Golden Days

by Gakuto Mikumo

  The heck does that mean? thought Kojou, tilting his head as his and Yukina’s faces met.

  A black cat appeared at the pair’s feet to answer that very question.

  “It would seem things are going quite well.”

  “Professor Kitty…!”

  Kojou reached a hand out to the black cat in surprise. Yukari Endou’s familiar used Kojou’s arm to climb up onto Yukina’s shoulder. Glancing at the state of Yukina’s ring, it made a sound of apparent satisfaction.

  “Master…what is this ring…?” Yukina asked.

  Instead of answering her question, the black cat stared at Kojou and gave a leering smile.

  “Fourth Primogenitor… This means that Yukina has become your Blood Vassal.”

  “Blood…Vassal…?” Kojou curled his lips, perplexed.

  The black cat nodded deeply. “Some call them Blood Concubines, or even Brides. A pseudo-vampire granted the power of immortality by the vampire that is her lord.”

  “B-Bride?!”

  Hearing the black cat’s words, Yukina’s little voice went shrill.

  Though it was a common folktale, becoming a vampire from a vampire drinking your blood was not complete nonsense. A human being that had taken in a piece of a vampire’s body obtained a body just as immortal as the vampire lord’s own. These were the pseudo-vampires known as Blood Servants.

  “…Wait, you made Himeragi into a pseudo-vampire?!” Kojou glared at the black cat in a rage.

  Inevitably, pseudo-vampires lived every day, month, and year of their eternal lives with their vampire masters. This was by no means a blessing. And yet, Yukari Endou had made Yukina Kojou’s vassal in spite of this, to the point of ignoring what Kojou and Yukina, the actual parties concerned, thought of the matter.

  “Well, properly speaking, Yukina is not a genuine Bride. That ring is merely acting as a ritual spell catalyst to create a spiritual pathway. If I had to put a label on it, she is akin to a fiancée. After all, were she to become a complete Blood Vassal, she would lose the ability to use spiritual energy.”

  “That doesn’t mean…,” Kojou snarled. What, you think you can just do this without asking? He grimaced.

  Yukina’s face was completely red to the tips of her ears, squirming as she stammered, “F-fiancée…”

  Exasperated, the black cat sighed. “Fourth Primogenitor, within you rests the divine essence of the Faux-Angel that your Beast Vassal consumed and sent flying off to gods know where.”

  “Y-yeah.” Kojou awkwardly nodded.

  During the battle with Kanon Kanase, Kojou, bathed in divine essence and on the verge of death, had somehow survived thanks to that Beast Vassal, the Dimension Eater. At the time, it was none other than Yukina who had provided him with the blood that had made that Beast Vassal fully awaken.

  “That ring borrows the power of your Beast Vassal, giving it the effect of disintegrating the excess divine essence created by Snowdrift Wolf, you see. Though, witnessing this for ourselves was the only way to know for sure if it would actually work. At any rate—”

  “You mean, by wearing that, Himeragi can keep living life like she’s been doing until now?”

  “So long as you remain close to Yukina, that is. Well, even if you are apart, it should not be a problem so long as you both remain on this island,” the black cat explained in a nonchalant tone.

  Yukina gasped at those words, lifting her face in surprise as she said, “Then my mission…”

  “Well, you can continue watching the Fourth Primogenitor for the time being. The Lion King Agency cannot afford to feed an idle mouth, after all,” the black cat murmured bluntly with a snort.

  “Master…”

  Yukina’s expression brightened. It was youthful and soft; she seemed like a totally different person from the one with an air of tragedy hovering around her until moments before.

  However, Kojou was still suspicious. He directed his attention back to the cat. “A spiritual pathway linked by a ring… What’s the logic behind that anyway?”

  “What, did you not know? The creation of a Blood Vassal requires the master vampire granting a part of his body. Inside that ring is a rib fragment of yours.”

  “A piece of my rib? When the hell did you get something like…? Aaah…!”

  Kojou remembered the very first time he had met the real Yukari Endou face-to-face. At the time, she’d attacked Kojou for no apparent reason, slicing into Kojou’s chest.

