Asagi sat down, but with her back facing his.
“K-Kojou, why are you here?!”
With both of them diving into the water to hide their bodies, neither were in any position to leave.
For her part, Sana was enjoying herself, swimming in the bathwater, perhaps excited to be in such a wide bath for once.
It was then that Kojou realized there were changing room doors to both the left and right. “So, uh, maybe this is a…mixed bath? And it’s only the entrances that are different for guys and girls?”
He’d never expected a ship flying the flag of the Warlord’s Empire to have been built like that.
Kojou had no doubt that Vattler, well aware of this from the beginning, had kept quiet on purpose. That bastard, Kojou thought as he silently shook his fist.
Asagi asked meekly, “Um, d-did you…see?”
Kojou’s reply was not, however, the innocent See what?
“N-nah, not at all. Was just one second.”
“Th-that so.”
Kojou and Asagi laughed politely, dry and stiff, at the same time. As if on purpose, the bathroom echoed their voices off its walls, after which only an uncomfortable silence remained.
As the silent pause continued, Kojou heard a plop, like something was sinking down.
Kojou and Asagi traded glances with a questioning look when each suddenly went pale. In the instant they’d taken her eyes off her, Sana’s body had sunk to the bottom of the bath. The only thing on the surface of the water was a few small bubbles.
“H-hey?!” shouted Kojou.
“S-Sana?!” cried Asagi.
They both rose up in surprise, rushing over to the sunken girl.
However, in contrast to Kojou and Asagi’s nervousness, Sana, leisurely swimming in the bath, poked her head above the water’s surface like nothing had happened. Then, she began to dog paddle around once more. The splash back made the rose petals on the water’s surface sway.
“Sh-she was just divin’, huh…?” Kojou mused.
“Good grief,” replied Asagi.
Patting their chests in relief, Kojou and Asagi met each other’s eyes.
They both immediately yelped and hastily sank their important parts back below the waterline.
Even with bath towels wrapped over their bodies, it was a little too stimulating at such extremely close range.
Asagi’s back and shoulders were still exposed, however; the bath towel, drenched with hot bathwater, hugged the contours of her body. Just being in the same bath with a female classmate was an abnormal situation to begin with; Kojou’s nerves weren’t going to hold up to this.
Without any other choice, Kojou hardened his resolve and declared, “I’m gonna get out first, then. Sorry, could you close your eyes for a bit?”
But just as Kojou tried to get up, Asagi grabbed his hand and pulled strongly.
“Wait!”
“Wh-whoa—?!”
His balance wrecked, Kojou flopped into the bath with great force. As a result, the two of them were now all over each other. And as if in complete defiance, Asagi peered straight into Kojou’s eyes.
“This is a great opportunity, so how about you tell me right here, right now, exactly what you’ve been hiding from me?”
“Asagi…”
Attacked in so many unexpected ways, the inside of Kojou’s head was already completely blank.
He didn’t have anything left for coming up with an excuse. The only answers he had to her questions now were the literal truth. No doubt Asagi was well aware of that and thought she could interrogate him like this.
Looking like she had briefly sunk into thought, Asagi took a deep breath and voiced her question.
“Kojou, do you………like men?”
“…Huh?”
As Asagi awaited his reply with bated breath, Kojou stared back at her with a stupid look on his face. For a while, what she had asked him just wasn’t sinking into his brain.
“Wait a minute?! Where’d you get that idea?!”
Asagi’s cheeks burned red as she elaborated:
“I—I mean, I can’t think of any other reason you’d be buddy-buddy with a noble from the Warlord’s Empire! I mean, that guy is quite the pretty boy…”
Kojou wondered if this had been the burning question that she’d been agonizing over since before. This was the cause of her uncharacteristic nervousness—?
Kojou rubbed both of his arms as if feeling a chill. In all seriousness, he replied, “Even if it’s a joke, just stop… You’re givin’ me goose bumps here…”
However, Asagi’s lips pursed slightly, even so. “Yuuma’s got that boyish feeling going for her, too…”
“Er, Yuuma’s been my pal since we were little kids. Like or dislike ain’t the issue there.”
