“That’s crazy… Why are you…?!”
Gajou looked up at the person before him as he let out a painful groan.
The woman gazing down at Gajou with cold eyes was a silver-haired woman dressed in a dougi, a sleeveless outfit typically used for martial arts training. She gripped a wooden naginata in her right hand. And her left arm was wrapped around Nagisa, unconscious and asleep.
The camouflaged soldiers thrust their gun barrels toward Gajou, who was unable to rise to his feet. Even for him, resistance in this situation would be reckless. Gajou sluggishly raised both hands, looking up at the starless sky.
“…Well, ain’t I shit outta luck.”
Gajou sighed, his breath visible against the cold air, as he murmured to himself.
Thus Gajou Akatsuki’s homecoming began in the absolute worst way he could imagine.
CHAPTER ONE
COUNTDOWN TO THE NEW YEAR
1
With direct sunlight pouring in, the deserted corridor shimmered like a mirage.
From the open window, a muggy wind blew into the classroom.
Sitting alone in the seat directly across from the teacher’s desk, Kojou Akatsuki wore a forlorn expression as he struggled with a difficult text written in English. Large droplets of sweat rolled incessantly down his forehead. It was depressing how his moist wrist stuck to the answer sheet.
“So hot…”
Kojou let out a frail murmur as he tugged at the collar of his uniform.
The clear blue sky spread outside the window seemed straight out of midsummer. A cumulonimbus cloud hovered over a corner of the horizon, and the chirping cicadas were noisily out of season.
Somehow managing to solve the last problem, Kojou put down his mechanical pencil—also slick with sweat—and said, “Hey, Natsuki. You know, today’s—”
Before he could finish, something like an invisible fist smacked him between the eyes, scattering pale sparks all about. Natsuki Minamiya, standing at the teacher’s podium, cruelly watched Kojou as he recoiled backward.
“Fool. Do not address your homeroom teacher by her first name when she’s already in a bad mood from this terrible heat.”
“That’s no reason for a teacher to use violence on a student, is it…?!”
Kojou put a hand on his forehead as he retorted, grimacing with tearful eyes. Natsuki, sitting on an extravagant, antique chair, coldly snorted and strangled Kojou’s objection with silence.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”
For some reason, the homunculus girl wearing a maid outfit was mimicking a voice recital as she sat in front of an electric fan next to Natsuki. Kojou hadn’t seen the electric fan before, but apparently, she’d taken quite a deep interest in it. As a result, Astarte was completely monopolizing the fan, but since she’d brought it in from the staff room in the first place, Kojou was in no position to complain.
“…Today’s New Year’s Eve, yeah?”
“Indeed, it is. The New Year will arrive in little over half a day.”
Natsuki bluntly replied to Kojou’s half-hearted question. Halfway through listening to her response, Kojou stuck his chin on his palm and said:
“Why do I have to cram in extra lessons right at the end of the year like this?”
“Because some idiot with too many unapproved absences and too many red marks on supplementary tests in my subject asked for them. Astarte, help me out a little.”
“Accepted.”
At Natsuki’s command, the homunculus girl went out of her way to retrieve a mirror and place it in front of Kojou. For a time, he silently gazed at his reflection.
Then he cried out, “Wait, this is sarcasm!”
He shooed Astarte away. The homunculus girl in the maid outfit returned to her seat in front of the electric fan.
Natsuki sipped on the tasty tropical iced tea she’d had Astarte make for her. “If you have time to ask pointless questions, why don’t you thank me a little for putting up with extra lessons even on a day like this?”
“Ah well, yeah, I’m grateful for that. Seriously.” Kojou politely bowed his head as he handed the short answer sheet to Natsuki.
Eight months had passed since Kojou inherited the power of the World’s Mightiest Vampire. Thereafter, Kojou’s allowed absences had whittled away in the course of becoming wrapped up in one troublesome incident after another. If Natsuki hadn’t spent her precious extended vacation giving him these extra lessons, Kojou would be dead set to repeat the year by that point.
