Strike the Blood, Vol. 7: Kaleid Blood

by Gakuto Mikumo

  At that, Yaze realized the identity of the young man.

  “I see… There were seven escapees from the prison barrier. So you’re the seventh!”

  He was referring to the prison escape of sorcerous criminals that had occurred about one month before. That day, Aya Tokoyogi, the Witch of the Notaria, escaped from the prison barrier with seven others.

  Of those, six had been sent back inside the barrier, leaving only one escapee left, whereabouts unknown—namely, the young man in the black clothing. His crime and his abilities were unknown, for all records had been erased. The only data left was his name, which Yaze shouted out—

  “…Meiga Itogami!”

  Yaze took a capsule pill out of his pocket, popped it into his mouth, and crunched it down. The next moment, wind began to blow all around him and eventually turned into an incredible gust.

  Held back by the swirling, whistling storm, the young man let out a light sigh.

  “I would rather you did not call me by that name so casually… Ah, well.”

  Finally, the light distorted before his eyes as a giant emerged, born from the gale force winds. Yaze had temporarily boosted his Hyper Adapter power to create a duplicate of himself—Aerodyne. Its body was a burst of air condensed to several times atmospheric pressure, possessing localized destructive power on par with a tornado. Furthermore, since it was formed of simple air, magical defenses could not block it. Even Yukina Himeragi’s Schneewaltzer was unable to nullify Yaze’s attack.

  Gazing at the wind giant, the young man calmly poised his weapon.

  “A Hyper Adapter controlling the air flow… An interesting ability. However…”

  The ominous grayish glow emitted by the pitch-black spear was like a will-o’-the-wisp quivering in the darkness. And when the gusting giant’s attack touched that sinister light…the double vanished, and the raging flow of the air with it, as if it had never existed in the first place. All that was left afterward was a faint breeze.

  Yaze gawked, short of breath.

  “Aerodyne’s been nullified…?!”

  The young man had not destroyed the wind giant. He had not even blocked the attack. He had merely erased the power Yaze was using to control it.

  “That spear… It’s a Schneewaltzer?! No, not that…! It can’t be!”

  Yaze finally understood what the black spear truly was, and he realized this was a man he must not fight. He used the remaining trace of wind to propel himself backward in an attempt to evade the young man’s counterattack.

  Unfortunately, before Yaze could succeed, the slash of the black spear caught him. Fresh blood spurted from the slice in his chest. Yaze’s body busted through a fence, tumbling toward the ground.

  Meiga Itogami scowled at the shallowness of the cut and gazed down at the ground through the gap in the fence. Yaze, who should have fallen below, was nowhere to be seen. There was only a large pool of blood spreading over the asphalt below. He should not have been able to move with such a wound, and yet—

  The young man in black calmly reflected to himself, “As tenacious as one might expect…but, mm, that is fine.”

  A smartphone that had rolled over to a corner of the roof abruptly caught his eye. Yaze had no doubt dropped it in the heat of combat.

  There were cracks on the screen, but the characters identified the speaker on the other end, and indicated that the call was still connected—

  With a satisfied tone, Meiga Itogami murmured a reverent greeting.

  “And so I finally meet our King.”

  Then he slowly stepped on the smartphone. He added the full weight of his body, violently stomping it to pieces with his heel. The glass smashed into fine dust. The last thing he could hear from the phone before the line went fully dead was a strange laugh.

  “Keh-keh…”

  8

  Asagi stuffed her cheeks full with thick pancakes, glaring at the screen of her laptop as she spoke.

  “There was definitely a terror bombing on a train in the Roman Autonomous Region on the Italian peninsula four years ago—or more precisely, the March that was three years, eight months ago. The damage included over four hundred fatalities, including train passengers and people at the station. There was a lot of coverage about it even here in Japan.”

  There was a pile of four large, empty plates near her. This amount, moderate by Asagi’s standards, no doubt reflected her concentration on her work.

