Though, the price paid for that had by no means been small—
Wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, Hazaroff murmured, “So it is done…”
He had burn marks from his side to his back thanks to the still-raw wound from his battle with Gajou Akatsuki. Though a mere human, he had caused Hazaroff no minor annoyance and even landed a spell bullet on him in the process.
Undergoing divine bestialization while so gravely wounded had shaved a good amount off Hazaroff’s life span. The battle with Liana Caruana was far from an overwhelming victory on his part. Indeed, had he not resorted to employing the zombies, he would have been the one backed into a corner. But none of this changed the fact that Hazaroff had won. He felt exhilaration as never before, reveling in having defeated a powerful enemy in spite of his difficulties.
But as if to pour cold water on Hazaroff’s satisfaction, a faint voice echoed from within the mist, the voice of an Eastern girl dressed in shamanic clothing.
“Kojou! Kojou… Open your eyes, Kojou! Please, I’m begging you…!”
She was clinging onto the body of the boy, apparently her older brother, desperately attempting to save him.
No matter how she tried, the outcome would be evident to anyone. The teenager’s body had endured a battery of bullets and was completely soaked in blood. Countless shots had ripped through his chest. Even a vampire with high regenerative ability was likely beyond saving with such wounds, let alone a mere human.
However, the little sister’s survival had surprised him. He’d been certain the volley had finished both off—
Hazaroff looked down at the expired Eastern boy, exhaling in admiration.
“I see… You protected your little sister. I praise your strong spirit, boy.”
A split second before he was caught in the salvo, he’d likely thrust away his little sister with all his might into a corner of the stonework room away from the target area. Then he had acted as a decoy, drawing the living dead’s gunfire.
“A reckless plan, but I accept that your conduct was brave. However, your body is but that of a frail human. Unfortunate…,” he said in a pitying tone.
Then he transformed into a giant divine beast once more.
It bothered him that the teenager’s body was more or less intact in spite of that great hail of bullets. If so, it was possible that the Fourth Primogenitor’s body was similarly intact. Even if the chance was small, prudence demanded he burn everything, just in case.
Hazaroff laughed cruelly and announced to the shamanic girl, “—Fear not. This time I shall put you out of your misery!”
The vast demonic energy inside the jet-black beast man condensed into a powerful, divine bestial breath of flame with which he intended to annihilate everything in the ruin. But just before he unleashed his attack, a faint misgiving arose in the back of his mind.
Why had the teenage boy stood right in front of the coffin?
He was sure the boy had known the living dead were aiming at the coffin. There was no need to expose himself to the gunfire like that, even to protect his little sister.
Could he have tried to save the Fourth Primogenitor—? No, that couldn’t have been it. Protecting his little sister took everything he’d had. There was no place for anything else. No, he had tried to save his little sister, to the point of sacrificing himself.
Why, then, had he willingly chosen death?
Even if his little sister had survived the initial gunfire, there was no guarantee that he would let her go. It was natural for him to expect that someone might finish her off, just as Hazaroff was doing that very moment.
If he really wanted to save his sister, he himself had to survive. Liana Caruana was no more. There was no one to protect her except the boy.
But what if he knew that a being existed who could save his little sister?
Hazaroff continued charging his demonic energy when he involuntarily blurted, “The Fourth Primogenitor…! Where are the Fourth Primogenitor’s remains…?!”
Hazaroff commanded his living dead subordinates to search. The body of the Fourth Primogenitor, the girl who should have been trapped in the coffin, was nowhere to be seen.
The Prince of Death’s voice quivered. “Boy… You could not have…?!”
Back when Liana’s Beast Vassals had run amok, the ice coffin had cracked, and the girl’s remains had come into view. If she was the genuine Fourth Primogenitor, her flesh was immutable, said to be a curse from the gods themselves. It would be small wonder if one little nudge was enough to revive her. One little nudge—
For instance, a human sacrifice offering her his own blood?
“You planned this?! To have the gunfire pour your flesh and blood upon the Fourth Primogenitor?!”
