Fiesta for the Observers

by Gakuto Mikumo

  Copyright

  STRIKE THE BLOOD, Volume 5

  GAKUTO MIKUMO

  Translation by Jeremiah Bourque

  Cover art by Manyako

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  SUTORAIKU ZA BURADDO

  © GAKUTO MIKUMO 2012

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS

  First published in Japan in 2012 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mikumo, Gakuto, author. | Manyako, artist. | Bourque, Jeremiah, translator.

  Title: Strike the blood. Volume 5, Fiesta for the observers / Gakuto Mikumo, Manyako ; translation by Jeremiah Bourque.

  Other titles: Fiesta for the observers

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2017. | Series: Strike the blood ; 5

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015041522 | ISBN 9780316345569 (paperback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | Vampires—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M555 Sti 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015041522

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-34556-9 (paperback)

  978-0-316-34557-6 (ebook)

  E3-20170210-JV-PC

  INTRO

  “Nothing is finished yet. Nothing—”

  Leaving those words behind, the girl turned her back on the vampire aristocrat.

  She was a small girl, one who appeared to be in her mid-teens. She did look young for her age, but it was nothing extreme. If one had to name things about her that stood out, all that really counted might be her long hair’s quirky style and her friendly face. In other words, she was a common, everyday middle school girl.

  She was wearing a black one-piece dress with a tail attached. On her head, she wore a headband with what looked like kitty ears. No doubt it was a costume meant to evoke a black cat. It was a showy and cute outfit for a girl to wear to a festival.

  However, the girl’s scarlet, wide-open eyes reflected no emotion whatsoever. Only her lips formed the slightest traces of a smile. The expression she wore seemed somehow…inhuman.

  It felt like the body of a very ordinary girl was being shared by an inhuman monster.

  On one level, it was a fitting image for a resident of that city to have: that of a Demon Sanctuary, home of the bizarre. A metropolis of everlasting twilight, where humans and demons lived side by side.

  A handsome, blond, blue-eyed man called out to the girl as she walked off.

  “—Where do you think you’re going, twelfth?”

  The girl quietly came to a stop and sent a cold scowl back at the man.

  His name was Dimitrie Vattler, a nobleman and envoy from the Warlord’s Empire. He was a pureblood vampire, a direct descendant of the First Primogenitor, the Lost Warlord.

  Served by nine fiendish Beast Vassals, the handsome monster was rumored to be “the closest thing to a primogenitor.”

  However, the white, three-piece suit he wore was singed and tattered; his entire body was covered in countless scars, as if it had once been ripped to shreds. In other words, the wounds he’d suffered from the girl’s attack had still not fully healed.

  His blood, boiling from the heat of friction, emitted a foul odor; bones and tendons were still exposed through the cracks in his half-regenerated skin. Even so, a ferocious smile came over him as he pointed behind him.

  The surface of the sea glimmered, bathed in the light of the sun. A tiny island, surrounded by bare rock, floated upon it. Atop the land stood an ancient stonework cathedral. This was the sealed land where fiendish criminals were banished to another world, the fortress that protected the so-called “prison barrier.”

  But the giant cathedral was already half-ruined, as if the gate to hell itself had been opened. It was yet unclear if Natsuki Minamiya, the key to the seal, was dead or alive—

  Vattler’s taunting continued:

  “It looks quite fun over there, doesn’t it? Are you sure you want to walk away? Or perhaps you can’t lay a hand on it?”

  The girl in the black cat outfit gazed evenly at the young aristocrat, unmoved.

  “Do you wish to be blown into five pieces again, Master of Serpents?”

  Amid the dazzling rays of the setting sun, a giant illusion, translucent like a glacier, rose above the girl’s head once more.

  The upper half looked like a human woman; the lower half, like the body and tail of a beautiful fish. Wings came out of her back. She had claws ending in sharp talons. She looked like an icy mermaid or perhaps even a siren.

  It was a mass of magical energy so vast that it took physical form. This was a summoned beast, a creature from another world that dwelled in a vampire’s own blood. It was a beast that served; in other words, a Beast Vassal.

  This one was Alrescha Glacies, Azure Princess of Ice, the twelfth Beast Vassal that served the World’s Mightiest Vampire, the Fourth Primogenitor—

  The beautiful, ice-colored Beast Vassal, like subzero taking a physical form, raised a fist.

  Vattler calmly looked up at that fist and smiled. “Nope. I regret to inform you, I no longer have any interest in you. It’s boring fighting an opponent I know I’ll beat. Now’s not the time to play with you. You should regain your proper power, the sooner the better—”

  The Beast Vassal unleashed its attack even before the young man finished speaking. The air cracked open with a high-pitched, destructive ringing.

