The truth was, in raw speed, the very human Yukina was very far from a beast man or vampire. However, with her spirit sight enabling her to see a moment into the future, Yukina ended up moving faster than anyone. Combined with various feints and a high level of weapons skill on top of that, Yukina possessed attack speed that was beyond what an armored augmentation suit’s man-made abilities could evade. Only ceaseless training from a very young age made it possible. It was a superhuman skill only Sword Shamans could use.
“Mm, what power…and what speed! So this is a Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency!”
Magnificent, extolled Eustach. Unable to withstand Snowdrift Wolf’s attacks, the bardiche made a cracking sound and broke apart.
That moment, Yukina’s attacks came to a brief halt. She’d hesitated to attack the human Eustach directly for but a single moment. Eustach did not let the momentary opening slip away.
“Very well, I have beheld the Lion King Agency’s secret ritual—slay her, Astarte!”
The Armed Apostole leaped back with the full might of his augmented armor. In his place, the young indigo-haired girl wearing a cape coat leaped before Yukina.
“Accept. Execute ‘Rhododactylos.’”
The giant arm appeared, bursting out of the young girl’s coat. It assaulted Yukina while emitting a rainbow-colored glow. Yukina counterattacked with Snowdrift Wolf. The giant magical energy and the ritual energy collided, causing an earsplitting ring to fill the air.
“Ugh…!”
“Aa…!”
Yukina won the exchange, but just barely. The silver spear slowly rent the Beast Vassal called “Rhododactylos.” The girl called Astarte made frail, anguished pants, perhaps due to backlash from the damage sustained by the Beast Vassal. Then…
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!”
The young girl screamed. A second arm emerged, seeming to rip its way out of the girl’s slender back.
Yukina was sure it wasn’t two Beast Vassals, but rather a single Beast Vassal with a pair of arms. However, the new arm attacked Yukina from above as if it were a completely separate creature.
“Oh n—”
Yukina’s expression froze.
Snowdrift Wolf’s spear tip was still impaling the Beast Vassal’s right arm. If Yukina let up for even a single moment, the wounded right arm would crush the spear and Yukina both.
And, in this situation, Yukina could not evade the left arm’s attack—!
There was no way a fragile human body could withstand an attack that had bested even an Elder’s Beast Vassal. If Yukina waited, she would most certainly perish.
Excellent Sword Shaman that she was, Yukina understood in a single moment how this would end.
She didn’t even have time to resign herself to her death.
In that final moment, all that crossed the back of her mind was the sight of a familiar boy. A boy she had met only a few days before, always with a vague, listless look on his face.
He’d probably be sad if she died.
That’s why I don’t want to die, Yukina thought. Yukina was very surprised at herself for thinking it. And then…
“Himeragiiiiiii—!”
She heard the boy’s voice from unexpectedly close range.
The voice of Kojou Akatsuki, the Fourth Primogenitor.
7
“Raaaaaaaagh!”
Kojou punched the Beast Vassal in the form of a giant arm with a simple, clenched fist.
It wasn’t that he had any special or deep thought. He just figured that even against a materialized mass of magical energy like a Beast Vassal, punching it with a fist full of magical energy would probably do something.
The effect was greater than he had expected.
The left arm of the Beast Vassal with the rainbow-colored glow flew back as if a dump truck had crashed into it. And, as the young girl who was the Beast Vassal’s master tumbled, dragged along by the impact, the right arm fighting Yukina vanished.
“Wha…”
As she stared at the nonsensical scene, Yukina’s eyes widened in shock.
She seemed taken aback by Kojou’s brute-force attack, which was far too crude and ridiculous to call combat. Kojou could understand how she felt. However, Kojou didn’t know any magic; even if he was called the Fourth Primogenitor and stuff, he didn’t know how to use a single special vampiric ability. He had no other means of attack.
“What do you think you’re doing, Senpai?! In a place like this—?!”
“That’s my line, Himeragi! You idiot!!”
“I, idiot?!”
“Didn’t you say you were just checking things out? Why are you fighting!”
“Th, that’s—”
“Uhh” was the only protest that came out of Yukina’s mouth. It wasn’t that Kojou understood the fine details, but he could imagine that a bunch of things were going on, at least.
Kojou couldn’t fly through the sky; nor could he use teleportation magic and such. Sprinting full speed the whole sixteen kilometers across the bridge that connected the two Gigafloats had been as rough as he’d expected.
And, when Kojou had finally caught up, the Beast Vassal running wild at the start had already been defeated, and Yukina was in the middle of combat with the mysterious man in the vestment.
“So… Who the heck are these guys, anyway?”
“I do not know. That man seems to be a Lotharingian Armed Apostle, but…”
Yukina answered as she glared at the now-weaponless man in the vestment. Kojou was blunt with his confusion.
“Lotharingia? What the hell is he doing coming all the way from Europe to make a mess here?”
“Senpai, please be careful. They’re still…”
The young girl in the cape coat rose faster than Yukina could finish her warning. The rainbow-colored Beast Vassal remained materialized behind her back. The damage from Kojou’s punch apparently hadn’t affected the Beast Vassal’s core.