“It—it’s like you’re not interested in my body, though…”
The unexpected observation made Kojou grimace. “Hahh? Who the heck told you that?”
Perhaps it was Asagi’s surprise at just how vividly he’d taken the bait that made Asagi’s hands grasp the edge of her bath towel, holding the closure in front of her chest as her eyes twinkled.
“Wanna see?”
Even as Kojou anguished over why she was making him confess something so embarrassing in regard to her, his reply was rather blunt.
“W…well, of course I want to…”
Asagi tilted her head with a curious look like the matter concerned someone else and pressed further…
“Ah, is that so?”
“Yeah, it is! But I don’t want you to hate me for that kind of stuff! I mean, you’re, like, a special friend to me and everything—”
Watching Kojou raise his voice in such desperation, Asagi hummed.
“…Special, huh? I see…”
The teasing leer that came over her lips was her normal, everyday look.
“So that’s why you were keeping your distance from me after our kiss?”
Kojou replied in the bluntest voice he could come up with. “Well, excuse me. I mean, I had my own emotional stuff I had to put in order—”
As he did so, he felt an unexpectedly soft touch on his back. Asagi, wearing only a bath towel, was cuddled right up against him.
“A-Asagi?!”
“A freebie. Don’t look this way, though.”
“O-okay?”
This time, Asagi’s completely indecipherable behavior brought Kojou to a complete panic. What did she mean by “freebie”? He wondered if it wasn’t so much a freebie as a one-way ticket to a heart attack, when…
“…Kojou? What’s with these wounds?”
Asagi’s face grew grave when she noticed the wound on Kojou’s chest. It was apparent, even to a complete amateur, that it was no normal scar. There was no way half-baked excuses could fool her now.
Kojou sank into silence and made no reply.
However, the reason for his silence was not his inability to come up with a suitable excuse. Rather, it was because Kojou had noticed that, distracted by his wound, Asagi leaned all the way forward, which allowed the edge of her bath towel to slip down—
“Sorry, Asagi. I’ve hit my limit…!”
Kojou thrust Asagi’s body away and rose up forcefully.
“Eh?! W-wait, Kojou?!”
Asagi, who fell into the bath and onto her rear, looked up in shock at the blood-drenched Kojou.
Kojou’s nose gushed out blood with a force one would expect from breaking it.
The fresh blood scattered all around the bath, dyeing the surface of the water so that it looked like some kind of crimson marble.
However, by that time Kojou had already leaped out of the bath, rushing into the changing room.
Asagi remained on her butt in the hot water, beside herself.
“Geez…what’s with him?!” she muttered.
However, in spite of her sigh, the look on her face was somehow pixie-like. She giggled as she thought back to the look on Kojou’s face.
Meanwhile, without
a single word, Sana scooped up the bathwater with both hands and looked at it.
“…”
The water, dyed vivid crimson, drenched in the blood of the Fourth Primogenitor—
5
The cabin Vattler had arranged for Kojou and the others only had a single queen bed. It was a family suite through and through.
Kojou had expected it’d somehow turn out like this, so he flopped on the sofa against the wall without thinking any further about it. At any rate, it was the best arrangement for keeping Sana and Asagi safe.
Asagi hadn’t made any special complaints, either. She probably figured it was better to be with Kojou rather than on a strange vampire’s ship by her lonesome.
That very same Asagi looked down at Kojou, now lying on his side, as she asked in obvious concern, “Are you all right, Kojou? You looked like you were gonna keel over back there.”
Kojou sluggishly sat up and gave a frail smile with his crinkly lips. “Don’t worry about it…just a little low on blood here.”
Asagi slumped her shoulders in exasperation. “Well, that’s because you blew so much out of your nose back there…”
Asagi was now wearing a yukata in place of her filthy street clothes. Apparently, one of Vattler’s maidservants, unaware of the specifics of the Hollow Eve Festival, must’ve figured, It’s a festival in Japan so you should wear a yukata, and lent Asagi one from her personal wardrobe.