  What if the purpose of that attack had been to obtain one of Kojou’s ribs? That would mean Yukari had come to Itogami Island with the intent of saving Yukina all along.

  Say that in the first place, dammit, thought Kojou, unwittingly sulking.

  “Actually, aren’t you a little grossed out stuffing some other person’s rib into a ring?”

  “Better that than a tuft of your hair and a touch of spittle. I properly disinfected and sintered it, so it was not a messy job— As for the gross factor, hmm, I suppose your mileage may vary.”

  The black cat gave Yukina a sidelong glance. She was closing and opening her left hand over and over, gazing at the ring in satisfaction. Kojou had no idea what thoughts were going through her mind while she was staring at the thing.

  However, as he watched Yukina doing that, a thought suddenly arose in the back of Kojou’s mind.

  “Hey, that Meiga Itogami guy… Why did he call that black spear a failure, I wonder?”

  It was a divine armament that could negate not only demonic energy but spiritual energy as well. He didn’t think that, properly speaking, the Lion King Agency, for which Meiga had worked as an engineer, required something like that. After all, a weapon that nullified spiritual energy was able to rob a Sword Shaman of her combat strength, just as Fangzahn had done to Yukina.

  If it was a tool meant to save a lover who had turned into a Faux-Angel due to her out of control spiritual energy…

  “Maybe he made that spear for the sake of that Touka person? Maybe to him, that spear was meant to be the same as that ring is for Himeragi…”

  “That might well be so. Though, I am certain the man himself would never admit such a thing,” the black cat murmured in what came off as a forlorn manner.

  Without a word, Yukina bit her lip, shifting her gaze toward the fallen Meiga. She suddenly stiffened.

  “Eh…?!”

  In turn, Kojou looked over, whereupon his own eyes widened in shock.

  Meiga, supposedly fallen with his strength exhausted, was nowhere to be seen. All that remained were the fragments of his shattered black spear.

  “He vanished…?!” Kojou murmured, standing still and helpless.

  Bathed in vast divine essence, Meiga had been rendered immobile. For that matter, it should have been difficult just to maintain his body. However, in reality, he had vanished from sight.

  “Where the…hell did he…?” Kojou asked to no one in particular.

  No one replied to the question. Kojou was simply bathed in the rays of the setting sun of late-day Itogami Island.

  11

  The girl awaited him in a passageway in the deepest section of Keystone Gate.

  It was a girl with a plain face and boorish glasses. She was holding a thick book against her side.

  She was in a top-secret passageway only the upper management of the Gigafloat Management Corporation was privy to, but Akishige Yaze was not particularly surprised to see that the girl had appeared there.

  “Koyomi Shizuka—of the Three Saints of the Lion King Agency. I had heard Meiga Itogami had given you rather rough treatment, but it seems you are up to walking around.”

  Akishige spoke coldly. However, even as a diplomatic gesture, the girl would be hard-pressed to call Akishige’s condition in good health. Flesh had been gouged out across his entire body, and his well-tailored Japanese-style clothing was dyed pitch-black from absorbing blood. These were wounds inflicted from Meiga Itogami’s vermillion bullets.

  Staring at Akishige’s outward appearance, the gir
l reverentially bowed her head. “All thanks to you.”

  Akishige used the momentary opening from Shizuka’s downward gaze to activate his Hyper Adaptive power—invisible blades created via psychic energy. The ability made it possible for him to slice apart everything within his field of vision.

  Since it was not an attack wrought by magic, no magic barrier could block it. Even with a Sword Shaman’s Spirit Sight, it was impossible to anticipate and track the invisible blades. It could defeat even one of the Three Saints of the Lion King Agency without fail—

  As long as he actually launched the attack.

  “Guo…!!”

  A momentary silence arrived—and then it was broken. By the time Akishige realized what had happened, his body had been slammed into the passageway’s wall. Both of his arms had been deeply impaled by pages torn from a book, sewing his body to the wall. Akishige’s ability had never activated.

  The girl’s attack ceased just before Akishige could use his own.

