Labyrinth of the Blue Witch

by Gakuto Mikumo

  “—Daughters of the gods that reside within me, destroyers of shields, hail and storm, heralds of victory, those who carry the departed!” The eerie tentacles rushed toward the princess’s slender body. One would think she was being attacked by a giant mass of serpents. Certain of victory, the witches’ lips twisted into smiles.

  Their smiling faces froze as a dazzling flash of light shone upon them.

  “Wha—?!”

  The source of the light was La Folia’s bayonet. A fire that glimmered bluish white spewed forth, transforming into a giant sword. It was a sword of light with a blade that reached dozens of meters in length.

  The blade pulverized the onrushing swarm of tentacles like so much stale bread.

  “S-sister!”

  “That light is the blessing of the spirits… That shouldn’t be possible, but…!”

  The witch sisters were falling into a panic as they watched their Guardian being mowed down without any resistance.

  The beam the princess wielded was the Völundr System of the Aldegian royal knights. It was a tactical support system that infused a large mass of spiritual energy into a weapon, temporarily turning it into a holy sword class spiritual weapon.

  It was equipment that normally required a large-scale spiritual reactor to provide the spiritual energy, but La Folia, a spirit medium, was able to summon spirits into her own body to produce the effect single-handedly.

  The spiritual glow, lethal to demons, nullified the defensive magic of the grimoire and mowed down the swarm of tentacles. It was overwhelming destructiveness, akin to using a scythe to cut weeds.

  And the new solemn prayer chant they heard came from Sayaka. “—I, Dancer of the Lion, Archer of the High God, beseech thee.”

  Sayaka’s sword had transformed into a bow since the last time they’d checked. It was a modern-looking recurve bow. She notched an extendable metal arrow. It was called a Der Freischötz. It was a prototype transformable weapon, the pride of the Lion King Agency.

  “Most Brilliant Flaming Horse, Illustrious Kirin, He who Governs Heavenly Thunder, pierce these evil spirits with thy wrath…!”

  Sayaka unleashed her arrow right above her own head. The arrow, whistling in flight, released a sound like that of a wailing voice.

  The whistling arrow unleashed by the magic bow Der Freischötz had an auditory capacity far beyond that of human lungs, capable of chanting high-intensity curses. It was the curse, not the arrow, which was the real attack.

  Sayaka had unleashed a malicious hex that would remove all spells cast upon the Guardian and envelop its main body in flames. The hex traveled through the roots of the Guardian, with lethal effect upon the entirety of Ashdown forest, over three hundred hectares strong.

  It was not even several minutes until the purifying flames annihilated the Guardian of the Meyer Sisters. Aside from the vestiges of a burned-out magic circle, everything had bizarrely vanished.

  “The forest… It’s gone… How can this…?”

  “O-our…Ashdown Guardian is…” Knowing that they had lost, the witch sisters clutched their grimoires with religious zeal as they scrambled to flee. However, their faces were already twitching with despair.

  Realizing that the tentacles had been annihilated, the Island Guard troops on standby in the corridor poured in like an avalanche. Without their Guardian, the witches had no way to flee off the top of a building over sixty meters tall. A hail of warning shots at their feet made the two witches collapse then and there.

  The witch sisters were quaking and embracing each other when the guardsmen arrested them.

  “S-sister…?!”

  “It can’t be… Us, captured by peasants like these…”

  Nose clips to obstruct spell casting; headgear to block telepathy; shackles attuned to the peculiarities of a witch’s flesh—those who upheld the law in a Demon Sanctuary had plenty of know-how where capturing witches was concerned and had been supplied with quality anti-witch gear. It was essentially impossible for people of the level of the Meyer Sisters to escape custody.

  “…”

  Even so, Sayaka stood at the princess’s side without letting down her guard.

  Though it had landed her in combat against witches as a result, Sayaka’s proper mission was guarding La Folia. It was Sayaka’s duty to protect the princess until she left Itogami Island.

  The situation with the spatial anomalies enveloping the entirety of Itogami Island had already been altered. The grimoire used to distort space had been lost, and the possibility of danger befalling the princess had vanished. Yuuma Tokoyogi was still at large, but La Folia no longer had any reason to fight her.

