Labyrinth of the Blue Witch

by Gakuto Mikumo

  “Ah, that’s right. You’ve never seen one before, Himeragi?”

  Yukina nodded at Kojou’s words.

  On special orders from the Lion King Agency, Yukina had begun monitoring Kojou just before the end of summer break.

  It hadn’t even been two months since she’d come to Itogami Island, and Kojou was unhappily aware that in that short time, they had faced death together several times over.

  “I knew that the event existed, but I didn’t think it was a festival on such a huge scale.”

  “They go all out. All the businesses on the island close for the day. It gets way easier for people to get permission to come to Itogami Island, too, so we’ve got tons of tourists.”

  As Kojou spoke, he looked up at an advertisement hanging inside the train car.

  The Hollow Eve Festival, opening in the last week of October every year, was Itogami Island’s biggest festival. There were fireworks displays, outdoor concerts, float parades, and all sorts of other events; the commotion filled the whole island. At this time of year, over two hundred thousand tourists came to visit Itogami Island—a shocking number when you considered the distance of the island from the Japanese mainland.

  There was a reason behind those numbers. Normally, no one besides people related to the corporations and research organizations of the Demon Sanctuary of Itogami Island were permitted to enter. If you were a tourist or journalist who wanted to visit, or you wanted to do business with the corporations in the Demon Sanctuary, festival time was your golden opportunity to get into the city in style.

  At any rate, posters for the Hollow Eve Festival had been plastered all over Itogami City for several days. There were TV specials complete with opportunistically targeted commercials, and so forth; there was no mistaking the festive mood stirring throughout the entire island.

  “So it’s based on Halloween, then?” Yukina asked as she gazed at the jack-o’-lantern drawn on the poster.

  “I guess, yeah. Dunno why they picked Halloween, though,” said Kojou in a quietly dubious voice, as though it were somebody else’s problem.

  Itogami Island didn’t have any native people to start with. But a festival, an event that didn’t happen every day, was very effective at pleasing the masses—and stimulating the economy. So, in the name of administrative service, the Gigafloat Management Corporation created the Hollow Eve Festival based on Halloween.

  Put another way, they didn’t have any reason not to base it on Halloween. For all Kojou cared, they could’ve based it on Valentine’s Day or the Star Festival of Tanabata.

  But Yukina replied in an unexpectedly overserious tone. “Halloween was originally a ceremony for driving off evil, after all. I believe it is an event well suited to a demon sanctuary.”

  “Huh…that’s what you figure?”

  “Yes. In the ancient Celtic religion, it was believed the approach of the winter season was a time when paths formed between this world and the world of spirits, making the way for the arrival of spirits and witches. They wore disguises and lit bonfires to protect themselves from monsters, and thus began Halloween.”

  “Mmm,” murmured Kojou, accepting her explanation at face value. It hadn’t even been a year since Kojou had—absurdly—become the so-called Fourth Primogenitor. His ordinary high school–level knowledge of superstition, witchcraft, and the occult had proved pretty much useless. He had no intention of pitting his knowledge against Yukina’s, who’d received special education as a Lion King Organization Attack Mage.

  “So that’s where Halloween disguises and jack-o’-lanterns come from, huh?”

  “Yes. Besides, the Halloween tradition itself is certainly not without basis. After all, it is scientific fact that spatial connections become unstable more easily at this time of year. There are documented instances of encounters with ‘visitors’ from other times and ‘uninvited’ from other worlds.”

  “…Gimme a break. I don’t wanna deal with guys like that.”

  Kojou’s disagreeable look was in complete seriousness. This was a Demon Sanctuary, after all. You’d never catch him saying it wasn’t possible to meet whacked-out things like that. Even without guys like that, he was already thoroughly fed up from bumping into super-rare stuff like Nalakuvera and Faux-Angels.

  And yet, Yukina stared at him with a serious expression. “Yes, senpai, so please do be careful,” she pleaded.

  “Huh?” Kojou looked back at Yukina in bewilderment. “Er…be careful, you say. Is my attitude gonna do any good to invaders from another world or whatever?”