“That magical energy just now… You are no ordinary vampire, are you? Equal to the nobles, or beyond that… Perhaps the rumors of the Fourth Primogenitor are true, then?”
The Armed Apostle spoke while discarding his destroyed battle-axe.
The young indigo-haired girl stood before the Armed Apostle as if to shield him.
Kojou could not read any bloodlust from the girl’s expressionless eyes. However, the words spun by her lips were calm.
“Restart, ready. Reexecute ‘Rhododactylos’—”
Obeying the girl’s words, the giant arm stretched upward, arching like a snake.
“Stop! I didn’t come here to fight y—”
“Hold, Astarte. Now is not yet the time to fight a Primogenitor!”
Kojou and the Armed Apostle yelled simultaneously.
The young girl’s eyes wavered, as if bewildered. However, the Beast Vassal, already commanded by its master, did not stop.
The rainbow-colored hooked claw dully glimmered as it descended, aiming at Kojou like a bird of prey.
“Stand back, Senpai!”
Spear in hand, Yukina leaped as if to thrust Kojou away.
However, as if anticipating Yukina’s movements, the other arm came out from the girl’s feet. As if snaking along the ground, the right arm came flying in a surprise attack, with even Yukina too slow to respond.
“Himeragi!”
Kojou instantly thrust Yukina away. Yukina had no way to prevent being brushed off by the impact to her defenseless back. Having lost its target, the right arm attacked Kojou from below as the left arm attacked him from above.
“S-Senpai?! What have you done—!”
Yukina broke her fall with a roll and regained her balance. However, she was too late to support Kojou.
“Ugh…!”
Kojou could only counterattack with his fist against the right arm. He was unable to evade the overhead attack, and blood spurted from his arm.
That’s what Yukina thought, but that instant, Kojou yelled out with a voice so serious, it seemed to come fr
om a completely different person.
“Wait… Dooooon’t!”
His voice seemed directed not at his enemies but at himself.
Kojou’s eyes were dyed red; fangs protruded from his clenched mouth.
And what gushed out of Kojou’s wounded arm was not blood.
What had appeared, seemingly ripping the skin, was a pale shine that dazzled the eyes. Its focus narrowed into an incandescent beam of light. It blew back the rainbow-colored Beast Vassal with an incredibly powerful shock wave.
“Nn, no good… Astarte!”
The Armed Apostle directed his shout at the young homunculus girl.
However, his bellow was erased by the explosive sound spawned by the shock wave.
What was emitted from Kojou’s arm was a dense mass of magical energy in solid form. In other words, one of the beings called a Beast Vassal. However, it was not even in the same dimension as the Beast Vassals people knew about.
This was a lightning storm destroying everything in its path.
The giant, out-of-control lightning strike mowed down the buildings aboveground; the shock waves thus created became wildly blowing windstorms. Kojou was fully enveloped by the light as lightning arrows indiscriminately scattered all around him.
It was like a vast storm cloud had suddenly appeared at ground level.
All of Itogami Island shook as if it were being bombed. The surrounding sea raged like a tsunami.
Finally, the huge lightning and windstorm neatly vanished as if nothing had happened.
All that remained was the warehouse district and the fan-shaped swath of destruction through it.
Yukina was safe, if barely, protected by Snowdrift Wolf’s ward. And, so was the “Old Guard” man on the verge of death, instantly covered by Yukina.
“So that’s… Senpai’s…the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassal…”
Beholding the vestiges of the all-too-massive destruction, Yukina murmured in a quivering voice.
There was no sign of the Armed Apostle or the young homunculus girl.
The Gigafloat’s surface had been thoroughly ripped away, leaving the underground-constructed section below exposed. It seemed they had fled there.
At what looked like “ground zero,” Kojou, his strength exhausted, went limp and collapsed. The left sleeve of his parka had been destroyed, but his own body was unharmed. He’d just gone out like a light from exhaustion.
As Yukina sighed, she surveyed her surroundings once more.
The damage to the warehouse district was quite heavy, but it was considerable for other districts as well.
It would be hard to find a single ship moored in the harbor that had escaped damage; the monorail track had collapsed as well. As a result of the lightning strikes, there were power outages all over the island; she couldn’t imagine how much industrial data loss had occurred as a result.
As Yukina returned her silver spear to its storage form, she walked over to the collapsed Kojou. Kojou was sleeping with a refreshed look on his face, as if he’d just finished venting all the stress he’d been holding in.
“…Goodness. What am I going to do with you?”
Gazing at Kojou’s sleeping face, Yukina sighed a faint sigh.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE’S CRYING
1
The next day, the mysterious explosion that occurred in Itogami City blanketed the news media.
The newspapers printed photographs of the demolished warehouse district on the front page; television and video sites had interviews with survivors on a continuous loop.
The sixty or so damaged buildings had all been warehouses belonging to a major food conglomerate. About twenty thousand households had lost power; of those, half had no scheduled date for restoration as of that morning. The monorail track connecting Island East to Island South had been destroyed; direct damage alone was estimated at seven billion yen. When indirect damage was included, the figure climbed to fifty billion yen. The lone saving grace was the complete absence of fatalities.