Then Hazaroff finally realized that the girl trapped inside the block of ice wasn’t gone. She was merely submerged—in a pool of blood under the tattered and torn body of the boy!
He thought he heard the supposedly deceased boy call out someone’s name.
“Av…ro…ra……”
The next moment, an icy chill suddenly blew in, filling every corner of the ruin’s interior.
Hazaroff’s face contorted in shock.
“What is…thiiiiiiis…?!”
The bloodstained girl rose up, visibly supporting the wounded boy’s body. She was a fairy-like girl dressed in nothing but a thin, plain cloth.
Her hair glimmered like the rainbow and billowed like flames, and when she opened her eyes, they released a pale, blazing light.
Bathed in the cold emanating from the girl, the living dead froze, shattering one by one. Even the transformed Hazaroff was cowed by the massive demonic energy.
“It is no use. Even if you are the genuine Fourth Primogenitor, you have barely awakened. You are no foe of mine!” Hazaroff roared.
He unleashed all the demonic energy he had in a fiery breath of the highest caliber—hellish, highly condensed demonic flames able to annihilate even vampiric Beast Vassals in a single blow.
However, the fiery-eyed girl easily fended off that lethal black inferno.
Behind her back, a giant shadow rose, translucent like a glacier. Its upper half resembled a human woman, while the lower half resembled a fish. Wings grew from her back, with the tips ending in razor-sharp, talon-like claws. She seemed like a mermaid of ice, or perhaps a siren—
It was a summoned beast from a different world, wavering like a mirage…
“A…Beast Vassal…?!” Hazaroff exclaimed.
The servant the girl had called completely annihilated his black flaming breath. The remaining demonic energy then became a wild icy torrent, instantly freezing the divinely transformed Hazaroff. It froze him below absolute zero, a negative on the Kelvin scale, where matter could not maintain itself as matter—
He moaned, “Im…possible… Such incredible power…cannot exi…”
He could maintain his consciousness no longer.
His flesh and blood completely faded away without a trace. As well as any sign he had ever existed.
Inside the collapsing stonework room, Nagisa Akatsuki weakly murmured, “Kojou…”
Then everything went white—
9
Under the dazzling rays of the sun, Gajou Akatsuki awoke.
The horizon was cast in blue. Night had broken.
Gajou’s body was covered in wounds. His beloved leather jacket had been ripped to tatters, dyed red and black from blood. Thanks to excessive blood loss, he was very cold. But he was alive. With so many of his comrades dead, Gajou—and Gajou alone—had survived. Again.
As he lay upon the hard outcropping, he heard a voice from a girl with a small hint of a lisp.
“—It seems you’ve come to.”
Gajou let out a small groan as he tried to turn his head toward the voice. Even the slightest wiggling of his fingers sent fierce pain shooting through his entire body. Apparently, he was pretty beat-up. Even so, he forced himself to sit up so he could see the speaker. She was
a small-statured Eastern girl wearing an elegant, frilly dress. She had a beautiful face, reminiscent of a doll’s, and long hair. For some reason, though it was early morning, she was holding a parasol over herself. Her face seemed less young and more like it only resembled a child’s, and the aura she gave off carried a strange gravitas and charisma. No doubt she was older than she looked.
“It is best you do not move as of yet,” she said. “Your left arm is broken. Though, to face the Prince of Death and survive with just injuries… The luck of the Death Returnee, Gajou Akatsuki, is as strong as the rumors say.”
Gajou clicked his tongue in dismay at the hateful title. It was an infamous name, granted because he had faced danger at numerous ruins, only to be the sole survivor—thus, the Death Returnee. He didn’t like being known by that epithet, but it couldn’t be helped; facts were facts.
“That outfit… I see. You must be Natsuki Minamiya, the demon-slaying Witch of the Void.”
Gajou had purposefully used her moniker in an attempt to return the verbal barb. However, the small girl in the dress merely hmphed and gave a small, scornful smile. Then she lowered her eyes with a hint of sadness.