Asagi, lowering her voice so that Sana—currently jumping on the bed like a trampoline—wouldn’t hear, asked, “So, is Natsuki really the key to the whole prison barrier thing?”
That was a resident of a Demon Sanctuary for you. Asagi apparently had little trouble believing that it really was Natsuki in an age-reduced state.
“Probably. That’d be why the convicts are after her. Apparently, she lost her memory and got miniaturized because of this grimoire from a witch who broke out.”
“Curse?”
Kojou thought back to the discussion between the escapees he’d overheard at the prison barrier. “She said she stole the time she’d experienced…”
Asagi raised her elegant eyebrows.
“The grimoire Personal History? That’s a Forbidden-Class Dangerous Object, isn’t it?”
“It’s probably because she used that thing that they were able to break out of the prison barrier to begin with.”
Asagi nodded grimly. “Yes, I see…”
It went without saying that an escape of sorcerous criminals from the prison barrier was a severe problem, not only for Kojou and his acquaintances, but also for every man and woman on Itogami Island.
“So you got wrapped up in this incident because of Yuuma, then?”
The matter-of-fact way Asagi asked the question made Kojou reply in all earnestness, “Eh? How did you know that…?”
“Sheesh,” Asagi sighed.
“Because I looked at records at the Gigafloat Management Corporation. Ten years ago, the witch Aya Tokoyogi was captured by Natsuki in the so-called ‘Black Bible Incident.’ Yuuma’s related to that, isn’t she? Tokoyogi is a very rare name, so it’s no coincidence is it?”
“That…so…”
Kojou bit his lip bitterly as he listened to the revelation.
Now that she’d said it, of course there’d have been a record left of the other battle between Natsuki and Aya Tokoyogi some ten years prior.
If that was so, Asagi surely knew all about the Black Bible and associated elements as well.
However, before Kojou could ask about that, a lisping voice called for Asagi.
“Mama…”
Sana, kneeling on top of the bed, gazed at Asagi, her eyes unable to focus.
Asagi was puzzled as she drew her face close to mini-Natsuki. “Sana? What’s wrong?”
“Sleepy.”
“Ah… It is pretty late, isn’t it…?”
Asagi gave a strained smile as she looked at a clock indicating it was nearly midnight. Asagi lay down with Sana, warmly embracing her, and gently stroked her head.
Sana rested her face against Asagi’s chest and closed her eyes in apparent relief. Soon she would be fast asleep, like any normal girl. It was a scene that somehow warmed the heart.
“Man, you look like a real mother and daughter there,” Kojou whispered, admiring the scene.
Certainly Sana was a very cute girl, but the way Asagi was taking such tender care of her surprised him.
What, you didn’t think I could handle it? replied Asagi’s posture, her cheeks reddening in a minor fit of pique.
“Let’s stop right there. I mean, if she’s my daughter, then that makes you the dad—”
“Eh?”
Kojou’s response to Asagi’s complaint was an incoherent grunt of surprise. Asagi, realizing that she’d slipped, stiffly amended herself. “I—I mean in this situation. That’s what it would look like to an impartial observer.”
“R-right. You’ve got a point there…”
Kojou desperately aided her attempt to stop the slippage into dangerous waters.
Even if she was tiny for the time being, Asagi was sleeping in the same bed as her homeroom teacher. It was best to avoid any question of inappropriate behavior to the greatest possible extent.
Thinking he’d best change the subject, Kojou voiced his honest thoughts on another matter.
“Come to think of it, that yukata looks surprisingly good on you.”
His little sister had drilled into him that girls wanted to be complimented on their clothing when they changed into something even a little different from their usual. However, Asagi glared back at Kojou in visible dissatisfaction.
“What do you mean, ‘surprisingly’? Of course it looks good on me! And why are you in a sports jersey, anyway?”
“Since Vattler didn’t send anythin’ proper over, Kira lent me something of his. He’s a pretty nice guy, you know. See? It’s a Boston jersey from when they were champs.”
