When surrounded by metal, a substance that easily conducts electricity, the person on the inside is unaffected by lightning strikes. The phenomenon was known as “Faraday’s cage”; likely the Beast Vassal surrounding Astarte had produced the same effect.
The girl was a homunculus, granted a life span far in excess of that of a human being.
However, so long as the Beast Vassal dwelled within her, her life span wouldn’t last beyond a few days.
But, if something could be done about the Beast Vassal, she’d be able to live a longer life.
The fallen Astarte was clothed in something like a thin surgical gown.
However, with her now seeming like a wounded fairy, he couldn’t form any lewd feelings while looking her over; it was painful just looking at her all-too-frail form.
Well, can’t be helped, Kojou thought. He turned toward Yukina.
“Himeragi.”
“Yes?”
“Sorry. Just for a sec…okay?”
Yukina gave a mystified look back as Kojou walked closer, speaking those words as he strongly embraced her.
Yukina’s lips let out a Wha? in a small voice.
She seemed in quite a bit of confusion at Kojou’s unanticipated behavior, but her body only stiffened a little bit; she didn’t really try to resist. She awkwardly leaned toward Kojou, entrusting the weight of her body to him.
“S-Senpai…”
Yukina seemed bewildered as her body quivered. She was so soft. So warm. She smelled faintly of sweat and blood. Kojou’s entire body took it all in, seemingly coveting everything about her.
He understood the reason why Yukina was bewildered.
It wasn’t an issue of what would happen to her right away from having a vampire drink her blood. It was said humans felt pleasure and ecstasy from being drunk from, but that was as simple as that.
The problem was if blood plasma from the vampire’s own body flowed from his fangs as they still pierced, and into the other person’s body. Those who received blood from vampires became “Blood Servants.”
That didn’t mean it was guaranteed to happen. That probably changed according to the phases of the moon, the condition of the human being’s body, and one’s ability to resist dark forces. However, if vampiric behavior was done over and over, eventually the other person would become one of the undead.
That meant living together as partners for the rest of one’s eternal life.
“Senpai…you can’t… We’re not…ready for…”
Yukina tried to rebuke Kojou, her voice frail.
But contrary to Yukina’s words, there was no resistance in how she acted. As Kojou thought that a rather mysterious thing, he squeezed Yukina strongly. Yukina gently moved her hands to Kojou’s back as well.
“—Thanks, Yukina. I can do this now.”
His vampiric impulses having been sufficiently heightened, Kojou promptly let go of Yukina.
“Eh…? D-do what?”
Yukina looked back at Kojou with an absentminded expression. The slight flush on her face was rather cute.
“Er, um… Senpai?”
However, as Yukina did so, Kojou quickly turned his back on her, leaning over the fallen Astarte.
Kojou gently picked up the slender homunculus girl, piercing the girl’s exposed neck with his fangs. He then drank up the girl’s body fluids.
After a long, long silence, he slowly drew his lips back from Astarte.
There was no change in the fallen Astarte’s form. However, he had surely finished all of what he had to do.
Still holding the half-naked Astarte, Kojou sighed with relief.
Next to him, Yukina remained impressively unemotional as she picked up the silver spear.
“Senpai…what are you doing?”
The cold tone in Yukina’s voice was identical to that from when they had first met.
Somehow, Kojou felt a glacial chill up his spine as he turned his face to her.
“I, ah, I thought I’d put her Beast Vassal under my dominion. It’s like a magical energy allowance, or a Beast Vassal rental, see… In other words, if this girl’s Beast Vassal isn’t draining its direct host’s life directly, but consumes my life force instead, this girl’s life span will be a lot longer than it is now, right?”
“So you’re saying that, in other words, you drank her blood to save her life.”
The tone of Yukina’s voice was filled with unconcealed, cold anger. Kojou, not understanding the reason she’d become angry, made a timid nod.
“Th-that’s what it is. To seize control rights over her Beast Vassal, I had no choice. Right, no choice.”
With his words, he firmly pressed the justice of his own cause. Surely there had been nothing mistaken about what he’d done. To the contrary, it should have been praiseworthy behavior.
However, Yukina’s expression did not change. Indeed, emotion had completely vanished from her.
“I see. If that is so, why did you direct such lewd behavior at me?”
“Er, ah. I didn’t do that out of any lewd feelings, but… In other words, to drink blood, I have to work myself up a bit—”
Kojou’s unsteady words faltered. Sexual arousal was the trigger for vampiric impulses. Having said that, he couldn’t just feel up Astarte’s frail, wounded body like that, so he had no choice but to elicit Yukina’s cooperation.
“I mean, certainly you’re not an all that sexy type, Himeragi, but there wasn’t anyone else, so I had to work with what I had… I just needed to get your help, a bit.”
“…Work with what you have…is it? There was no one else, so you had no choice…”
Yukina was looking down as her shoulders began to tremble. As she did so, Kojou realized his verbal slip. The way he’d put that just now was mean-spirited, but he didn’t know how else to explain it.
Finally, Yukina’s icy expression shattered, her eyebrows shooting up as she glared.