“Hmph.”
However, Natsuki was slightly taken aback, perhaps not really believing Kojou would voice his gratitude so easily, when she twisted her lips and said:
“Well, fine. Incidentally, Kojou, where is your father right now?”
“…Huh?”
At Natsuki’s sudden question, it was Kojou’s turn to get suspicious.
Kojou’s father, Gajou Akatsuki, was an archeologist. Due to the nature of his work, he spent most of the year overseas, rarely returning to Itogami Island. Of course, that left few opportunities to come into contact with Natsuki.
“Natsuki, why do you know about h…? Wait, don’t tell me…”
The first word to emerge in the back of Kojou’s mind was adultery. Natsuki might have looked like a little girl, but apparently, she was twenty-six years old. That meant she was more than old enough to have an old flame or two.
But the moment those thoughts came to mind, Natsuki violently pinched Kojou’s cheek and said, “Those are the eyes of a man picturing something quite rude, Kojou Akatsuki.”
“Ow! Ow! —Hey, I didn’t even say anything yet!!”
“Enough about that. Answer the question already.”
“He’s not on Itogami Island right now. He took my little sister and went off to Grandma’s place in Tanzawa!” Kojou blurted out while he sustained Natsuki’s merciless punishment.
Natsuki let out a “Hmm” and slackened her grip on Kojou as she sank into thought.
“So for once, that man actually told the truth about something…”
“How the heck do you know him anyway, Natsuki?” Kojou asked, putting a hand on his aching cheek.
Natsuki gave an annoyed sigh as she replied, “I know Gajou Akatsuki from his numerous unwelcome interruptions in my side business. Well, I do grudgingly concede that he has been useful on very rare occasions…”
“Your side business…? What the heck’s that shitty dad of mine been up to…?” Kojou muttered. A bad feeling came over him.
Natsuki was a teacher, but her side business was as a federal Attack Mage with the right to capture sorcerous criminals. Educational facilities within a Demon Sanctuary were required to have a certain proportion of staff on hand with Attack Mage certification. Therefore, an Attack Mage doubling as a teacher was by no means rare. In point of fact, Saikai Academy had one for each grade; in other words, it employed five additional Attack Mages as teachers in addition to Natsuki.
However, Natsuki occupied a special role that set her apart from her peers, for her might as an Attack Mage was so exceptional that she continued to aid active criminal investigations.
Therefore, Gajou had come into contact with Natsuki in the course of that business. In other words, Gajou was on the scene where sorcerous crimes were taking place. Kojou couldn’t help but be concerned about that.
“Can you get in touch with Gajou Akatsuki?”
Natsuki continued her line of questioning, paying Kojou’s unease no heed.
“That might be a little tough. Cell phone signals don’t reach that area, y’see.”
Kojou didn’t know Gajou’s cell phone number in the first place, but he kept quiet about that.
“The place your grandmother lives in is quite the backwoods, then?” she asked with a serious tone.
“Pretty much, yeah.” He gave a heavy nod.
“So what is this all of a sudden? You need to talk to him ’bout something?”
“No… There was just a little something on my mind,
” she replied vaguely, not helping his current doubts.
He shuddered involuntarily as he said, “Hey—cut that out. Now you’re making me worried. I already told you Nagisa’s with him and everything.”
“Nagisa Akatsuki… You did say something like that, didn’t you…?”
Natsuki’s brows furled, as if she liked how things were unfolding less and less. Her murmur alarmed him further. It seemed Natsuki really had come into contact with Gajou in the recent past.
Maybe it really is adultery. When Kojou seriously entertained the suspicion, Natsuki suddenly glared at him with half-lidded eyes.
“Well, setting all that aside, Kojou Akatsuki, what is with this score?”
“Huh? Did I completely bomb it?”
A perplexed expression came over Kojou as she thrust the marked answer sheet toward his face. The number written in red pencil was sixty-six out of one hundred—not a great score, but not terrible, either.
