But Beast Vassals were not so gentle.
Beast Vassals, by their very nature, were beings that did not belong in this world. Furthermore, as much as Beast Vassals possessed destructiveness far beyond the norm, the price the summoner paid to materialize them was his own life force.
Vampires were feared as the mightiest of all demons because their infinite negative life forces, and theirs alone, allowed them to employ Beast Vassals.
And yet, here a powerless homunculus girl was freely employing such a Beast Vassal before his very eyes—
“This is insane!” Gilika rose and spread his incandescent flames as he moved to punch Astarte.
It was the Efreet flame attack that could melt apart a thick metal bulkhead in a single instant.
However, one of the Beast Vassal’s giant arms stopped the attack cold.
“—Execute, Rhododactylos,” came the emotionless voice of Astarte.
Kiliga Gilika’s eyes opened wide in fright. The force of the flames emitted by his flesh was weakening. Astarte’s Beast Vassal was robbing his Efreet of its spiritual strength.
“You’re…eating…my spiritual power…?!” the old man suddenly shrieked.
The voice of the homunculus girl in the giant humanoid Beast Vassal calmly replied…
“Affirmative.”
With all his spiritual power depleted, Kiliga Gilika was being pressed face-first against the ground by the Beast Vassal’s giant arm. Of course, he was no longer conscious by then.
As he lay on the ground, the gray manacle on his left arm glowed; from it, silver chains enveloped his entire body. Then, the old man’s body sank into thin air, finally vanishing completely.
3
The giant Beast Vassal shimmered like a mirage and vanished, leaving only the homunculus girl in its place. Her long indigo hair swayed as she approached Asagi and Sana.
“Miss Aiba, are you injured?”
Asagi looked down at herself and gave a strained smile.
“Ah no, I’m all right. My clothes are a mess, though.”
Her street clothes looked pathetic, dirty from the maintenance shaft and drenched in seawater. She’d only just bought them, but she had no choice now but to throw them away. The sandals she’d liked so much were all scuffed up, too. At least Sana’s clothes hadn’t gotten dirty.
“Thank you, Astarte. You being here really saved our bacon. But why are you here, anyway—?”
Astarte briefly explained her reason for being at the Island Guard garrison:
“I am currently searching for the instructor.”
Asagi was well aware that her guardian, Natsuki Minamiya, also worked as an instructor for the Island Guard in her role as an Attack Mage.
Consequently, Astarte visiting the Island Guard garrison to meet Natsuki Minamiya was not mysterious in itself. However…
“Searching for…? Wait, you mean Natsuki’s missing?”
Astarte nodded as she turned her sapphire-like eyes toward Sana.
“Affirmative. However…her physical characteristics match the instructor’s to an extremely high degree. May I request an explanation?”
“Physical characteristics match…? Oh, you mean how they look so alike?”
Certainly, Asagi had noticed that Natsuki Minamiya and Sana resembled each other to a surprising degree, but she couldn’t give an answer she didn’t have.
Asagi seemed to remember something while stroking Sana’s head.
“Come to think of it, that jailbreaker seemed like he was after Sana, huh…? As for why they look so much alike, that’s what I wanna know, too, but…”
Asagi’s words reached that point when she heard a small click of shoes behind her. It was the echo of someone agilely leaping down from the rooftop of a building and making a graceful landing.
The sound startled Sana; she looked behind her in fright.
The next moment, they heard a voice with a sultry air that seemed to mock the act.
“…Hmm, shall I tell you, then?”
A woman was standing where Kiliga Gilika had vanished from. She was a young woman with violet hair. Beyond the long coat that covered her, she was dressed only in expensive, scandalous undergarments. The outfit seemed a little too much to be a festival costume.
The woman brushed her long hair from her cheek as she laughed in mockery.
“It’s not simply a resemblance…she really is Natsuki Minamiya. She’s just under a little curse at the moment.”
Her left arm bore a gray manacle that was identical to the one Kiliga Gilika had. That meant she, too, was an escapee from the prison barrier.