“I am pursuing remnants of the Black Death Emperor Front at the request of the Warlord’s Empire’s Master of Serpents. I’m sorry. If I’d arrived a little sooner, there would not have been so many casualties.”
“Nah… This ruin was hidden by a magic barrier. Of course you couldn’t find it.”
Gajou listlessly shook his head. Investigating the ruin of the Fairy’s Coffin was a top-secret project known only to precious few in the Warlord’s Empire and the Japanese government. The blame didn’t rest on Natsuki’s shoulders or anyone else’s.
Natsuki casually stated, as if to console the dejected Gajou, “There are twenty-three survivors of the survey team—about half the staff aboveground were able to evacuate thanks to the time you bought holding off the Prince of Death.”
Gajou shrugged his shoulders as he shifted his gaze to the former ruin. The collision of giant demonic energies had collapsed the underground tomb completely.
It was unrecognizable. Restoring the interior was virtually a lost cause.
“And Miss Caruana?”
“The daughter of Duke Caruana? …Unfortunately…”
“I see.”
Gajou sighed briefly. He’d guessed Liana was dead from the dissolution of the barrier around the camp. It probably meant that Kojou and Nagisa, whom she had been protecting, were beyond saving.
In a dry tone, Gajou made a hollow laugh and rose to his feet.
“You’ve been a lot of help. You have my thanks, Natsuki.”
“Do not speak my name so casually, Gajou Akatsuki. Besides, I did nothing that you should be thanking me for.”
“Weren’t you the one who took down Hazaroff?” he asked, perplexed.
Natsuki’s eyes conveyed no emotion as she silently shook her head.
“It was all over by the time I entered the ruin. I did not destroy the Prince of Death.”
“Who, then? You don’t mean he and Miss Caruana took each other out…?”
Gajou was beside himself as he spoke. Liana had died fighting Golan Hazaroff, the Prince of Death. There was no one present besides her, a vampire noble, capable of defeating Hazaroff. None, save a single exception—
Natsuki smiled provocatively as she twirled her parasol round and round.
“All I did was bring the children buried underground outside.”
“Chil…dren…?”
“It seems you gave the twelfth Kaleid Blood the name of Avrora Florestina?”
“The sleeping princess… She woke up…?!”
Who knows? Natsuki seemed to be saying as she smiled. She said in a noncommittal tone of voice, “I have no evidence that Avrora awakened. Who destroyed the Prince of Death remains unclear. For now, at least.”
She knew full well just how dangerous the present situation was. She understood what the awakening of the twelfth Kaleid Blood meant.
She continued: “Nagisa Akatsuki is alive with heavy injuries. I’ve arranged an aircraft to get her to a hospital in Rome.”
Natsuki pointed to the camp, scorched but still standing, to punctuate her assertion. A Demon Sanctuary medical team was treating the wounded in portable tents. Among them was a girl dressed like a priestess, sleeping like the dead inside a translucent medical capsule.
They’d apparently abandoned all hope of on-site treatment and intended to transport her to a hospital outside the country while still in a coma.
Gajou looked around the camp and asked, “What happened to Kojou? He had to have been with Nagisa!”
His son was nowhere to be found among the wounded receiving treatment.
Natsuki’s beautiful eyes narrowed in a smile that seemed dangerous somehow.
“The boy is unharmed. He is simply sleeping.”
He felt his entire body go numb.
“Unharmed?”
“Yes, despite all the signs that his entire body had been riddled and gouged with bullets, including his lungs and heart.”
“…What?!”
“—The twelfth Kaleid Blood and the Akatsuki siblings shall come under the care of the Far East Demon Sanctuary. The Warlord’s Empire has agreed. No complaints, Gajou Akatsuki?”
Gajou finally grasped what Natsuki was getting at. “The Far East Demon Sanctuary…?! I see, Itogami Island…!”