“I can hardly believe you achieved a score this high through your own ability. You couldn’t possibly have slipped some cheating method past my supervision, could you…?”
Natsuki spoke these words while staring at Kojou in utter seriousness.
“Umm, no way this score is high enough to suspect cheating, and even I can do this well if I study hard, y’know.”
Kojou, fully understanding the reason for Natsuki’s doubts, desperately tried to refute them. Compared to his previous tests, chock-full of red marks, you’d think this one was so good that it came from a different person, but no casual observer would consider that score to be worthy of praise. They were the grades of a student dead set to repeat a year. The fact that this kind of score was enough to make her suspect cheating was a harsh blow to Kojou’s pride.
But he could understand Natsuki’s feeling of surprise. Since becoming a vampire, Kojou had no time to study—a situation that hadn’t really changed.
“To think you would actually study for extra lessons. What’s gotten into you?”
“Umm, I just thought that, well, you know… I really should take my classes more seriously…”
For the one who can’t take them at all, Kojou continued to himself.
For an instant, the side of a blonde girl’s face, always making a small, trembling smile, flashed before his eyes.
Avrora Florestina. The twelfth Kaleid Blood.
Ever since he’d regained fragments of his memories of her, Kojou’s mental state had undergone subtle changes that even he didn’t understand. That didn’t mean the situation he was placed in had changed very much, but when he thought about what he could do, he thought he could at least put in the effort on short tests, but—
“It’s not like an education has any downsides. Besides, gotta think about the future, right?” Kojou said earnestly, almost saying it just for his own sake.
To be blunt, he still had little appreciation for his status, but in name, at least, Kojou was the vampire known as the Fourth Primogenitor; furthermore, vampire primogenitors were granted a life span that was nigh eternal.
The issue causing Kojou a much greater deal of concern was picking a career.
Even vampires needed to put food on the table, and clothes and a place to stay required money. If one was born a commoner and not an aristocrat, they worked, or they starved. He wasn’t like Dimitrie Vattler or Giada Kukulkan, both possessing vast territories. All that said, he didn’t think the stupid title of World’s Mightiest Vampire was worth much on a résumé.
And so, having agonized over the matter, Kojou made an honest attempt at getting an education. Surely, academic knowledge had no downside for an undying, ageless vampire; if it qualified him for gainful employment and let him get his hands on a trade, all the better.
Kojou hadn’t actually intended to explain things to Natsuki that far. If some other vampire primogenitor said I’d better study seriously, so I don’t go hungry down the road, Kojou would make fun of him, too.
“I see.”
However, Natsuki flashed a charming smile, almost as though she could see right through to Kojou’s feelings. This was not her usual smile, the cold one that made her seem like she was looking down on the entire world. This was a gentle smile, the sort one gave to a younger brother. Natsuki’s soft expression, one Kojou was seeing for the first time, made it hard to pay attention to anything else.
“…Natsuki?”
When Kojou murmured without thinking, Natsuki silently delivered a sharp blow to his forehead. In the meantime, the beautiful, charming smile from before had vanished like an illusion.
“Well, fine. I suppose I will give you a passing grade for today’s lesson.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“Do try to greet the New Year on good terms.”
“Gotcha.”
Kojou lobbed his curt reply as he pressed a hand to his stinging forehead. Natsuki returned to the armchair, elegantly sipping her iced tea. Just as before, Astarte was sitting reverentially before the electric fan, saying “Weee aaare…” like some kind of alien from outer space.
Then, when Kojou, who felt a brief sense of liberation, tidied up the writing supplies and gently opened the classroom door, a new person emerged. This was Misaki Sasasaki, the physical education teacher.
“All done?”
Dressed in sporty attire, the female teacher confirmed with Natsuki that the lesson was done before she shifted her gaze to Kojou, who stood frozen in place. Of course, Kojou’s egregious number of absences meant English was by no means the only subject he needed extra classes in.