Her face was in a rage, even as she seemed she might to cry at any moment.
“Senpai, you can sink to the bottom of the sea for all I care! Idiot—!”
As she yelled, Yukina swung the broken Snowdrift Wolf downward.
It was Itogami Island’s deepest section. On the lowest level, some two hundred and twenty meters below sea level, the cries of the Fourth Primogenitor reverberated all around—
9
Island South, residential district. There was a lone girl at the edge of a window of a nine-story apartment complex.
She was a girl in the low teens who gave the impression of being a bit underdeveloped—
Nagisa Akatsuki.
All she had on was a thin shirt in place of pajamas.
The silver moonlight passed through the material, highlighting the contours of her slender body.
Her hair, worn down, was unusually long. It reached almost all the way to her hips.
Perhaps that was why she gave a different impression than her usual appearance, with her hair worn up. Her usual aura of cheerfulness was hidden away; her cherubic face had an adultlike calm across it.
Her long hair swayed without a sound from the sea breeze that blew in through the open window.
She was looking at the inverted-pyramid-shaped building at the center of Itogami Island—Keystone Gate.
Being the highest building on the entire island, she could see it quite well from the edge of the window.
Nagisa Akatsuki silently gazed at the building.
Tonight, the night of Itogami Island was dark.
With its lights extinguished, one could think of the majestic Keystone Gate as melting into the night sky.
For just a single instant, there was a pale glow, as if it had been struck by lightning.
Watching this, the girl’s lips formed a mysterious expression.
She made a smile as if she knew what that glow represented.
“Regulus Aurum… So you have finally awakened…”
Nagisa’s tongue calmly spun the words.
It was a c
alm voice, as if it were not her speaking, but another person.
But her expression seemed somehow amused.
“So even that boy finally got a little motivated. Heh-heh… Wouldn’t be any fun if he weren’t…”
A fiercely mischievous light dwelled within her refined eyes—a light that resembled flickering flames.
However, when the breeze blew next, both the adultlike calm and the ferociousness vanished from her body. Seemingly forgetting why she’d been there to begin with, the girl closed the window and let out a small yawn. Rubbing her sleepy eyes, she returned to her own bedroom and bed.
Her face was the same as always: that of an innocent, young girl.
“Mm, Kojou-kun…”
Mumbling her big brother’s name, seemingly out of habit, she closed her eyes.
Looking like she was watching a pleasant dream, Nagisa Akatsuki fell asleep.
OUTRO
Yukina Himeragi was sitting alone as the rays of the setting sun filtered into her room.
It was room 705, the far-too-big-for-one-person apartment next to the Akatsuki family residence.
There were signs of life: curtains, cushions, magnetic cups with black tea in them. She’d bought them together with Kojou. In just a few days, she’d gotten completely used to seeing them, yet no doubt she would soon be leaving them behind.
Thinking that, she felt very lonely for some reason.
“…”
Outside the window was the expanse of the twilight sky.
Looking down at Itogami City from here, nothing seemed to have particularly changed. It was a peaceful scene, as if the battle that had occurred in this island’s lowermost section had been all a lie.
Three days had passed since Armed Apostle Eustach’s raid on Keystone Gate came to an end. Now that the chaos had calmed down somewhat, the residents of Itogami City seemed to think it was time to go on with their normal lives.
In the end, Yukina and Kojou had escaped after the battle before the Island Guard made it to the lowest level. So all the security force personnel saw when they reached the lowest level were traces of incredible destruction and Eustach and Astarte’s unconscious bodies. Apparently Eustach had not spoken of Kojou or Yukina after his arrest, either.
His recovery of the saint’s corpse having thus ended in failure, Eustach’s conduct grew into a global-scale incident.
The Gigafloats were held up by a miracle from a holy relic. That Itogami City had been designed this way brought a flood of condemnation from not only the Western European Church but a wide variety of kingdoms and organizations. Simultaneously, there was a widespread demand to pardon Eustach for his crime. It was not possible for the government of Japan to ignore the controversy.
As a result, what had been Itogami Island’s keystone for over two decades would be replaced by one constructed by conventional means. The government publicly committed to return the currently used holy relic to Lotharingia.
Eustach was declared persona non grata and expelled, and Astarte, a homunculus, having merely been obeying her master’s commands, would be treated as under probation. The formalities had yet to take place, but it was a fair and just conclusion that managed to mollify world opinion.
The next morning, Kojou Akatsuki went to school as usual as if nothing had happened at all.
After his having skipped class on the first day after summer break, his charismatic homeroom teacher wrung him dry. She added to his unfinished pile of summer break homework, which made him look a bit like the dead.
However, that was probably a normal, everyday thing to him.
It was boring, day-to-day life like this that he had used the power of the Fourth Primogenitor, the world’s mightiest vampire, to protect—
“…He really is quite a piece of work…”
As Yukina murmured, she unwittingly let out a small giggle as well.
Her laughing voice, containing so much fun it shocked even her, immediately changed to a deep sigh.
Yukina, too, would soon return to her normal daily existence.