  “It is futile, Akishige Yaze. Your ability cannot defeat mine.”

  The girl spoke quietly as she closed the cover of her book.

  “Hmph.” Akishige smiled at his own expense as he said, “Paper Noise… The absolute right of initiative, is it? What an abominable thing. Your family is no doubt the same as mine, both descendants of the Sinful God.”

  “Yes. Ours is a cursed family, the same as yours.”

  Without any special pride in her victory, the girl pulled out a single document. It was an official, court-issued document—an arrest warrant.

  “Akishige Yaze—in the name of the Lion King Agency, I hereby place you under arrest. The charges are aiding in the commission of large-scale sorcerous terrorism and numerous grave violations of the Special District Public Security Code.”

  “You arrest me on the authority of the Lion King Agency…? Do you really think you can do such a thing?”

  Even with his face contorting in pain, Akishige did not lose his cool. If he employed the authority at his disposal, what could the mere Lion King Agency do to him? That was the confidence that bolstered his arrogant words.

  But it was not Koyomi who replied to Akishige’s question. A young man emerged from the back of the passageway and said, “This would probably have been too much during the time you chaired the Yaze consortium.”

  Taking note of the man, Akishige blinked slightly.

  “I see, Kazuma… So this is your doing…”

  Akishige spoke with a flat voice. Somehow, he maintained his dignity to barely hold back and conceal his inner turmoil—but his reaction only served to broadcast the vast extent of his surprise. That moment, for the first time, the man who had employed his own biological sons as disposable pawns was being made disposable himself.

  Paying no heed to his father’s turmoil, Kazuma Yaze spoke in his usual, businesslike tone.

  “Just earlier, the Council of Elders selected a new leader in place of the previous chairman, the late Akishige Yaze. Motoki is our new president.”

  “What…?”

  “Surely you’re not surprised. He, too, is a legitimate heir to the Four Forbidden Symbols. Furthermore, he is very close friends with one of the Three Saints of the Lion King Agency—and the Fourth Primogenitor as well. We have obtained the support of MAR’s President Shahryar Ren. Though, I suppose the situation would have changed had today’s Cleansing succeeded…”

  In a near-silent murmur, Akishige muttered “Absurd.” He did not understand where he had gone wrong. At some point, the people he had discarded as insufficient had obtained power—enough to threaten his position. It was caused not by Meiga Itogami’s betrayal or the failure of The Cleansing by themselves—it was as if the Demon Sanctuary itself possessed sentience, one that was trying to eliminate Akishige from its borders.

  “Do you seriously believe small fry like you can manage this Demon Sanctuary? The darkness enveloping Itogami Island is the same as the darkness that envelops humankind!” Akishige howled, baring his raw emotions.

  Unmoved, Kazuma sighed as a forlorn smile came over him. The girl known as Paper Noise wore a similar expression.

  We knew that a long time ago, said the looks on their faces.

  “I will keep that in mind, Father.”

  Leaving those words behind with his wounded father, Kazuma disappeared in the darkness at the back of the passage.

  Into the darkness of Itogami Island…

  OUTRO

  Meiga Itogami was wandering around a back alley of Island West.

  He’d used a spell tablet sewn into the interior of his body to employ a teleport ritual. It was a dirty trick made possible with a jiangshi body that felt no pain. He could have never slipped away from Yukari Endou without resorting to such extreme measures.

  However, at present, that immortal body had begun to break down. There were deep cracks over him, and pieces had begun falling away like dried-out plaster. It was the fault of the vast divine essence that had coursed from Yukina Himeragi. His body, wrought from a corpse, had been purified and was returning to its original form.

  “High Priestess…!”

  Using a mental communication ritual, Meiga called out to her.

  Her avatar had been hijacked by Asagi Aiba, but the real body of the High Priestess, resurrected from a corpse, ought to have remained at the MAR lab. Even at that late stage, with her aid, Meiga could still employ the power of The Cleansing. Of course, having lost control of the Coffin, large-scale combat was impossible, but she could surely endure the burden of restoring his broken flesh. No, he would force her to endure it.