  With Vattler standing in the center, the breakwater was annihilated without a trace. In a single instant, the man-made surface was frozen to absolute zero, with the resulting impact smashing the new, brittle substance into tiny pieces.

  The overwhelming destruction was exceptionally rapid, silent, and merciless. All that was left behind was a dense, white mist and the frozen ground. However, there was no sign of Vattler having been harmed by it. The wounded, youthful lord had transformed into golden mist and fled a mere moment before the Beast Vassal’s attack had activated.

  Confirming for herself that his aura was now distant, the girl’s eyes remained emotionless as she slumped her shoulders. It was oddly human behavior reminiscent of the proper owner of that body.

  The girl dressed like a black cat had employed a Beast Vassal in her strike upon the vampire aristocrat.<
br />
  The low-temperature shock wave made the very air creak. Crystals like transparent snow danced down from the sky, freezing the surface of the sea white.

  Someone standing on a train that was stopped atop a far-removed pier observed the beautiful scene. She was a cherubic-faced woman wearing a wrinkled white coat.

  Her face was more “cute” than “beautiful”; she was neither short nor tall. However, she did have very large breasts.

  She was finishing eating a Popsicle with all the fervor of an addict.

  Perhaps she was half-asleep, given the way her long hair was disheveled and how her eyelids were half-shuttered. But even without the vacant look, it was clear at a glance that she was a very lazy adult.

  “Fuahhh…”

  Making what looked like a very relaxed yawn, she wiped away the wetness from the corners of her eyes.

  She tossed the Popsicle into the car’s ashtray and took a fresh one out of a cooler box on the passenger seat. She then opened the driver’s side door and got out of the car, obviously annoyed.

  As she stood up, her large breasts swayed heavily. Apparently, she wasn’t wearing a bra under there. However, she showed no sign of noticing that. Instead, she filled her mouth with the sweet, running her tongue over it as if to savor the taste. It came across as particularly sexual.

  She lifted her head when she noticed footsteps approaching.

  A teenage girl dressed in an outfit evoking a black cat appeared out of the snowy mist that hovered about.

  Noticing that the woman in white seemed to have been waiting for her, the girl stopped walking. Her large emotionless eyes looked upon the woman.

  The cat girl asked sharply:

  “You…saw, did you not?”

  “Mhmm,” went the woman in white as she smiled. She rolled the ice around in her mouth. Once she was certain the girl’s body had no external injuries, she narrowed her eyes a bit.

  “You protected her…thank you.”

  The girl seemed a bit thrown off at the show of thanks, replying:

  “…I merely acted in accordance with the pact. It is nothing you are required to thank me for.”

  It was like she had a far harder time dealing with this woman than with the aristocrat.

  Seeing the girl’s reaction, the woman in white took out a new Popsicle from the cooler.

  “Mhmm…want some?”

  Looking at the treat offered to her, the girl who had commanded the icy Beast Vassal clicked her tongue in apparent dismay.

  The next moment, light seemed to vanish from her eyes. It felt like the powerful will that had taken hold of her petite frame had vanished. The girl went completely limp, like a marionette with its strings cut, and gently fell.

  The woman in white made a pained smile as she supported the fallen body.

  “My, my…”

  Listlessly, the woman in white gazed at the twinkling sky.

  The surface of the sea, illuminated by the setting sun, twinkled red like a smoldering flame. The nearby buildings cast long shadows, but the man-made ground of steel and resin was dyed a bluish black. This was Itogami City, the Demon Sanctuary floating some 330 kilometers south of Tokyo.

  However, the throngs of humanity packing the streets showed no signs of diminishing, even as sunfall fast approached.

  The buildings, illuminated by fireworks, were cast a myriad of colors; this only added to the vivid hustle and bustle of commerce alongside the noisy crowd gathered in the square.

  This was the last day of October: the night of the Demon Sanctuary’s famed celebration, the Hollow Eve Festival.

  The festivities had only just begun.

  After a strict biometrics security scan, the super-hard metal alloy bulkhead opened up. The girl who’d used her pass to exit the gate was in her mid-teens.

  She had an extravagant hairstyle, and her clothing was accessorized with a refined fashion sense.

  Her face marked her as a high school girl. However, at that moment, an air of fatigue wafted around her entire body; she looked like someone finally free after being worked to the bone.

  “Aaah…so…tiiiired…”

  Asagi Aiba murmured this to herself as she stretched upward, little vigor behind the gesture.

  Her eyes had bags under them as she gazed at the rays of the setting sun, reflecting off the windows of the building she was currently in.

  It was the giant inverted pyramid known as the Keystone Gate, pretty much smack-dab in the middle of Itogami Island. Armed Island Guard patrolmen were shuffling off both loitering citizens blocking the way and curious onlookers gathered around from the building’s lobby.

