“The peasants are in an uproar.”
“Let us indulge in some amusement, shall we?”
The squad leader continued his countdown. The two witches continued walking, even past the allotted ten seconds. After a bitter expression came over the squad leader momentarily, he shouted in an unmoved tone of voice.
“Fire!”
Blue sparks scattered into the darkness. The sound of countless gunshots blended into a single, thunderous sound that shook the earth. However, the hail of bullets they rained down did not touch the witches whatsoever.
A giant tentacle split the sea and leaped forth, serving as their shield, blocking all of the bullets flying at them. The guardsmen were in shock at the bizarre sight.
The tentacle had a diameter of some hundred and fifty centimeters at its thickest point; they couldn’t even get a good look at how long it was. It was a translucent appendage suggestive of a cephalopod; a squid, perhaps. Moving like snakes, more tentacles entered the fray, completely concealing the witches behind them.
“You live in a Demon Sanctuary. Are you really surprised by a familiar of this level?” The scarlet witch made a haughty laugh as if to mock the troops that seemed ready to flee.
The black witch cruelly twisted her lips and shook her head.
“That is an unreasonable request, Octavia. It is a city in which that uncouth little girl dwells, after all.”
“True, my sister.”
The scarlet witch spread out the book she had been carrying under one arm. She pressed her palm onto the book. The symbols drawn upon it glowed, releasing an immense amount of magical energy.
“Then let them at least beautify this filthy city with their own blood.”
The tentacles moved with even greater force.
The guardsmen continued to fire, but naturally, even large-caliber rounds could not penetrate translucent tentacles over a full meter thick. The barrage ended when they ran out of ammunition.
That instant, the tentacles switched to the offensive.
The tentacles, extending like giant leathery whips, mowed the guardsmen down one after another.
Shields were meaningless against such an overwhelming difference in mass. The stout troops were tossed aside like bowling pins; the formation enveloping the witches completely fell apart.
“What the hell are they—?!” the squad leader angrily shouted.
They were Demon Sanctuary guardsmen with heavy combat experience. No familiar controlled by a magic user had ever chewed them up and spat them out like this.
However, these tentacles were on a different level. Such a mighty familiar was well beyond the summoning capacity of an ordinary human being. This was a monster that rivaled even vampiric Beast Vassals. Surely the life force consumption required to summon a monster on this scale would instantly burn out anything but an immortal vampire.
In the recent past, there had apparently been experiments to graft a Beast Vassal to a homunculus, but even their bodies, with natural life spans far in excess of a human’s, were exhausted in but a short time.
No—there was one way and only one. A shortcut that one could call an exception.
It was a way for someone to gain enormous demonic power rivaling that of a vampire, even while remaining in human form.
A devil could grant such a person power in exchange for her very soul. In other words, a witch—
An operator from Island Guard HQ sent an emergency message straight to the squad leader’s earphone.
“Spell rune has been cross-referenced using the Gigafloat Management Corporation’s criminal data bank. High probability these are the top-rank criminal sorceresses ‘the Meyer Sisters’ assigned to LCO’s First Branch, ‘Philosophy.’”
The squad leader’s voice shook with despair.
“The Meyer Sisters?! The Ashdown Witches?!”
The Meyer Sisters were international sorcery criminals who had conducted a dangerous magical ritual in the imperial state of Ashdown of the North Sea, and the ensuing disaster had wiped out an entire provincial capital.
These same sisters had appeared at Itogami Island some ten years prior, inflicting severe, unprecedented damage.
If those witch sisters had appeared once more, the weapons of the Interdiction Unit were nowhere near enough to deal with them.
“Quite correct. It seems you do remember us still.”
“Marvelous. Here is your reward.”
Looking over the shocked guardsmen, the black witch raised her own book to the sky. The ground at the troops’ feet split open; a malignant miasma rose through the crack.