  Besides, La Folia was just as constrained by duty as she was. Her position as princess prevented her from moving as she wished. Even if she wanted to help Kojou and Yukina, circumstances simply did not allow her to do so.

  As a result, Sayaka couldn’t leave that place, either. Even though she knew Kojou, Yukina, and the prison barrier were in danger, there was nothing she could do. That fact caused deep internal distress inside Sayaka.

  Suddenly, they heard a hearty man’s voice from behind them.

  “Your Highness, are you all right—?”

  Men covered in bombastic armored combat suits descended from an Island Guard helicopter hovering close by. They were members of the Aldegian knights—La Folia’s men.

  “It is good that you are here. How goes the hunt?”

  La Folia’s question brought grateful-looking smiles from the knights. Through a covert agreement with the Island Guard, the Aldegian knights had been deployed within the city on special assignment.

  “Four groups of LCO remnants destroyed, seven grimoires seized. They shall be good souveniers for His Highness.”

  The squad leader of the night looked quite proud as he reported the successful completion of their mission.

  La Folia made a teasing smile as she nodded.

  “Is that so. ’Twould seem enough to excuse my moving the knights on my own authority.” The Aldegian knights would assist in the capture of LCO operatives that had landed on Itogami Island in exchange for the grimoires in their possession. That was the condition La Folia had set.

  In so doing, the Island Guard had received aid in the field when it mattered most, and the kingdom of Aldegia had obtained precious grimoires in turn. It was a win-win deal typical of La Folia, a seasoned negotiator.

  “We have confirmed that Her Highness is safe as well. She is currently under the care of Misaki Sasasaki.”

  “…Misaki Sasasaki? The so-called ‘Lady Wizard,’ a Wizard of the Four Fists?”

  “That would appear to be the case.”

  The squad leader nodded respectfully as La Folia raised her eyebrows in mild surprise.

  Sayaka was very familiar with the title “Wizard of the Four Fists.”

  It meant an expert in close combat who had mastered wizardry and martial arts to a very high level. One of them was employed by the Lion King Agency as a martial arts instructor. Even though it was during their apprenticeship, Yukina and Sayaka had challenged that monster simultaneously—and neither of them could lay a single finger on her.

  A monster of equal standing was taking care of Kanon Kanase. Knowing this, an expression of relief came over La Folia. It was an honest expression with nothing hidden that was quite unlike her.

  Then, the princess turned to Sayaka, who had pulled back just a little.

  “I would have liked to watch the course of events a bit longer, but it seems I am out of time. I must depart this nation immediately.”

  “Ah…yes.” For a moment, La Folia’s seemingly abrupt statement brought a dubious look over Sayaka, but she soon realized the princess’s true intent.

  If the princess left Japan, Sayaka’s mission would be over. She would be able to move according to her own judgment. Surely she would be able to go aid Kojou and Yukina until the Lion King Agency assigned her a new mission.

  An opaque expression came to La Folia’s
face as she spoke.

  “You have gone through quite a bit of trouble on my behalf. I shall ask the Lion King Agency to give you suitable rest and recreation time until your next assignment.”

  It was a pleasant smile rich in meaning, conveying a secret shared by them alone.

  “You have my thanks, princess.”

  Sayaka made a fervent nod as she gripped the hilt of her long sword. Their role in the incident was not yet finished.

  7

  Kojou and the others headed inside the crumbling cathedral. Yuuma had teleported. Kojou and Yukina were hit by fierce dizziness and tossed onto a hard, dusty floor.

  Yuuma didn’t know why she’d teleported not only herself, but Kojou and Yukina along with her. But she had some vague idea.

  She figured she probably wanted someone to see the instant she had fulfilled her objective, the instant she fulfilled the purpose for which she was born into this world—

  “Natsuki’s…the key to the prison barrier?” asked Kojou. What’s that supposed to mean?

  Natsuki Minamiya continued to sleep in the chair in the cathedral’s great hall.