  More than that, Kojou was shocked by the reality that Yukina seemed to think he liked being a magnet for trouble. No student yearned for a peaceful life more than Kojou. And yet…

  “Wha…?” Yukina blinked, her eyes looking even more surprised than his. “I mean, you are the source of the island’s least stable, most dangerous magical energy, senpai. Please do not let your Beast Vassals run wild and warp an already unstable space. In particular, be on your guard for vampiric ur—”

  Before Yukina could finish her line, the monorail began to slow as it approached the station. Obeying the law of inertia, the passengers pitched forward; Kojou, his balance thrown off, found his left hand fondling Yukina’s breast.

  “Senpai…!”

  “W-wait! That was a totally unforeseeable circumstance!!”

  “No, I don’t mean that—her…!”

  Yukina’s sharp gaze was trained not on Kojou but on a commuting schoolgirl a short distance away. She wore a Saikai Academy school uniform, but she was even smaller than Yukina. Her long, glossy black hair and unusually pale flesh stood out quite a bit.

  “A high school student? Feels like a dangerous spot there.”

  Kojou raised his eyebrows as he watched the girl buried in the crowd. She was standing right in a packed corridor with nowhere to run. As the girl bashfully hung her head, a middle-aged man was behaving suspiciously right behind her back.

  “Yes. Perhaps that man standing behind her is—”

  “A molester?! That bastard—!”

  “Wha—?!”

  Kojou began charging toward the man with a vigor that caught Yukina completely unprepared. It wasn’t that Kojou had an overinflated sense of justice, but this was still inexcusable evil to him. To Kojou, who had an adolescent little sister, molestation was at the top of his list of unforgivable crimes. If he ever caught anyone making sport of Nagisa on her way to school, he’d never be satisfied with just catching him and dragging him to the police.

  “Please, senpai, wait! Senpai! We have to be sure before…!”

  Yukina tried to keep up as Kojou pushed his way through the passengers. That moment, Kojou confirmed that the man, already at the little schoolgirl’s side, was extending his hand toward the girl’s thigh. Kojou extended his own hand to grab his—and the next moment, the stopped monorail’s door opened wide.

  Having spent all that time packed to their limits, the passengers rushed onto the platform as one, catching Kojou in their wake. With all his might, he extended his fingertips forward and ended up touching the small girl’s butt.

  That instant, a different hand reached in from the side and firmly caught Kojou’s wrist.

  “Huh?”

  “—Why hello, Mr. Molester. I’ve caught you in the act,” an oddly energetic voice whispered into Kojou’s ear. The voice came from a young woman with red hair worn in a twin bun style. She was wearing a Chinese-style shirt and miniskirt. The outfit seemed sporty enough to play actual sports in, and her posture was very good. He felt like he’d seen her face somewhere before.

  “H…hey, let go! I’m not a molester, I was just trying to help that girl out…!”

  Kojou desperately resisted as he was dragged onto the station platform, but the red-haired woman did not release her firm hold on his wrist. Kojou’s bones creaked from the inhuman power of her grip.

  “From that uniform, don’t tell me you’re one of our students? Wait, Akatsuki’s big brother?”
>
  “…Eh?!”

  Having finally caught up to Kojou, Yukina stopped and called out in surprise.

  “Ms. Sasasaki!”

  The red-haired woman raised her eyebrows in mild surprise. Seeing this, Kojou finally remembered who she was.

  This was Saikai Academy’s middle school physical education teacher, Misaki Sasasaki—Yukina and Nagisa’s homeroom teacher.

  “And you were with him, too, Himeragi? You need to take proper care of your own man.”

  “It—it’s not like that. H-he’s not mine, nor is he a molester.”

  “Is that so?”

  With Yukina vouching for Kojou, Misaki finally released his wrist. Kojou, in danger of being falsely accused of molesting a girl, took a very deep breath as sweat rolled down his brow.

  Behind Kojou and the others, he heard a lisping but strangely threatening voice.

  “The real molester is over here, you dumb mutt.”