Snapping back to his senses, the squad leader tried to order his men to fall back. But it was already too late. A new tentacle emerged from the split in the ground’s surface, ripping apart the artificial island’s steel foundation and dragging the guardsmen toward the bottom of the dark sea.
When the overwhelming onslaught concluded, a strange silence came over the cliff-side road.
All that remained on the surface of the ground were two witches, one scarlet and one black.
The scarlet witch murmured in a bored tone as she put her book back under her cloak. “A pathetic bunch. If they were all we faced, we wouldn’t need help from the Library at all.”
The black witch nodded.
“Quite so, Octavia.”
Lifting the rim of her triangular hat, she glared at the night skyline of Itogami City.
“But do not forget. Natsuki is in this city…that abominable Witch of the Void!”
Leaving a wet plop behind, the giant tentacles returned to the sea.
The two witches melted into the darkness once more, leaving nothing behind save the evidence of their senseless destruction.
Midnight had passed. It was a new day.
One more day remained until the wild, blood-drenched banquet was set to begin—
CHAPTER TWO
MY DEAR CHILDHOOD FRIEND
1
Itogami Island’s central airport was completely jammed with travelers.
On this day, the Friday of the last week of October, they were heading to festivities the night before the Hollow Eve Festival itself. There were numerous events scheduled to begin in the evening, resulting in the first real flood of tourists from off the island.
The road connecting the airport to the monorail station was heavily congested, completely taken over by people dragging their luggage along. Kojou and the others wedged themselves through the crowd, somehow finally arriving at the airport terminal.
Kojou raggedly exhaled as he looked up at the time on the electronic billboard.
“Looks like we made it in time…?”
The time was already past a quarter after nine in the morning. However, there was still no sight of the person he was meeting. From the looks of it, he might have been in the crowd around luggage pickup; maybe quarantine and customs inspection was taking a while.
Nagisa was fuming in anger.
“Well, it’s your fault! You took so long getting ready that we had to work up a sweat, too. And I picked up such awesome clothes! Why’d you have to sleep in on a day like this? I can’t believe it, it’s just unreal.”
It figured—however heavily her shoulders heaved, her word output did not diminish in any way.
“Sorry already! Thanks to the fuss last night I was wide awake and couldn’t sleep!”
“You were worked up from remembering Kanon visiting your room, weren’t you? It’s so embarrassing!”
“U…gh…!”
Kojou was at a loss for words as Nagisa hit the mark. Kojou didn’t have the nerves of steel it would’ve taken to sleep soundly after getting stimulated so much that his urge to drink blood had kicked in.
Kanon bowed her head, feeling responsible for some reason. “I’m so sorry, Akatsuki. It’s my fault.”
Today, she was wearing a plain and simple gray cotton dress. But the plain outfit only served to emphasize Kanon’s extravagant silver hair even more, bathing her in atte
ntion from the people at the airport.
“Nah, don’t worry about it, not your fault, Kanase.”
It was Yukina who spoke with a tone that had a conflicted twinge to it, giving voice to Kanon’s feelings. “…But I wonder if we really should have come, too? I hope it’s not a bother…” Yukina was wearing a one-piece polo outfit with knee-high socks. Of course, the guitar case was over her back, as always. For that reason, she looked like a member of some kind of band.
Actually, most of Yukina’s personal clothes had been picked out and sent over by Sayaka. Kojou couldn’t help but imagine Sayaka getting chills while picking them out, but he wasn’t surprised her choices suited Yukina very nicely.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. This is your first Hollow Eve Festival, too, Yukina. It’s more fun if you come around with all of us. It doesn’t take any more time to show one person around than it does three. Right, Kojou?”
Nagisa wrapped her arms around her friends’ shoulders without restraint as she spoke in a cheerful tone.
Kojou made a generous shrug of his shoulders.
“I’ve got no complaints about you keeping Nagisa company. Yuuma said it was fine, too.”
Nagisa added a “yeah,” nodding without hesitation.
“Yuuma was happy we’re bringing friends along. Yuu’s been nice to girls since waaaay back.”