  The roof of the giant building, the tallest on Itogami Island, had been enemy-occupied territory held by the internationally wanted sorcerous criminals, the Meyer Sisters, only a few dozen minutes earlier. Even with the blockade finally lifted, its effects could still be felt.

  “Aww, geez, this totally sucks. Why’d I have to be stuck at my part-time job even on a holiday?! It’s inhumane working conditions, it’s just not fair!”

  Asagi was holding her smartphone in her right hand as she directed her bitter resentment toward it. A synthetic voice with a sarcastic edge replied from the phone, “No, no, we’re seriously grateful this time around. We just squeaked by thanks to you, Li’l Miss.”

  The speaker was the artificial intelligence she’d dubbed Mogwai; it was the avatar of the five supercomputers that controlled Itogami Island. In exchange for extremely high capabilities, the support AI had been pegged as extremely quirky and difficult to deal with, but for some reason, Asagi had clicked with it, making her willing to go the extra mile for it.

  That very partner abruptly lowered its voice and said to Asagi, “We’re grateful, but could you stay at the corporation just a bit longer?”

  A very guarded expression came over the human girl.

  “Say what?”

  She recalled that it was that very AI with the lousy personality that had called her over to the Gigafloat Management Corporation and away from her friends playing tourist without a care.

  Thanks to that, Asagi was under heavy strain from having spent the entire night writing up an extremely time-consuming program to reverse calculate coordinates from bends in space created by witches; thanks to that, one of her precious festival days had completely gone to waste.

  There was no way she was going through more horrible part-time work like that anytime soon.

  “What the heck? The Island Guard took care of the witches occupying the gate’s roof, right?” she asked.

  Unfortunately, Mogwai reported in a serious tone of voice that was quite out of character for it: “Well, that’s the end result I suppose… But an unregistered sub-float has appeared in an inlet at Island North. We still don’t know what the Library people are after. I have a bad feelin’ about this.”

  Asagi was beside herself. She sighed.

  “Now, hold on a second…you’re just a computer avatar with a twisted personality. Don’t you dare use a phrase like a bad feelin’ when conveying info. Sheesh…”

  Her partner seemed to want to say something more, but she ignored it and cut the smartphone’s power.

  It was already past five PM. It was still too bright to see stars in the sky above, but the atmosphere had already begun to have the smell of night about it. The Hollow Eve Festival would be entering its night event phase in short order.

  The increase in both male and female spectators on the street wearing yukata was no doubt with the upcoming fireworks rally in mind. Even without that, the area around Keystone Gate was one of the island’s hot spots for couples. The existence of so many harmonious couples taking delight in the festival got on Asagi’s nerves oddly enough.

  Perhaps right around then, Kojou Akatsuki was getting along famously with that childhood girlfriend of his…?

  In a burst of acute anger, Asagi marched toward the monorail station as she muttered, “Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach… And w
hile I had to go through all this, no less…!”

  She could have chosen to rendezvous with Kojou and the others in a fit of pique, but she at least wanted to go home and change clothes first. It wasn’t like Kojou would even notice, but Asagi’s pride would not permit her to meet him in the same clothes she’d been wearing since the day before. Besides, Yuuma Tokoyogi was a formidable foe. Asagi needed to be in tip-top condition if she was going to take her on.

  The Keystone Gate, at the center of Itogami Island, was served by two monorails: the North Line and the Loop Line. It wouldn’t even take fifteen minutes for Asagi to get to the station closest to her house via the Loop Line.

  However, around when she arrived at the station, she realized she’d been naive.

  She let out a loud “whoa!” without thinking. The crowd inside the station was far larger than anything she’d imagined.

  There was a line of customers unable to even get onto the platform that led the way to the ticket booth. The jam-packed throng of customers was so loud and boisterous that the train staff was inaudible.

  Asagi stopped at a shop in the corner of the station to buy a drink and asked one of the employees, “…The monorail isn’t operating yet?”

  An affable-looking middle-aged female employee sent a sympathetic look Asagi’s way. “It looks like they’re just resuming service to South and East, but I think North might take a little while. There’s some odd rumors going around.”

  “Rumors?”

  The woman’s shoulders quivered heavily, like even saying the words terrified her. “You’ve heard about the ‘prison barrier’? They say that it showed up.”

  Of course, Asagi knew of the prison barrier. It was a famous urban legend on Itogami Island.

  According to legend, it was an abominable prison built in secret somewhere on the man-made island to isolate the worst of all sorcerous criminals. Supposedly, an innocent man imprisoned there had cursed it, and now it could not be seen; others said it was now a part of the underworld itself. Others still said that the jailer of the prison ward was a Grim Reaper that looked like a beautiful doll…

  It was a much-repeated ghost story, but hearing it made Asagi feel an odd twinge in her chest as she raised her eyebrows.