  “Answer me, High Priestess… Priestess of Abel…!”

  Meiga resisted his fear of his own collapse as he continued calling out to her. However, she did not respond.

  MAR had enabled him to use the ritual that made this sort of communication possible. If he could no longer employ the mental communication ritual, he could only think of a single possibility.

  MAR had cut Meiga Itogami loose. Now that he had betrayed Akishige Yaze and, furthermore, lost to the Fourth Primogenitor, they had probably decided that they no longer had any use for him.

  “Shit…”

  Meiga’s breath was ragged as he thrust a hand against the street railing. A few of his fingers snapped off, turning into sand and scattering across the ground. His body was closer to its limit than he had imagined.

  With Meiga in such a state, he heard an amused voice from very close by.

  “So the man who betrayed the Lion King Agency, betrayed his own father, betrayed Akishige Yaze…is betrayed and abandoned by MAR in the end. You make quite a pitiful sight, Meiga Itogami…”

  “…?!”

  Meiga lifted his face in surprise. A slender man was standing in the back of the dark alley ahead. The voice belonged to a blond, blue-eyed vampire aristocrat clad in a white three-piece suit.

  “Dimitrie Vattler…”

  How did he know about this place? was the question Meiga silently harbored. Then his gaze fell to his own right arm. It was the arm Vattler had given him when he had lost the original in his first battle with the Fourth Primogenitor. He’d probably implanted a transmitter of some kind during the repair process. An unexpectedly meticulous man, thought Meiga in admiration.

  “Though it is an unfortunate end from your perspective, I thank you, Meiga Itogami. Thanks to you, I have not been bored. No, rather, I have been considerably entertained.”

  Vattler praised Meiga with an overly theatrical voice.

  Meiga’s shoulders fell in exasperation. “Entertained? By the Forbidden Ritual meant to destroy Demonkind?”

  “But of course. A power that can destroy even a primogenitor—splendid, is it not?”

  Vattler gave a handsome smile. Suddenly, Meiga’s expression stiffened.

  Meiga’s crumbling body began to quiver in fear. The repeatedly whimsical actions of the man called Dimitrie Vattler—he laid one over another until they took shape in his mind.

  Mei
ga realized that this formed a truly frightening picture.

  “I understand now…Dimitrie Vattler… The real purpose of your coming to Itogami Island…”

  Under Vattler’s beautiful, blue-eyed stare, Meiga could no longer move, frozen under the gaze of a serpent—that was his present circumstance. One false move and he would be consumed. Whether he fled or fell prostrate and begged, the handsome vampire aristocrat was unlikely to stay his hand.

  There was only one outcome he would countenance. And that was—

  “The power of The Cleansing—incomplete though it might be, you can still use it, yes? Care to give it a try?” Vattler taunted.

  Yes—as always, this man desired but one thing: to wager his life in deadly combat.

  “Ugh… Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh…!!”

  Meiga screamed. The right arm Meiga stretched toward Vattler was enveloped by particles of light.

  No longer receiving the High Priestess’s support, Meiga could not control the vermillion bullets. All Meiga could manage at that moment was to offer his own arm as a sacrifice with which to summon the power of The Cleansing.

  It was the world-altering radiance that nullified a vampire’s supernatural power. If he pounded that home, the possibility of defeating even Vattler was not zero. Vattler gazed at Meiga’s desperate resistance with an enthralled expression.

  “Yes, this… This is a power suitable for me to consume…!”

  Vattler bared his fangs. The destructive surge of demonic energy he unleashed struck down Meiga’s damaged body in an instant. The light of The Cleansing had now been rendered meaningless.

  As Meiga went rigid, Vattler sank his fangs into Meiga’s windpipe. It was not Meiga’s stagnant blood that the Warlord’s Empire’s Master of Serpents was draining from that place, but Meiga’s memory of the past.

  “Dimitrie Vattler… Your objective…is the knowledge of Cleansing… The intellect of Cain…”

  Meiga’s final murmurs were inaudible, for before his voice could make them, his windpipe had been torn out.