“Yeah.”
Kojou made a light sigh as he kept pace with Nagisa’s comments.
Kanon was Nagisa’s friend to begin with. There was nothing for Kojou to find wrong with their hanging out anyway. Besides, if he’d let Yukina be, she’d tail him for sure, saying it was part of her watcher duties. In that case, it was more relaxing to have her where he could see her. No, Kojou had another reason for sighing.
“…So, what are you two doing here?”
Kojou whirled his head toward a boy and girl watching him from the shadow of a pillar. One was a schoolgirl with an extravagant hairstyle; the other was a young, short-haired man with headphones hanging around his neck. Both had very showy carnival masks over their faces. Maybe they’d meant those to be disguises; at any rate, they stood out so much that it had the opposite effect.
Realizing her identity had been exposed, Asagi reluctantly took off her mask.
“…You have done well to see through our perfect disguises.”
Kojou was too flabbergasted to even think about laughing. “You call those perfect? They’re way too obvious. Where’d you get that mask, anyway?”
Yaze proudly puffed out his chest as he stroked the lifelike peacock feathers of his mask. “Oh, just one of those places selling stuff for the costume parade.”
“So what, you’re bored stiff so you came over here?”
“Geez, what’s wrong with that? We just wanted to get a look at your friend’s face. We’re heading home after that.”
“Yeah,” added Asagi. “We wanna see what your childhood friend looks like, Kojou. Just think of it like we’re just passing through.”
“I could’ve just introduced you,” Kojou replied. “You didn’t have to hide and watch like that.”
Kojou recalled that both Yaze and Asagi had been present when the rendezvous had come up in conversation. Perhaps they were both displaying an unexpected amount of consideration, thinking that they didn’t want to intrude on his reunion with his old friend. He shook his head in exasperation at how they must’ve thought he’d cruelly brush them off. Then—
Without warning, someone called out to Kojou from above their heads in a very loud voice.
“…Kojou!”
It was a rich alto voice that carried across the packed terminal with impressive clarity.
As the voice hit him, Kojou reflexively looked up to see a human silhouette descending upon him. Someone had slid down the stair rail and leaped right in front of Kojou’s eyes.
It was a girl with a very excitable air about her.
Her hair was in a short bob with the ends curled up. She wore a sports brand hoodie over her torso. Her long, curvy legs extended beyond her short pants. Her slender calves and rugged basketball shoes made for an oddly cute pair.
“Whoa?!” exclaimed Kojou.
Kojou somehow managed to catch the girl, right in front of Asagi and the others’ shocked eyes. As a result, the two were in a tight embrace as Kojou gave the girl a dumbfounded look.
“Y-Yuuma?!”
“Heya. Long time no see, Kojou.”
The girl called Yuuma narrowed her eyes as she made a mischievous smile. Her smiling face was off-the-charts adorable in a very boyish way. Kojou put her down with an annoyed look.
“…You almost made my heart stop there. You’re just totally reckless, you know that?”
The girl laughed eloquently, looking around the area. She seemed to finally notice that her antics had drawn the attention of the entire lobby upon them. She stuck her tongue out a bit as if slightly put off, looking at Kojou. Kojou was about to let out a very deep sigh when Nagisa stepped between them, as if to keep him from doing so.
“Yuu!”
“Nagisa, you’ve grown so beautiful. I didn’t recognize you.”
“Oh, there you go again…! I sent you a picture practically yesterday.”
“No, no. The real thing puts the picture to shame.”
You’d think that line was sweet enough to make your teeth rot, but it was oddly persuasive when coming out of a girl’s mouth.
Asagi gazed dumbfounded at the Akatsuki siblings’ conversation with the mystery girl as Yukina, standing beside her, grabbed her shoulders and strongly shook her.
“What’s this? What’s going on here?!”
For once, Yukina sounded completely baffled. “D-don’t ask me, I have no idea…”
The watcher of the Fourth Primogenitor had no idea whatsoever how the meeting with the boy he’d apparently been friends with back in elementary school had morphed into an intimate conversation with a beautiful girl.