  Asagi was accessing local law enforcement’s internal data. Where political incidents like terrorism were concerned, there was always at least some information intentionally withheld from the public, or even falsified outright, in the name of averting panic.

  Since it was past lunchtime, the MAR employee cafeteria was vacant. Kojou and Yukina forgot about their meals as they listened to Asagi’s explanation.

  “The incident occurred at one PM local time. The same day, past eight PM, Nagisa was transported to Itogami Island on a MAR charter flight while in critical condition.”

  Having said this much, Asagi covered her eyes in distress. She sighed and shook her head.

  “This is just…”

  Much like Asagi, Yukina lowered her eyes and murmured in quiet pain, “So I was right…”

  Kojou was shaken by the girls’ attitudes.

  “Huh? What’s with those reactions…?”

  Kojou thought that things were just as they’d been explained to him. He and Nagisa were at the scene when the terror incident occurred, and Nagisa, in critical condition, was shuttled to Itogami Island to heal. He didn’t think the time difference was an issue either.

  Asagi looked at him with an amazed expression that seemed to say, You are sooo dense.

  “Hey, you. How long do you think it takes to fly from Rome to Itogami Island?”

  “Er? Ohh…”

  Kojou finally picked up the discrepancy. Even by the shortest possible route, the flight time from the Roman Autonomous Region to Tokyo was eleven hours, give or take. From there, it’d take a bit under an hour to get to Itogami Island, and switching planes doubtlessly added even more time. Even with MAR providing a private jet, it was too fast to arrive at Itogami Island.

  “Er, wait, there’s a time difference, too, right? It’s what, eight hours off or something…?”

  Yukina calmly pointed out, “Rome has a seven hour time zone difference from Japan. If it is seven PM here, it is noon local time.”

  Kojou felt like the floor had fallen out from under him as he shook his head, dumbfounded.

  “…What does that mean?”

  Asagi shrugged her shoulders. “It means Nagisa was already hospitalized when the terror bombing happened. Her injuries are unrelated to that incident. They just used something that coincidentally happened on the same day as a cover story.”

  Yukina picked up where Asagi left off.

  “I think it is natural for you and Nagisa to have no memory of before or after the incident, senpai. After all, neither of you were involved in it to begin with.”

  “That being the case, I have my doubts that you two were in Rome to begin with,” Asagi added. “The customs records definitely show that you were headed to Europe, but…”

  Kojou stared at his own palms as he weakly muttered, “Then…they’ve been lying to us all this time…?”

  The thought of all the adults gathered around them lying to their faces was unpleasant, if not outright creepy, because it meant both of their parents were fully involved in the deception.

  “Why would they lie to us about that? Why would they need to?!”

  Yukina quietly shook her head with concern for Kojou.

  “I do not know… However, it is surely related to your condition, senpai.”

  With a start, Asagi lifted her face and looked at Yukina. “Kojou’s condition?”

  If you want to know what Kojou’s been hiding, I want you to look into this incident first—that was the iron-clad condition Yukina had set. Yukina had probably discerned from the start that the memory
pushed onto Kojou was false.

  Asagi continued, glaring seriously at Kojou. “I see… You did promise to explain, didn’t you? I want you to tell me everything the two of you are hiding from me.”

  Kojou nodded in resignation. Either way, he’d figured he’d have to eventually come clean with Asagi.

  But there was one thing he wanted to confirm for himself before he began.

  “Hey, Asagi. There should be records of Nagisa’s treatment at MAR, right…?”

  Perhaps sensing what Kojou was getting at, Asagi spoke with some hesitation for once. “Well…probably. Looking at it without authorization is illegal and a violation of privacy, you know?”

  But Kojou had a brooding look as his eyes shifted to an exterior window. A white-walled building stood on the other side of a broad, grass-covered courtyard—the MAR medical laboratory, and the building where Nagisa had no doubt undergone treatment.

  “The MAR people lied to us first, so we’re even. If they’ve been using Nagisa without us knowing, that’s a crime in itself, right?”