All the Island Guard troops raised their weapons. Even the sight of that did not make her beautiful smile falter. The guardsmen were thrown off by her reaction; they couldn’t tell if they should open fire.
Asagi kept her guard up. “Who…are you?”
The corners of the woman’s lips rose in delight. “Gigliola Ghirardi—does that name ring a bell?”
Asagi had a chill run down her spine. “…The Songstress of Cuartas Theater,” she moaned.
Gigliola Ghirardi was a vampire—an Old Guard vampire descended from the Third Primogenitor, the Chaos Bride. And a vampire all the while, she was also a high-class prostitute involved in numerous sex scandals with royals and nobility in every nation of Europe.
Her fortunes had changed some five years before, just after an affair with the crown prince of a small country had been discovered. Fearing a scandal, members of the royal family decided to have her quietly assassinated. Deeply enraged, she had annihilated the assassins that had assaulted her and slaughtered several members of the royal family instead, the crown prince included.
In the vernacular, it became known as the Tragedy of Cuartas Theater.
As a result, other prior thrill-seeking crimes by her were discovered, an international arrest warrant was issued, and finally, she was arrested—and ought to have still been in prison.
Gigliola smiled, amused, as she watched the fright pass through Asagi. “I’m so pleased that there are still children that remember me.”
“Why are you…on Itogami Island…?!” Asagi asked brokenly.
The Tragedy of Cuartas Theater was an incident well-known all over the world, much reported on in Japan, enough that even Asagi, still in grade school at the time, remembered it like it had been yesterday.
However, that was an incident in another country far, far away. Asagi couldn’t understand why she’d appeared on Itogami Island rather than in some European prison.
Gigliola shrugged her shoulders with a frivolous air as she replied to Asagi’s skeptical question.
“I slightly overdid it at the Hispania Demon Prison.”
“Overdid it…?”
Gigliola waved her hand casually. “Yes, I took over the prisoners and the guards and toyed with them as I wished, which of course became a large ruckus. In the end, the Witch of the Void was sent, and I was put into the prison barrier—”
Asagi just stared.
To Europe’s demons, the Hispania Demon Prison was synonymous with terror. It was said that none of the many sorcerous criminals housed there ever returned alive.
And yet, she had said she’d taken the place over. If that was true, she was an even more dangerous being than she was rumored to be, enough that she might be able to destroy Itogami Island single-handedly—
Gigliola spoke in a gentle tone this time.
“So you see, I bear no grudge toward this Demon Sanctuary. If you simply hand the girl over, I shall let you go.”
As Sana stood close, Asagi firmly embraced the child’s body and glared straight back at the woman.
“You don’t really think I’ll just go, ‘oh, sure,’ and hand her over, do you…?!”
Astarte summoned her Beast Vassal once more and stood before Gigliola to shield Asagi and Sana.
“I concur. Please stand back, Miss Aiba.”
Gigliola exhaled in melancholy as she gazed at the giant rainbow-colored Be
ast Vassal.
Astarte’s Beast Vassal, Rhododactylos, had the ability to consume the magical power of other demons to feed itself, and also, to nullify magical energy. Even the vast power of an Old Guard such as Gigliola possessed could not breach the Divine Oscillation Effect that protected Astarte.
“A Beast Vassal coexisting with a homunculus…this Demon Sanctuary has raised quite a rare breed of doll. Certainly this is annoying…but what can you do about this?”
A crimson whip emerged from within Gigliola’s hand. It was a long whip with thorns running all along it like the stem of a rose. This was her Beast Vassal—a so-called Intelligent Weapon.
However, she did not snap her whip at Astarte’s Beast Vassal, but rather, against the ground at her own feet.
The next moment, a thunderous roar accompanied the staggering of Astarte’s Beast Vassal.
“—Astarte?!” shouted Asagi.
The rainbow-colored golem shielded Asagi as countless bullets rained down upon them.