Finally regaining her senses, Asagi forced her way to Kojou and asked, “Hey, Kojou. What’s the meaning of this?”
Kojou seemed at a loss as he looked at his friend, who looked much more bloodthirsty since he’d last checked. “Of what?”
“Who is this person?”
Yukina circled around Kojou’s back as she asked. Strangely, she and Asagi seemed like comrades in arms. Kojou, the pincer movement having cut off all avenues of escape, uncomfortably shrugged his shoulders.
“My childhood friend. Duh.”
Yukina and Asagi interjected at nearly the same time.
“This is a girl, though?”
“And a really good-looking one?!”
Kojou looked even more bewildered.
“…What are you guys worked up for? You saw the picture back at my place last night.”
“Oh yeah, you never actually said you were meeting up with a guy,” Yaze calmly pointed out.
“Muu,” went Asagi and Yukina, biting their lips in silence.
Now that he mentioned it, sure, when Kojou said he was meeting an old friend, they naturally thought he meant a guy, but neither sibling had ever actually said so. Indeed, thinking back to the picture they’d seen, the person seemed too pretty to be an actual boy.
Plus, the vestiges of the person in the picture were evident on the face of the mystery girl Nagisa was happily speaking with. So, they were indeed one and the same. QED.
“—So they’re friends from your school, Kojou?”
The mystery girl approached Asagi and the others, who had not recovered from the shell shock of which she was the cause, and made a very warm smile at them. She wasn’t much taller than Asagi, but her tight frame without a single bit of excess flesh created a near-perfect body shape, which seemed blatantly unfair.
Plus, she had that radiant, smiling face. If she wanted, she could probably make anyone young or old, of either gender, swoon for her.
But perhaps because it was old news to him, her smiling face didn’t even make Kojou bat an eyebrow.
“Yeah, these girls here are Nagisa’s classmates,” Kojou explained.
Kanon and Yukina introduced themselves in that order. After that, Kojou pointed at Asagi and Yaze.
“—And these two are just passing through.”
“Who’s just passing through?!” Asagi angrily replied on pure reflex.
Kojou scowled with a look of dismay. “You’re the one who told me to think of you like that!”
Watching the exchange between Asagi and Kojou with amusement, the girl made a textbook formal bow.
“Ha-ha-ha, thank you for taking such good care of Kojou for me. Yuuma Tokoyogi. A pleasure to meet you.”
2
Kojou and the others ditched the lethal crowds at the monorail and took a bus to Keystone Gate.
It was the biggest building in Itogami City and the facility used to administer the entire island, but at the same time, it was the site of the island’s No. 1 collection of top-brand stores, making it stellar for killing time.
It also came with a library for visitors to the Demon Sanctuary and souvenir shops, so it was common sense for natives giving tourists a tour of Itogami Island to start there.
After giving the library a once-over, Kojou’s party entered a small cafeteria Yaze had recommended. The interior seemed a little retro, but the place had a pretty nice feel to it.
Since there weren’t any tables for four available, the three middle school students and high schoolers split up and sat separately. High schoolers Asagi and Yaze formed one group and Kojou and Yuuma formed another. Kojou and Yuuma had gone to pick up the meals, automatically relegating Asagi and Yaze to remain in their seats, looking out for everyone’s things.
Yaze made a sarcastic smile as he watched Asagi exercise bad manners, sipping on her glass of ginger ale through a straw.
“…You don’t look all that enthused.”
Yaze tossed Asagi a sarcastic smile as he watched her ignore good manners as she blew bubbles into her glass of ginger ale.
“You look like you’re having plenty of fun.”
Yaze nodded a firm Yeah! “Not exactly as nice as my senior year girl, but this Yuuma chick’s not bad looking, especially those legs and hips. She looks slender, but her chest is actually pretty nice.”
Labyrinth of the Blue Witch Page 5