  Asagi exhaled deeply and called to her partner, the AI.

  “…Well, you heard the man, Mogwai.”

  Even with Asagi’s skill, hacking into MAR, one of the world’s few magical high-tech corporations, would be no easy task. Having the Gigafloat Management Corporation’s main computer backing her up might be a different story.

  However, there was no response from the AI.

  “Mogwai…?”

  Asagi smoothly tapped her keyboard, inputting a search command. The sarcastic avatar normally popped up even when he didn’t need to, but that day, Asagi’s call to him went unanswered. Something or other seemed to be jamming the signal.

  Simultaneously, Yukina and Kojou let out cries of surprise.

  “Eh…?!”

  “—?!”

  They saw a titanic level of demonic energy in a place not far from the MAR complex. It was a magical power so great that even Kojou, not exactly the most sensitive person around, could keenly detect.

  “Himeragi, that’s—!”

  Yukina leaped to her feet, grabbing her guitar case as she ran to an open window.

  “Yes, a Beast Vassal. But what is this off-the-scale demonic energy…?!”

  She saw, in a gap between buildings, a broadcast tower gently falling and collapsing as if it had been sliced by a giant knife.

  This was most certainly the work of an Old Guard vampire’s Beast Vassal, and a nobleman-level one at that. Furthermore, there was more than one source of demonic energy. A short time later, she sensed the presence of a newly summoned Beast Vassal.

  Kojou and Yukina first thought of Jagan and Kira. As nobles from the Warlord’s Empire, it would be no surprise if they could summon Beast Vassals of that class. The bigger problem was the existence of an enemy that required the use of multiple Beast Vassals. Furthermore, there was no sign of the battle abating. For two of Vattler’s confidants to be struggling in combat—

  The very next moment, Asagi let out a loud yelp.

  “What the—?!”

  It was as if the dead of night had fallen over them, with ferocious lightning filling the entire sky. The artificial island shuddered from a great impact, as if a meteorite had crashed right into it.

  Kojou and Yukina stiffened, unable to say a word, because they realized just what that shock was.

  The mass of demonic energy blotting out the sky above the man-made island was the Beast Vassal summoned by Jagan and Kira’s enemy—if one could even call something capable of such an incredible change a Beast Vassal.

  Similar to how a sufficiently large mass would interfere with gravity, the mere presence of a huge amount of magical energy sent the man-made island’s systems into chaos. Their fields of vision were distorted, like they had been dragged up from deep underwater, unable to even breathe easily because of the difference in pressure.

  Until now, Kojou and Yukina had known only one category of Beast Vassals in existence that unleashed such enormous demonic energy: those of the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire.

  A thunderbolt ripped through the air close by. Together with the lightning, a silhouette landed on the ground in the courtyard of the hospital. Asagi pointed to it and shouted, “—Kojou, over there!”

  It was a girl wearing a white robe. This was no doubt the foe that Jagan and Kira had been fighting.

  She gently pointed her finger.

  A giant ball of lightning followed, hurtling to the ground. Any lightning rod or defensive barrier was powerless before its incalculable destructive might. An impact accompanied by enormous heat slammed right into the medical wing building, blasting the exterior wall to bits.

  The cutting-edge research facility had been transformed into a ruin on the verge of collapse.

  One more hit, and no doubt the structure would be annihilated without a trace.

  Seeing this, Kojou finally regained his senses.

  “What the hell’s with her?! Nagisa’s in there!!”

  It did not matter to him who the attacker was. What mattered was that she was trying to destroy the building with Nagisa inside. That was an act of savagery he absolutely could not permit.

  But Kojou wondered if he could really stop a girl who could control a Beast Vassal equal, or superior, to his own—

  She turned toward Kojou and looked at him, giggling as if she saw right through his hesitation.

  She stripped off her robe, revealing her fairy-like beauty for all to see. Her rainbow-colored hair rippled in the violent wind. She had blazing eyes and a defiant smile.