“Whoa, scary. And the cause remains unknown, they said.”
With an apron over her school uniform, Nagisa was casually speaking while cleaning up after breakfast.
“Well, uh… It could be a warehouse fire started by lightning strikes, you know?”
Sipping on coffee to wake him up, Kojou replied with nervousness in his voice. His face seemed tired because he hadn’t slept a single wink the night before.
In the process of escaping the scene of the incident with Yukina, making an anonymous tip to the police, and carrying the Elder vampire on the brink of death to the hospital, night had turned to dawn at some point.
“No one’s gonna believe it was a lightning strike. Everyone’s saying things, like it was a terrorist bombing or an accident from a cargo of rocket fuel, but I suspect it was a meteor strike. You know, like the Tunguska impact? Sudo said a big incident that happened in Russia a long time ago was a lot like this.”
“Meteorite, huh… That’s the good version, I suppose…”
Kojou gazed into the distance as he muttered to himself. Judging from what he saw on the news, the fact last night’s widespread devastation was Kojou’s work remained unexposed. The scale of the damage was so massive that it seemed no one could believe that the incident was brought about by a single vampire.
However, he couldn’t be optimistic that would continue.
Surely there had been many witnesses who’d seen the Beast Vassal running wild right there just prior to the incident. It wouldn’t be surprising for someone to deduce Kojou’s existence from that. It was also possible Yukina would expose everything before anyone could; he hadn’t felt like sleeping with that on his mind.
Fifty billion yen in total damage. No way I can make up for that, thought Kojou.
Incidentally, this Sudo character Nagisa had mentioned was an actor and radio personality local to Itogami City. Not that it mattered.
“Well, I have a Cheerleading Club meeting, so I’m going ahead.”
Nagisa spoke as she ran out of the room with a patter. Kojou tossed a wave her way.
“’Kay.”
“Close the door after, okay? And don’t you be late, Kojou. Clean the mag cup and put it away when you’re done drinking coffee. Make sure the lights are out before you go out the door… Ah, right, I put new handkerchiefs and tissues here in the hallway so—”
“Get going already!”
“’Kaaaay!”
After making sure Nagisa, boisterous to the very end, had left, Kojou limply exhaled.
September first. His first day of school since the end of summer break.
As Saikai Academy had two semesters, it didn’t engage in any special commencement ceremony. After a long homeroom session, normal classes were scheduled to begin. Even if he felt like he hadn’t gotten a break at all, his homework was nowhere near done, and last night’s incident was guaranteed to add to it. He wanted to just skip class and go on a journey far, far away.
Just as Kojou began absentmindedly thinking about that, the chime in the entryway suddenly rang. Projected onto the intercom monitor was Yukina, in school uniform with the guitar case on her back.
“Himeragi…? What are you doing here at a time like this?” Kojou asked, suspecting it was an ill omen.
Yukina replied in her usual serene tone.
“I came for you. We’ll be late if we don’t finally get going, Senpai.”
“For me…? What, you want to go to school together?”
“I don’t mind if going together is too much, so I’ll just watch you covertly if that is your preference.”
“So I’m being watched either way, huh…? Fine, just hold on a sec.”
Kojou cut the intercom and headed for the entrance with his usual schoolbag.
When he opened the door and went outside, Yukina was standing in the hallway, lowering her head with proper politeness.
“Good morning, Senpai.”
“Ah yeah.”
/> Even though, like Kojou, she’d probably barely slept at all, he could feel no sense of fatigue from Yukina’s perfectly put-together look. No doubt her well-honed physique at work; that, or it was pure youth. However, even she could not conceal her weary expression.
“…You were rather extravagant last night, weren’t you?”
Keeping silent until they boarded the elevator, Yukina spoke with apparent anger included in her tone.
Ugh, said Kojou, averting his eyes. Apparently, Yukina’s real objective in having come to get him this morning was to chew him out on the way to school.
“They say the total damage is fifty billion yen.”
“Ugh…”
“As you are an immortal vampire, Senpai, you might be able to pay that back in about five centuries or so. You’d still have to repay a hundred million every single year, though. Interest adds up, after all.”
“…By any chance, you report on last night already to your higher-ups at the Lion King Agency?”
“I really must report to them about it, but I am somewhat hesitant.”
“Hesitant?”
Kojou was surprised to hear that word coming from the overly serious girl’s lips.
Yukina lowered her face, looking conflicted.
“Yes. I share responsibility for last night’s incident, after all; I think it was absolutely not your fault alone, Senpai…and you did save me, after all… Um, thank you very much for that.”
She conveyed the last phrase in a voice so tiny that it seemed like it’d vanish.
“I—I see. Well…when you think about it, it was legitimate defense and all. I had no choice but to take measures to protect myself, so, self-defense, right?”
Kojou unintentionally put great firmness into the words he spoke. Yukina made a disappointed shake of her head as she looked at him.
“However, there is no proof of that.”
“Proof?”
“Yes. Of course, I would testify to that effect, but as to whether it would be believed… In the first place, the police and the Lion King Agency are on poor terms. My being on the scene might actually hurt more than it helps.”
“Is that, ah, so…?”
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