  She was wearing a laced-up, frill-heavy dress. It was a sweltering outfit to be wearing on Itogami Island, where summer was year-round. But it suited the doll-like, still-sleeping girl to a truly frightening degree.

  No doubt the shock wave from Yuuma’s having breached the prison barrier by force had been conveyed inside to Natsuki. There was a trickle of fresh blood flowing down one of Natsuki’s temples.

  But Kojou still couldn’t understand at all what Natsuki, who’d disappeared on the day before the Hollow Eve Festival, was doing in a place like this to begin with. He wondered if the Natsuki sleeping here was really the Natsuki that Kojou knew.

  “—Think about it. How do you send prisoners into a prison in other-dimensional space even the Gigafloat Management Corporation can’t locate for certain?” Yuuma gave the still-sleeping Natsuki a cold glare as she spoke. “Natsuki Minamiya, the Witch of the Void, is the jailer, gatekeeper, door, and key of the prison barrier. In the first place, Prison Barrier is the name of a spell to seal away vile sorcerous criminals—and she is the only one who can use it.”

  Kojou listened to Yuuma’s explanation without a word. When she put it that way, the logic was simple enough.

  Prison Barrier was a spell Natsuki maintained. That was why she was inside the cathedral. And that was why breaching the ward conveyed the shock wave directly to her body.

  “Witch” was a title borne by women who’d formed a pact with a devil. They employed power identical to that devil’s through the devil familiar Guardians. In so doing, they could retain human bodies while controlling magical power rivaling that of upper-rank demons, with spell-casting skill surpassing even the most accomplished of sorcerers.

  But a pact with a devil came with a price.

  The price Yuuma had paid was the installation of the “Dispel the Prison Barrier” program. She was born and raised to fulfill that command alone, having been granted spatial control power in exchange.

  He wondered what price Natsuki had paid—

  Was the prison barrier itself the answer?

  Continuing to seal this giant, empty prison by her lonesome until the day she died—what if that was the curse imposed upon her when she made her pact with her devil?

  Yuuma spoke as she looked around the dimly lit cathedral.

  “This cathedral is Natsuki Minamiya’s home. She’s been living here the whole time. She hasn’t been outside even once in the last ten years. She remains asleep here, all alone.”

  Kojou objected. “That can’t be right. Natsuki’s been working as our teacher at school all the time!”

  Natsuki Minamiya was Saikai Academy’s English teacher. She was also Kojou’s homeroom teacher. She had a big mansion on prime land in Itogami City where she lived with Astarte and Kanon. What reason would she have to spend her nights in a bare, empty cathedral, sealed away in another world?

  But Yuuma made a sad laugh as she shook her head.

  “The Natsuki Minamiya you know is an illusion the real one created with a spell. She’s just a dream of the pathetic girl you see here.”

  Yuuma’s words made Kojou forget to breathe.

  “An…illusion…?”

  He couldn’t object and say, It isn’t possible. Surely it was a trifling matter for a witch of Natsuki’s power to create a clone with substance that could act like a normal person.

  Now there was a reason for her bizarre youthfulness—or rather, Natsuki not having physically aged since her youth.

  More important, Kojou couldn’t think of any explanation he could accept as to how the girl sleeping in the prison barrier, looking exactly like Natsuki, could be anyone else.

  Yuuma walked toward the girl as she continued to sleep.

  “It’s meaningless to shatter one of her illusions. That is why LCO stayed its hand until now. That is, until her real body returned to our world so that the prison barrier could be released.”

  The blue knight floating up from her back raised a giant fist as if wielding a hammer. A single blow from the Guardian against the defenselessly sleeping little girl would end her life with the greatest of ease.

  Yuuma seemed to be forcing her voice out from her throat.

  “The criminals in the prison barrier are held captive inside her dream. If she is slain, the prisoners will be freed.”

  “—After you free them, what then?”

  Kojou’s abrupt question brought Yuuma to a halt.

  “If you were born only to dispel the prison barrier, what’ll you do after you finish your duty? Do you think your mom’s gonna pat you on the head?”