These were large-caliber anti-materiel rifles, man-portable rockets, machine guns, and arbalests—all specially constructed anti-demon weapons firing rounds imbued with ritual energy.
Ordinary demons would have been blown away without a trace by such concentrated firepower, but Astarte’s golem withstood it.
However, even she was pinned down. The incredible fusillade had completely stopped her in her tracks.
Asagi was astonished. “Why would the Island Guard…?!”
It was not Gigliola who had attacked Astarte, but the Island Guard’s main strike force that had sortied to capture Kiliga Gilika. The guardsmen, supposedly on their side, were hitting Astarte with everything they had.
Astarte casually conveyed in a robotic monotone…
“I recommend that you flee, Miss Aiba. They are being attacked by a Beast Vassal.”
Asagi gasped and looked at Gigliola.
“Attacked…?!”
The tip of her whip was still impaling the surface of the ground. However, when Asagi looked closely, she saw that a countless number of branches had spread out like the roots of a plant, sprouting out of the ground to wrap themselves around the guardsmen’s feet.
Mogwai quickly explained the situation, its voice obvious as always.
“This ain’t good, Li’l Miss. Gigliola Ghirardi’s Beast Vassal, Rose Zombiemaker, has the ability to control minds. Looks like puttin’ all our eggs in one basket backfired on us.”
Gigliola had said she’d taken over the Demon Prison she’d been housed in.
The power of her Beast Vassal was to control the minds of others via a physical link, just like a parasite. The ability made her quite literally a public menace.
In one sense, her ability made her more fearsome than a vampire primogenitor. After all, it was only by fighting in groups that mankind was able to fight demons, with their overwhelming physical superiority, on even terms. However, her ability took away human beings’ greatest weapon and turned it against them. Gigliola became more powerful in proportion to the number of enemies arrayed against her.
Emotionlessly, Astarte stated:
“I shall impede her progress. Please leave the vicinity with haste—”
However, Asagi could clearly hear the urgency in the sound of her voice.
Astarte’s Beast Vassal, which by nature could only be defeated by the impact of greater demonic energy than its own, yet which repelled all magic attacks, was nigh invincible—yet even it had a weakness; namely, that its host, Astarte, was but a frail homunculus. Her body could not endure the summons for a long duration. Without a vampiric body of her own, she simply couldn’t bear the strain of summoning a Beast Vassal for long.
Asagi pulled Sana’s hand along once more.
“Sana!”
She had no idea where to go, but running was their only option.
Astarte couldn’t strike back against the Island Guard. As long as Asagi and Sana remained there, all Astarte could do was shield them for however long she could last.
However, Gigliola watched them turn tail with a pitying look.
“Fu-fu… I’m so sorry, did you really think an Old Guard vampire would be served by only one Beast Vassal?”
This said, she raised her left hand high.
Fresh blood spewed from her palm, finally taking the form of a new Beast Vassal.
This was a swarm of crimson bees. There were dozens of them, each a giant some five or six centimeters long. The swarm bore down on the girls, looking like something straight out of a nightmare.
Gigliola continued her elegant laughter.
“Get them, Aguijón!”
As the swarm of bees overtook them, Asagi fell to her knees in despair. Even she was checkmated this time. Despite the aid of the supercomputer that controlled the Gigafloats, she couldn’t think of anything that’d get them out of this jam.
With Gigliola having taken over the main striking arm of the Island Guard, Astarte was at her limits. Asagi, a mere high schooler, had no power with which to repel a Beast Vassal.
“I’m sorry, Sana…”
All Asagi could do was shield the girl’s body with her own.
Sana offered a gentle, charming smile in response to Asagi’s motherly embrace.
“Don’t worry, Mama.”
As Sana whispered into her ear, Asagi’s eyes widened in surprise. Her vision was flooded with the swarm of crimson bees rushing toward them—
It was truly the very next moment that a young man’s laughter, full of delight, reverberated all around them.