  They heard a man make a pathetic cry. Turning around on reflex, Kojou and the others saw the middle-aged fellow, shaking in terror, his entire body wrapped in chains. Dragging him along was the schoolgirl with long, dark hair who had nearly been a molestation victim but a few moments earlier. Kojou finally realized who she really was.

  “Huh?”

  “…Ms. Minamiya?”

  Kojou and Yukina’s voices were totally bewildered.

  It was Natsuki Minamiya standing there in a school uniform. Saikai Academy’s high school English teacher’s self-proclaimed age was twenty-six. However, based on her face, her silhouette, and the details of her body, the term teenager fit better, if not little girl.

  “Wait, you’re Natsuki? Why are you dressed like that?”

  “On patrol. A lot of students have been molested on trains lately.”

  “…Why a high school uniform?”

  “We can’t be using students as decoys for a molester investigation, so I’m in disguise. I realize it’s pushing it.”

  “Now I see,” said Kojou in acceptance. She might have looked young, but Natsuki was an incredibly skilled Attack Mage. She was so accomplished that her side job was working as an instructor for the Island Guard. Many demons knew and feared her by her nickname, the “Witch of the Void.” Assigning her to draw out a mere molester was titanic overkill. And there weren’t very many teachers who would look so convincing in a school uniform.

  “It’s not pushing it, you’re a total natural in it… If anything, the middle school uniform would suit you better.”

  “You see, Natsuki? It’s exactly like I said, isn’t it?”

  Misaki smiled proudly and thrust her chest out. Though she was a bit short of a hundred and sixty centimeters in height herself, paired with the tiny Natsuki, they completely looked like parent and child.

  Not appreciating this, Natsuki shooed Misaki away. “No one asked you. Besides, I didn’t have any uniforms left over from middle school, so I had no choice.”

  “Left over… Wait, you used to wear that uniform, Natsuki?”

  Kojou reflexively looked all over Natsuki’s uniform. Now that she mentioned it, the size was perfect, even though she was only as tall as an elementary school student. If that was her own personal uniform, it meant Natsuki had graduated from Saikai Academy, which was news to Kojou’s ears.

  “Don’t call your homeroom teacher by her first name.” Natsuki’s lips gloomily twisted. “Why are you so respectful to that dumb mutt when you call me by my first name?”

  “Guess it’s difference in authority and personality,” said Misaki.

  “Stop petting me!”

  Misaki was petting Natsuki’s head like she was fawning over a little girl. Natsuki glared at her fellow teacher. Natsuki, whose ego was unparalleled, somehow had a hard time dealing only with Misaki Sasasaki, whom she’d known since her school days. Maybe it was just in their natures.

  Kojou spoke up as he watched the two teachers tease each other.

  “Well, that’s how it is, so can we go now? We’re already running short on time.”

  Misaki glanced at the middle-aged man wrapped in chains and laughed shamelessly at him.

  “That’s fine. We caught the real molester, after all.”

  Kojou and Yukina made light bows to the pair of lady teachers and walked toward the ticket examiner. It was still morning, but Kojou already felt dead tired.

  That was when Natsuki called out to him.

  “Kojou Akatsuki.”

  “Yes?” Kojou turned to look innocently back, and he saw a strange look come over Natsuki. Not being able to read her emotions was standard, but something about her was different now. She had a smile on her face like one you wore just after meeting an old friend, with longing and heartbreak thrown into the mix.

  “It’ll be the Hollow Eve Festival soon.”

  “Yeah. It will.” Though thrown off, Kojou managed to keep pace with her.

  “Hmph,” went Natsuki through her nostrils. She made the same imperious smile she always did. Then, she spoke with a haughty tone of voice.

  “Classes resume normally at the beginning of next week. Make sure you’re not late getting back.”

  2

  In the final week of October when the Hollow Eve Festival would begin, Saikai Academy went on school holiday starting the day before the festival.

  To the people in clubs that were participating in events like concert band performances and classroom displays, those who would be working on or appearing on floats sponsored by city businesses, those working part-time jobs, or those who simply wanted to enjoy the festival to the fullest, the Hollow Eve Festival was a time of year when the students of Itogami City were frantic with activity.