Her training as an apprentice Sword Maiden at High God Forest. Though severe, there was nothing perplexing or confounding about it. It was tranquil and never-changing, day after day. That was Yukina’s old daily existence.
Yukina had failed too many times to continue watching over Kojou.
The Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassal went berserk, reducing the warehouse district to ashes.
The Fourth Primogenitor she was watching over had been in great danger and nearly slain.
When the Fourth Primogenitor rejected combat, she spurred him on and brought him to the battlefield with her.
And on top of that, so that he could become able to use his Beast Vassal, she had granted him her own blood—
Any one of those actions made her unworthy of being a watcher.
Even more, as a result of combat unrelated to her mission, Snowdrift Wolf, the Lion King Agency’s secret weapon, had been wrecked.
Yukina was not skillful enough to gloss all this over with a suitable report. She reported what had occurred to the Lion King Agency, leaving out the minor details.
Yukina would no doubt be recalled by the Lion King Agency for failure as a watcher. Probably soon.
If it ended in no more but discipline that would be fine, but it would not be strange for her Attack Mage qualification to be revoked and for her name to be stricken from the Lion King Agency’s rolls. That, too, would be Yukina’s sole responsibility. It was the result of her own conduct, so it could not be helped. Besides, Yukina did not regret what she had done.
If she had any regrets, she regretted only that she would never meet Kojou Akatsuki again.
He was a flake, so she worried about him. After all, if she wasn’t by his side, there was no telling what he might do—
“—!”
The intercom’s chime caught her by surprise.
The monitor displayed a man in a home delivery company uniform, no doubt working for the Lion King Agency.
Yukina unlocked the door for him and went into the entryway. However, by then the deliveryman had already vanished. In his place, a large package had been left in front of the apartment’s entrance.
It was a long aluminum case. It was a trunk called a tour case, used for transporting guitars and other musical instruments. Yukina was perplexed as she brought the case into the room.
She undid the clasp and opened the case.
Then Yukina sucked in her breath.
Inside the case was a silver-colored spear, all repairs complete, every bit as good as new.
“A lot happened, but the result was as you expected…I would suppose?”
Nighttime, Saikai Academy, high school section. A lone male student was in a classroom that should have been empty.
As he leaned against a wall, there was a crow right beside him.
The young man spoke casually to the bird, which was considered an ill omen, as it rested on the windowsill.
“Having thus obtained a blood partner, Kojou Akatsuki gained a single Beast Vassal. So he’s one step closer to becoming a full Fourth Primogenitor, but what I don’t get is why you’d go out of your way to wake up a monster that can raze a city without blinking…”
The crow silently listened to the young man’s words. Its body, covered in jet-black feathers, was strangely flat and smooth. From its angles and lack of thickness, it looked like it had been simply crafted from paper. This was not a real bird. It was a shikigami born from ritual energy.
“The timing’s too convenient in the first place. Surely you knew of the Lotharingian Armed Apostle hunting demons, and his objective of seizing back the holy relic, from the beginning?”
The young asked the crow with a critiquing tone.
“And sending an apprentice Sword Shaman with a strong sense of justice to watch over Kojou at a time like that, it’s really transparent. So, Kojou drinking that girl’s blood was part of your scheme from the beginning. Geez, you sure put th
at serious girl through the wringer here.”
“…However, thanks to this, the Fourth Primogenitor’s awakening has been hastened.”
The crow suddenly opened its mouth and spoke with an elderly voice.
“He already exists, whether we reach out to him or not. Therefore, it is best to control him and have one more card to play.”
“So, Yukina Himeragi is the bell around the neck of the sleeping beast.”
Making a heavy sigh, as if pitying her, the young man shifted his gaze beyond the window.
“Certainly given Kojou’s personality, no doubt he’d never do anything cruel to the valiant girl, but…I’m sure she has no idea the Lion King Agency sent her to be the Fourth Primogenitor’s lover. Poor thing.”
“There has never been a Primogenitor born to rule a Dominion in this nation’s entire history. National survival is at stake; may she play her role very nicely.”
Something like a chuckle came out of the crow’s throat.
The tone had been a jesting one, but there was no concealing the gloom that came with it.
Even to them, this plan was a double-edged sword that could invite a great calamity. She must have felt like she was tossing a lit lighter into a warehouse full of gunpowder and taking her chances.
However, it seemed that for the moment, things were proceeding as they had hoped.
Yukina Himeragi had most certainly closed the distance between her and Kojou Akatsuki.
“And not all that may befall her deserves pity. To be the partner of an emperor means to be an empress.”
“Well, that might be so, but…it does give me a somewhat conflicted feeling.”
As he spoke, the young man looked at a table in the center of the classroom. That was where his childhood friend sat.
If she ever found out that he was the actual watcher of Kojou Akatsuki, no doubt she’d fly into a rage. He really wasn’t looking forward to that.
“Now then, the Fourth Primogenitor appears at turning points in history. Does his appearance portend good or evil? …Kojou Akatsuki. At times the Western European Church refers to the Lightbringer, another name for the fallen angel Lucifer… Hmm, very interesting…”
Right Arm of the Saint Page 20