  “Kojou…”

  “No she won’t… It’s just like you did with that grimoire that burnt up, she’ll toss you away like yesterday’s garbage, won’t she?! Is this really what you want, Yuuma?!”

  Kojou blocked Yuuma’s path, shooting her a glare with the still-sleeping Natsuki behind him.

  She seemed ready to break into tears as she smiled and shook her head. “I know that, Kojou. I know more than anyone the meaninglessness of what I’m doing.”

  “Then—!”

  “But I can’t fight the program that decided it! That’s my price for my pact with my devil!” Yuuma shouted in an anguished voice. For some reason, she looked like a little girl even while in Kojou’s body.

  “The program’s all I have. If I accept that it’s meaningless—my being born into this world—everything about me is meaningless, too!”

  “You’re wrong!”

  Kojou put a foot in front of him. The force of it drove Yuuma back a step.

  “You said it yourself. I’m here for you. I accept that your life has meaning. You don’t have to follow that stupid program!”

  His powers as Fourth Primogenitor were stolen, his own flesh and blood were stolen, yet even so, Kojou’s declaration lacked any hesitance. For a single instant, Yuuma’s eyes made a look like a tearful smile.

  “…It sounds like you’re proposing.”

  “Huh?”

  “You were always fine saying stuff like that since way back, Kojou. You really have no idea how much trouble that’s caused me… But thank you. I’m happy… Really, it’s…”

  It’s enough, Yuuma’s lips mouthed. Kojou couldn’t even yell for her to stop.

  He couldn’t, because by then Yuuma had already vanished. She’d leaped through space without any warning, emerging in Kojou’s blind spot—behind the still-sleeping Natsuki.

  Then, the blue knight, wounded all over, swung its steel fist down to crush her—

  “Ugh?!”

  It was a radiant silver-colored spear that squarely took the fist’s blow. The girl wielding it, dressed in a blue dress straight out of a fairy tale, swung her spear over her head to impede the giant knight’s arm.

  “—Himeragi?!”

  The blue knight was nearly twice as tall as the small-built Yukina. When accounting fo
r the armor surrounding it, its mass must have been ten times hers. It wasn’t an attack to be taken straight on.

  But Yukina’s spear easily breached the armor of the witch’s Guardian and destroyed that fist.

  Yuuma’s expression hardened.

  “I see… That spear is a Schneewaltzer…”

  It was a purifying spear that nullified all magical power. It was the worst match possible for a witch’s Guardian, which was magical energy taking physical form.

  “The Lion King Agency dispatched me to watch over the Fourth Primogenitor.”

  With a ting, Yukina’s spear audibly ripped through the air as she swung it around. The three-pronged tip of her spear turned straight toward Yuuma’s heart. Her position had been eloquently conveyed: namely, now that Kojou’s attempts to persuade Yuuma had failed, she would show no mercy.

  “—I am taking back the body of Kojou Akatsuki!”

  Yuuma laughed on the spot and instantly glanced at Kojou, who remained where he stood.

  “You’re too soft… With the power in that spear, if you attacked my real body you’d settle this right away… Is it Kojou’s influence stopping you? So you’ve been taken in by Kojou’s silver tongue, too?”

  Yukina seemed oddly sulky as she shot back. “That’s not so! I-I’ve simply decided this is best under the present circumstances! Now that the spatial control ritual has been destroyed and there is a prospect of the Fourth Primogenitor’s magical power running amok, I should prioritize recovery of his body, an exceedingly logical conclusion! Besides—”

  “?!”

  Before she finished speaking, Yukina kicked off from the cathedral’s floor. As she moved with the force of a typhoon, her spear thrust forward, aimed precisely at Yuuma’s chest.

  “…there is no great difference in difficulty.”

  Yuuma’s words were no bluff. At Yukina’s speed, enough to rock a beast man back on his heels, there was no way Yuuma, lacking any close combat ability, could cope. “Le Bleu!”

  Yuuma commanded her Guardian to protect her. However, Yukina’s spear slashed through the blue knight’s thick armor like it was thin air. Bluish-white sparks scattered about as the blue knight roared in agony.