  There were numerous advisories from the school in an effort to keep the students out of trouble. Consequently, here on the day before the school holiday was to begin, homeroom time was extended so that everyone’s homeroom teacher could drill these advisories into them.

  But this, too, was a yearly ritual. High schoolers who’d heard it all before were even less likely to pay much attention. And that was when something completely at odds with all common sense occurred in Kojou Akatsuki’s class.

  It was a slender, little girl who stood on the teacher’s lectern.

  She had indigo-blue hair and blue eyes. Her beautiful visage had a completely artificial symmetry to it. The girl was a homunculus, born through industrial processes wrought by man.

  Of course, no student in a Demon Sanctuary like this was going to do a double take over a homunculus. But the fact that she was clad in a very exposing apron dress and that she was reading the list of advisories in the capacity of substitute teacher—that was unusual.

  “A maid… Hey, that’s Natsuki’s personal maid, isn’t it?”

  “Why is a maid teaching?”

  “She’s called Astarte, right…? She’s cute.”

  “Hey, the bigger deal is this rumor going around that Natsuki was wearing a school uniform at the station.”

  “…Yeah, she could totally pull that off.”

  Even as the students, who had not yet grasped the situation, fiercely whispered among one another, all eyes were on Astarte’s every word and deed. As a result, she faithfully accomplished her primary mission of conveying the festival time advisories to the class.

  “…What the heck was that all about?” Now that she had done her duty, the homunculus girl returned to the teacher’s waiting room. Asagi Aiba posed the question to Kojou as she watched the girl head off. She was a schoolgirl with a gorgeous hairstyle and a uniform scraping by regulations in just the right places.

  “She said it herself, didn’t she? Natsuki’s absent and asked her to fill in.”

  “Hmm. I guess an Attack Mage would be busier right before the festival?” Asagi murmured back, seeming to tentatively buy it. Kojou had been on the fence but kept quiet about Natsuki going around town looking like she was cosplaying a high school girl. She’d get scary if she heard he’d damaged her reputation in any way.


  Besides, school was going to be out in short order, well before noon. All that was left was putting their things together and heading home.

  The monorail’s probably a lot less packed by now, Kojou thought to himself as he prepared to leave, when he met Asagi’s eyes. She looked like she wanted to say something.

  What? Kojou wondered, casually tilting his head a bit. Asagi seemed resolute as she opened her mouth.

  The very next instant, Kojou was suddenly surrounded by a mob of noisy male classmates.

  “Hey, Akatsuki. You scheduled to get into any Hollow Eve Festival events?”

  “Nah. Hadn’t decided on anything.”

  The classmates had dubious looks on their faces as Kojou replied to the question. Hearing his answer, the boys’ eyes seemed to glimmer. They were like a pack of carnivorous beasts with prey in their sights.

  “That so. Why don’t you work part-time, then? We’ve got an open café scheduled in town, but we’re a few people short. Of course, you’ll get paid for it. How’s 250 yen an hour sound?”

  “Wait, Kojou! If you’re gonna be working, be a salesboy at our booth! We’ll give you a commission of ten…no, twenty percent of sales!”

  “Hold on, Kojou! Don’t forget there’s the legendary Hollow Eve Festival beach volleyball tournament!

  “Don’t you wanna work up a sweat with us with all that sand and fresh air?”

  “Stop right there! Beauty pageants are the soul of any festival. We want you as a special judge. So come to Thetis Mall today like your life depends on it!!”

  “Uh…umm?”

  A guarded look came over Kojou in the face of his classmates’ coercive invitations. Seeing them like that, Asagi appeared displeased. She called over to a good friend. “Hey, Rin…what’s all that?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Hee-hee. Akatsuki’s very popular, you see.” Rin Tsukishima narrowed her eyes and laughed mischievously. Her teasing tone brought an “ugh” from Asagi as her cheek twitched. She was a tall, stylish girl with the air of an adult, classifying Rin as a “cool beauty” type, but she was surprisingly talkative and had razor-sharp intuition. She seemed perfectly well aware of why Asagi was in a foul mood.