Thus did Kojou explain about the sports jersey he’d borrowed. Apparently, Kira was a fan of the Boston Celtics. Asagi looked back with acute annoyance at the proud expression Kojou sported on his face.
“Hey, I don’t know anything about that stuff,” Asagi retorted. “And like, don’t stare at me so much. I’m pretty plain here at the moment.”
“Ah…? Guess you are…”
Only now did Kojou realize that she was giving off a different impression from the norm. As he agreed with her assessment, he abruptly gave Asagi a long, serious stare.
“You look pretty darn good in normal, mature-lookin’ clothes like that, so why do you always dress so flamboyantly?”
“HUH?!”
It sounded like something had snapped inside Asagi as her temples bulged with rage.
Without a word, Asagi took off the sandals she was wearing, holding both in one hand. With an uppercut-like motion, she smacked Kojou’s chin with them, hard.
As a dull thud reverberated, Kojou groaned in agony and pressed a hand to his jaw.
“That hurt! What’s with you all of a sudden? Do you always smack people with your sandals?!”
“You’re the one who said it way back, dammit! ‘You’re too plain, so you should pay a bit more attention to your appearance and stuff.’ That’s why I—!”
“I—I did…?!”
Kojou endured the pain of the sharp kicks to his back as he arrived at a vague memory.
Now that she mentioned it, he might well have made a throwaway comment like that back in middle school. He’d been of the opinion that she was putting such a nice face to waste by purposefully trying to blend into the crowd. Wow, she remembered that from way back, Kojou thought, admiring a part that was rather beside the point. Then…
At that moment, the supposedly sleeping Sana suddenly snapped her eyes open.
The little girl in the yukata slowly stood up. Her movements were unnatural and seemed to defy the laws of gravity.
The bizarre aura surrounding her threw Kojou and Asagi completely off. Sana
was clearly not in her normal state. It felt like some unknown entity had taken possession of her body.
Then, as Kojou and Asagi watched her, the little girl took a deep breath.
“—Na—tsu—kyun!”
Making an adorable, decisive pose like some kind of idol singer, she shouted this from atop the bed.
Sana gave off a high-tension vibe that seemed bizarre to the point of incomprehension compared to before, scaring the living daylights out of Kojou and Asagi.
“The hell?!”
“Sana?!”
Sana still had her right hand raised high in a peace sign as her vacant eyes came to a stop.
Like a ventriloquist’s dummy, nothing moved but her lips as she began to speak in a robotic tone.
To put it bluntly, Kojou found the sight terrifying.
“—Main personality shift to sleep mode confirmed. Blocking non-REM sleep. Connecting latent consciousness to backup memory block. Initiating restoration of accumulated personal time. One minute fifty-nine seconds until restoration complete.”
“Wh-what the heck is that?” Kojou wondered aloud.
Asagi, too, spoke in bewilderment as they looked up at Sana, dumbfounded.
“Maybe Natsuki’s memories…came back?”
When Sana heard this, she suddenly spun her head around and grinned buoyantly at the two of them. It was a splendid, picture-perfect smile the real Natsuki wouldn’t have made if her life depended on it.
“Sorry. I am actually Natsu-kyun Minamiya’s backup personality.—Kyun!”
Sana stuck her tongue out, another mysteriously adorable pose.
Unsurprisingly, even Kojou was slowly getting used to the bizarre situation. “Er, I don’t think this is really a ‘kyun’ moment…?”
“To think Natsuki had a latent personality like this she kept deep down,” Asagi murmured, exhausted. “I’m not sure whether I’m surprised or totally unsurprised…”
Apparently, the current Natsuki was some kind of emergency backup she’d prepared in advance.
She’d probably cast a special spell on her so that, should an enemy rob her of her memories as had happened here, a temporary backup would emerge and work to restore her memories.
Leave it to a first-rate Attack Mage like her to be so prepared. The only miscalculation was the fact her backup personality had a few little…quirks.
Fiesta for the Observers Page 13