  As Kojou shuddered, Yukina’s sharp voice reached his ears.

  “Senpai, I’ll look after Nagisa—!”

  From her guitar case she removed a long, fully metallic spear that glinted silver. Once in her hands, the thick blade deployed with a smooth shing.

  “Himeragi?!”

  “Take care of Aiba!”

  With that one-sided statement, Yukina broke the reinforced glass and leaped outside.

  In the garden, electrical currents were still running around from the girl’s lightning attack. Yukina charged straight in. A single flash of her silver spear wiped the sputtering lightning out. Yukina’s Schneewaltzer was a purging spear able to rend any kind of barrier and nullify magical energy. Yukina, bearing that spear, was the only human in that place able to withstand an attack from a primogenitor’s Beast Vassal.

  “What is that spear?! Just what is she…?!” Asagi said, dumbfounded.

  Asagi didn’t know who Yukina really was. Seeing her in Sword Shaman form for the very first time left her as overwhelmed as one might expect.

  However, Kojou couldn’t say a word to Asagi, because he was shaken far more than she.

  “No…way…”

  Asagi, noticing Kojou’s abnormal state, looked up and to the side.

  “Kojou?”

  His eyes were wide open, absentminded except for the single thing he was focusing on: the girl with rainbow hair and a charming smile, enveloped by ferocious thunder—

  The anguished question that came from Kojou’s throat sounded like a lament.

  “Avrora… How…?”

  9

  Magna Ataraxia Research, or MAR, was one of the world’s few sorcerous manufacturing conglomerates. Even just the laboratory it had established within Itogami City was an enormous enterprise employing nearly a thousand researchers. It was designed with considerable security features in mind, like security pods constructed with sorcerous circuitry and colorful miniature robots about the size of a garbage can. Somehow, their rounded external appearance was humorous and adorable. However, intended for security, this was simply for show. On the inside, MAR security pods were military-grade unmanned attack robots, prototype weapons developed with anti-demonic combat in mind.

  These unmanned attack robots barreled toward the invading girl, slamming her with a downpour of gunfire. The bullets were small-caliber, high-velocity cursed rounds made with cutti
ng-edge platinum-rhodium tips, able to inflict lasting damage upon demons.

  Amidst the 2,000-rounds-per-minute volley inflicted by some thirty security pods, the rainbow-haired girl wryly smiled and commanded her Beast Vassal to attack. The darkness shrouding the sky above them unleashed giant balls of lightning, which then transformed into countless arrows of light that poured down onto the laboratory grounds. The high-temperature shock waves they released pulverized the attack drones, gouging huge holes in the ground and the exterior walls of nearby buildings in the process.

  The security personnel on standby behind the security pods shrieked and began to flee.

  The girl trod upon the wreckage of the autonomous attack robots as she gazed at those fleeing with a look of surprise. Her expression said that she found it strange they were still alive after having turned their guns upon her.

  Licking her lips in obvious pleasure, she acknowledged the silhouette standing amid the smoke from the blast.

  “Hmm. So you are the one who saved their lives—”

  She was addressing the small girl with the silver spear who had fended off her Beast Vassal’s attack.

  “I see,” she continued. “There was a rumor that a wielder of a Schneewaltzer had been dispatched to monitor the Fourth Primogenitor. How intriguing—I now have a modest interest in you. Name yourself, girl.”

  Yukina replied to the girl’s haughty question with a firm tone of voice.

  “Yukina Himeragi. Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency.”

  Up close, the girl’s dreadful aura was beyond Yukina’s wildest expectations. If she faltered for a single second, she would completely lose all will to fight. Her enemy gave off a sense of overwhelming might far surpassing all the various foes Yukina had faced until that day.

  Watching the Sword Shaman keep her spear poised at the ready, she grinned in admiration.

  “Do not move. Please release the Beast Vassal you have summoned and obey my instructions,” Yukina ordered.

  With a giggle, the girl’s lips formed a wild smile.