Itogami Island was an artificial island floating in the Pacific Ocean, a special administrative district under the jurisdiction of the Japanese government. It was also the stomping grounds of Natsuki Minamiya, the Witch of the Void. Once one was on Itogami Island, far removed from Europe, the other Dominions couldn’t touch them. They wouldn’t reach Avrora nor the Akatsuki siblings—
“Nicely played, Witch of the Void—” he muttered.
Natsuki Minamiya giggled with a proud smile as she said, “It concerns The Cleansing, so I twisted a few arms. Surely it is not a bad arrangement from your perspective? Are you dissatisfied, Gajou Akatsuki?”
“…Nah. I hate the fact it’s all going as you please, but I don’t see any other options.”
He lifted the edge of his scorched fedora. Then he turned his back to Natsuki.
She raised an eyebrow slightly. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Gajou never turned back, languidly waving with his still-broken left arm.
“…I’ve got no right to face those kids right now, and it seems I can trust you. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to look after ’em for a while longer.”
“Do you intend to search for a way to save those children?”
Natsuki’s question stopped Gajou in his tracks. He grinned with a twitch of his cheek, like he was mocking himself.
“I’m a scholar… Looking for stuff is my specialty.”
Gajou resumed walking, nearly dragging his unsteady body forward. Natsuki made no move to stop him. Finally, he vanished amid the dazzling rays of the sun.
The wind blew across the scarred outcropping, still carrying a whiff of gunpowder.
That was the first meeting of the twelfth Kaleid Blood and the Akatsuki siblings—and the prelude to a new tragedy.
CHAPTER TWO
SHADOW OF ANOTHER KALEID BLOOD
1
The narrow alley was heavy with the scents of salt water and rusted steel.
A jumble of abandoned structures lined the street. The walls of the buildings were cracked, and even the interior steel framework was exposed. Unsightly graffiti decorated the shutters. Finding an intact pane of glass would have been a substantial task.
However, a large number of drunken souls reveled in that filthy district, searching for decadent pleasures—men fishing the waters for women, as well as the prostitutes they sought. Others were drowning under large quantities of alcohol and illegal narcotics. Those roaming that place were finely attuned to the scent of blood, violence, and money.
It was a heretical district, un
worthy of the Demon Sanctuary city that was the pinnacle of scholarly research. Yet, in another sense, this was the inevitable by-product of that success. The district was known as Itogami Island Abandoned Zone No. 27. It was the ruin of Island Old Southwest, which had sunk into the sea due to an unforeseen accident—the “erased district” literally wiped off the map.
A lone man walked along a chaotic street in that district. He was a tall, handsome young fellow.
He was not wearing his beloved white coat, but rather a black leather biker jacket. Due to the district’s atmosphere, the outfit did not stand out much. Even so, the young man himself attracted a great deal of attention thanks to his perfectly combed blond hair and flawlessly symmetrical face—as well as a refined elegance in his every motion. He shone among men as brightly as a gold coin among mere pebbles.
A few minutes after entering the district, the young man found himself at the center of a group of roughneck men.
“Hold on, bro.”
It was the instinct of all district residents to drive outsiders away, but they directed outright hostility at him. Another voice came from behind, apparently cutting off his avenue of escape.
“What are you doin’ ’round here? Had a fight with Mommy and left home?”
Before he realized it, the number around him had swelled to about ten. However, he paid that no heed, glancing sullenly at the locals.
The residents pulled back a step, seemingly cowed by that silent gaze. The young man resumed his walk like nothing had happened as the locals stared without a word.
The roughnecks were not especially smart, but their instincts told them loud and clear that, should the blond young man have willed it, they would have been instantly annihilated. And they had been allowed to live thanks only to his whim.
The young man was headed to a run-down tavern, a less than popular establishment making use of a condemned building. The number of patrons could be counted on one hand. The scent hovering inside came from a narcotic made from cactus extracts. It was a powerful hallucinogen, enough that a normal human taking even a small quantity would die from an overdose. It worked fairly well even on demons resistant to drugs.
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