

  Lydianne made the statement in a tired tone, sounding oddly well versed about the subject. Meanwhile, Sayaka glommed onto Yukina, then standing beside Kojou, snugly pressing her breasts against Yukina’s cheek.

  “Yukinaaa…”

  “S-Sayaka?”

  “Noooo… Don’t disappear, Yukina, don’t leave meeee…”

  “S-Sayaka, please calm down… Wait a— S-Sayaka?! Where are you touching me…?”

  Unable to shove the girl away, Yukina seemed quite conflicted as Sayaka stroked her back. During that time, Sayaka embraced Yukina’s hips and blatantly fondled her breasts, absorbed in her sexual harassment.

  Kojou gazed in astonishment at the sight and said, “Natsuki, can you, um, do something about this?”

  “Leave her be. Even if I force her back to her senses with magic, she’ll be too hungover to fight for a few days. More importantly, Tanker—is that tank still usable?”

  “Lady Instructor? What dost thou have in mind?” Lydianne blinked her eyes a few times.

  “In total, there are five supercomputers that control Itogami Island. If we could sever one part of the network, Meiga Itogami’s power should diminish proportionately. After all, he must borrow the power of Itogami Island itself to control The Cleansing.”

  “Hmm… There dost be merit in the attempt. Though it is most difficult for me to invade the Five Elements alone; should I borrow the power of Lady Empress, then perhaps…? However, for that, a route of contact with Lady Empress inside the Coffin becomes necessary.” Despite her words, Lydianne’s voice sounded innocent and well suited to her age.

  Each of the vermillion bullets under Meiga’s control was a single, independent, and powerful magical formula. Vast computational ability surpassing human limits was necessary to employ magic of that extent.

  Meiga was acting as the agent of Itogami Island’s main supercomputers, dubbed the Five Elements. In other words, a reduction in the Five Elements’ capability meant that The Cleansing would be weakened.

  “Not a problem. Meiga Itogami activating The Cleansing and the Priestess of Abel assisting him are probably circumstances not accounted for in the mastermind’s actual plans. That is where we shall find our opening. Though, Meiga Itogami surely understands as much.”