“Sorry to spoil things when you’ve neatly wrapped up, but after English is gym. We’re doing a ten-kilometer marathon, so get changed and meet me out on the grounds, ’kay?”
Misaki smiled at Kojou as she spoke in her oddly tense tone.
Kojou stared at the brightly glimmering midday sun; then he shifted his eyes to the sports field scorched by its rays. Itogami Island, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, was an island of eternal summer with a tropical climate. Even on New Year’s Eve, the temperature close to noon was butting against 30 degrees Celsius.
And Kojou was a vampire, weak to direct sunlight.
“…Seriously?”
A frail murmur escaped Kojou’s mouth as the fear of impending death coursed through him.
Astarte’s serene voice echoed toward the electric fan as it was seemingly sucked into the blue sky.
2
Kojou, finally freed from his lessons some two-odd hours later, headed toward the monorail with a wobbly gait.
Walking beside him was Yukina Himeragi, carrying a black guitar case on her back. She’d been waiting the whole time for Kojou to finish his lessons so she could resume her duty as watcher of the Fourth Primogenitor.
“Umm… Are you all right, senpai?”
Concerned, Yukina looked up at the hollow expression on Kojou’s face.
“Yeah, somehow… Jeez, I seriously thought I was gonna shrivel up like a prune…”
Kojou shook his head violently, apparently to get his head back in the game, and formed a smile with no strength behind it. Thanks to overusing his brain cells on the test and walking what seemed like a ten-kilometer marathon beneath the scorching sun, Kojou was completely and utterly drained. Both mind and body were at their limits. The road to the station was less than a fifteen-minute walk, but it felt impossibly far.
“First, please rehydrate. Then, have this. It’s a lemon dipped in honey.”
“Ahh, thanks.”
Appreciative of the ever-reliable Yukina, Kojou accepted the sports drink and the lemon.
Technically, Kojou was the World’s Mightiest Vampire, and Yukina was Kojou’s watcher, dispatched by the Japanese government. However, no one looking at them that moment was likely to believe that. They looked like nothing more than an athletics club member right after a match and his shrewd, quick-witted manager.
“Sorry for making you come with me to school on New Year’s Eve like this, Himeragi.
”
As soon as he recovered a bit of stamina, Kojou expressed his appreciation to Yukina all over again. Kojou hadn’t asked for Yukina to follow him around, but it was a simple fact that she’d helped with lots of things.
“It is no trouble at all. After all, it is my mission to watch you, senpai,” she replied with her usual all-business expression.
Kojou unwittingly made a pained smile at Yukina’s stereotypical reply as he said, “Somehow, this takes me back to right after I met you, Himeragi.”
“Oh…?”
Yukina’s face stiffened, seemingly put on guard by Kojou’s sudden declaration. She pressed a hand to the hem of her skirt, inching backward as if to avoid his gaze.
“Wh…what are you remembering?! Did I not ask you to forget about that?!”
“…Huh?! Ah!”
Kojou panicked as he saw the explosion of redness on Yukina’s cheeks. He remembered that in the place he’d first bumped into Yukina, he had seen her panties—not once, but twice in quick succession. It was a most unfortunate accident upon their first meeting.
“No! Not that time!”
“Which is ‘this’ time and which is the ‘other’ time?!”
“I meant school! I met you when I was heading to school for extra lessons, right, Himeragi?”
“…I suppose so, now that you mention it…”
Yukina finally lowered her guard somewhat. The first time Kojou and Yukina had a chance to properly speak to each other was the day after that first encounter. It was right before the end of summer vacation. That day, too, Kojou was heading to school by himself to receive extra lessons, whereupon Yukina, a transfer student at the middle school, appeared before him.
“Back then, I had just about the worst possible impression of you, though—the way you turned your spear on me for no good reason.”
“I—I believe you were responsible for that, senpai! I believe that was very much the case!”
For once, Yukina was flustered in her response. Apparently, Yukina’s impulsive behavior at the time was an embarrassing memory she did not particularly want to remember.
The Fugitive Fourth Primogenitor Page 2