“The Songstress of Cuartas Theater and the valiant maiden—ha-ha-ha-ha, how lovely. Truly a performance worthy of a festival, ’tis it not?”
A torrent of magical energy so immense that it blotted out the starry sky gushed in like a beam.
Bathed in a shock wave of destruction, the swarm of crimson bees were ripped to shreds and annihilated. But the shock wave was not sound—it was actually a Beast Vassal in the form of a giant, radiant serpent.
Amid the darkness, both eyes glowing crimson, stood a handsome, blond, young man.
“By all means, do allow me to participate, Gigliola Ghirardi.”
Clad in a pure white coat, he looked like a knight in shining armor come to save Asagi and Sana. However, the aura spread about him was simply too vile for the title.
The vicious smile that came over him was filled with excitement and anticipation at the coming slaughter.
The beautiful vampiress voiced the aristocratic maniac’s name:
“—Dimitrie Vattler!”
An encounter between two terrifying Old Guard vampires…
The sky above the Demon Sanctuary was dyed with a surge of malevolence that seemed to melt the very air itself.
4
Kojou stared at the screen of his cell phone and made a sound of dismay in his throat.
“…No good, won’t connect.”
Just before the call with Asagi cut off, it sounded like someone was attacking her and Natsuki. A fair bit of time had already passed since then.
If the pursuer was actually one of the prison barrier escapees, both girls’ lives were in grave danger.
Asagi was just a high school student. Kojou didn’t think she could escape unscathed from an attack by a magical criminal nasty enough to be held in the prison ward. It was even possible they’d both already been killed.
Kojou turned to the outer wall of the guesthouse and violently pounded his fist against it.
“Shit… What the hell’s Natsuki doin’ with Asagi in the first place?!”
The elevator felt unusually slow. He resented all these layers of security to protect the guesthouse from intruders.
Yukina, clutching her silver spear, grabbed hold of the cuff of Kojou’s sleeve as she spoke.
“Perhaps it is because Asagi Aiba was at Keystone Gate?”
Kojou glanced down at her in surprise.
“Keystone Gate?”
“Yes. Ms. Minamiya teleported to
get away just before her magical power was completely stolen from her. That being the case, she surely chose the safest place she could think of as her destination.”
Kojou thought back to the giant, majestic structure at the center of Itogami Island.
“I see…because Keystone Gate’s the HQ for the Island Guard…”
It came equipped with robust defensive systems and a large number of Attack Mages protecting it; certainly, the gate was the safest place on the island. If anything, Natsuki selecting the place as her destination was a no-brainer.
And thanks to Asagi working at the adjacent building in her part-time programming job for the Gigafloat Management Corporation, she just happened to be nearby…
“However,” Yukina continued, “I believe Ms. Minamiya completely reverted in age just before arriving at the Island Guard’s staging area.”
Kojou put his hand to his forehead as he remembered Asagi mentioning that the girl seemed lost and confused.
“And she was like that when she met Asagi…”
Kojou could distinctly picture in his mind how that must have thrown Asagi off.
“Most likely,” replied Yukina with a nod.
“If even a tiny fragment of her memory remained, Ms. Minamiya would no doubt instinctively judge that she was safe with Aiba. As a result, perhaps it’s like the imprinting phenomenon that happens with bird hatchlings?”
“You mean, you think the first thing you set eyes on is your mom?”
“I see,” went Kojou, understanding her now. He thought that was by far the most likely possibility, whatever the truth of the matter.
However, knowing why the two were together didn’t solve the problem whatsoever. The two remained in great peril.
Passing through the final checkpoint, Kojou and the others finally got out of the building.
Yukina looked up at Sayaka, standing right beside her, and asked…, “Sayaka, did you get in touch with the Island Guard?”
Sayaka was holding her cell phone as she shook her head.
“No good. Sounds like it’s complete chaos on their end. I’m not on a formal assignment, so I can’t use the Lion King Agency’s priority channel. At this rate, it could take hours to get through using official channels…”
Fiesta for the Observers Page 9
