“You really think a bunch of cookie cutouts are gonna stop me, Miss Monochrome?! C’mon over, Al-Nasl Minium—!”
The new, giant Beast Vassal that Kojou summoned bore an incandescent, scarlet mane and twin horns. It was a formidable mass vibration that wavered like a mirage.
The two horns protruding from its head resonated like a tuning fork, releasing a high-pitched shock wave. The shattering of all the school’s windows was no more than a side effect. After that, the Beast Vassal roared, its shock wave turning into cannonballs that poured down on the prisoners surrounding Kojou and the others.
The knight’s sword, the invisible psychic slash, the Old Guard’s Beast Vassal, even the Efreet—all were powerless before the bicorn’s destructive rampage. With a Beast Vassal of the Fourth Primogenitor released without restraint, overwhelming power poured upon them, annihilating the shadows in a single blow.
It looked more like being mowed down by a giant tornado than anything one could call combat.
The incandescent bicorn, governing violent winds and shock waves, was destruction incarnate. It was something that had little use outside of destroying a giant military force. At this rate, Saikai Academy’s campus building would itself be blown away—
The instant the thought crossed Kojou’s mind, a series of shining symbols emerged out of thin air and blocked the bicorn’s blast winds. That momentary opening was enough for Kojou to bring his Beast Vassal, on the verge of going berserk, back under full control.
“Her magic symbol wall, huh…?!” scoffed Kojou.
Even as he thought, Just in the nick of time, Kojou’s expression hardened. Aya’s power had suppressed his Beast Vassal. That meant that, in her world, Aya could indeed wield power on par with a goddess.
However, Aya’s face revealed no excess confidence, for Kojou was not her only opponent in this fight.
Yukina’s silver spear lashed out toward the wall of symbols surrounding Aya.
“Snowdrift Wolf—!”
The wall that had endured even a Beast Vassal’s onslaught popped like a balloon, vanishing that very instant. Yukina wielded a purifying spear that could rend any barrier. A magical barrier could not fend off her attacks.
Knowing this, Aya drew new magical symbols into thin air. In response, a transparent, glass-like wall appeared before Yukina’s eyes.
“A crystal wall?!” the Sword Shaman exclaimed as the tip of her spear bounced off it.
Even her spear, able to nullify all magic, was powerless against a simple physical wall. Aya, the creator of that world, was able to summon solid matter as she wished.
Kojou ferociously bared his fangs. “Get back, Yukina—!”
A mere wall was no match for a Beast Vassal. Unable to withstand the bicorn’s ferocious oscillation wave, the thick crystal wall shattered.
“The primogenitor Beast Vassal defeats the physical wall… The Sword Shaman’s spear smashes the magical…wall. To think a pair of heretics rejecting my world would be so troublesome. Very well…”
A black tentacle sprung out of thin air from behind Yukina and wrapped tightly around her.
“Oh n—?!”
The knotted tentacle that bound her entire body was identical to the one Yuuma’s Guardian had once used to attack her. Unable to move her spear, Yukina was utterly incapable of freeing herself—!
“Unfortunately, I shall help myself to your memories, Sword Shaman! L’Ombre!”
Aya Tokoyogi called forth her own Guardian, a faceless knight encased in jet-black armor.
The black knight drew its blade and sliced toward the immobile Yukina. It was just like when Natsuki had been turned into a grade schooler. She was trying to render Yukina powerless by robbing her of her personal history.
Kojou sprinted toward his comrade. “Himeragi!”
His Beast Vassal, overpowered as it was, could not save Yukina without harming her. However, the black knight’s attack reached her quicker than Kojou’s feet could.
Just as deep despair struck Kojou, he heard a loud clang, like metal violently colliding against metal. The black knight’s sword bounced back.
A golden gauntlet had appeared out of thin air, repelling the black knight’s attack.
“A golden Guardian…?!” exclaimed Aya.
A new witch’s Guardian had emerged from space that wavered like a beautiful ripple. It was humanoid in shape, its body encased in golden armor.
Its malevolent, giant form looked more like a demon than a knight. It was a clockwork demonic knight.
Aya heard a lisping, adorable voice from behind her.
“So you finally whipped that book out. I’ve been waiting for this moment, Aya!”
The master of the golden Guardian stood behind her: a little girl in an extravagant dress. However, the expression on her face was full of arrogance and charisma that completely belied her childish appearance.
“Natsuki?!” Aya shouted. “You’ve regained your ma—”
“I’ll be taking my time back now.”
Without warning, Natsuki Minamiya, in Sana form, snapped her fingers. Countless chains shot out of nowhere, wrapping around Aya’s arms and ripping her grimoire out of her hands.
Taking advantage of the slackening of the tentacle holding her, Yukina repositioned her spear. She could only move her right arm freely, but she nonetheless swung Snowdrift Wolf and swept away the tentacle holding her captive.
“…So you have your magic power back, Natsuki?” Kojou asked, gazing at the little girl displaying cool composure and a puffed-out chest.
Natsuki’s lips curled up the tiniest bit in apparent delight. “I have just enough saved up to use spells temporarily, all thanks to some primogenitor who happened to bleed all over the bath from his nose. I really must thank Asagi later…”
Kojou spontaneously clutched his head.
“You still have your memories from grade-schooler mode?!”
The blood from Kojou’s nose left in the group bath on the Oceanus Grave II was full of the Fourth Primogenitor’s magical power, however faint. Apparently, while immersed in the bath, Natsuki had absorbed that power to regain some of her energy. “My blood ain’t a bath bomb,” mumbled Kojou in visible displeasure when Yukina sullenly glared at him. Apparently, her sharp intuition had quickly deduced what made Kojou bleed in the first place…
Aya stood, dumbfounded, as she gazed at Natsuki, now recovered, and her Guardian. She hadn’t gotten the memo that Natsuki was using a backup to restore her memories.
Natsuki had started restoring her memory before the Black Bible had activated. And now that she’d regained them, the Black Bible’s magic nullification no longer affected her, because it was through Natsuki’s memories that the Black Bible was being read.
However, Natsuki had pretended to be a powerless little girl to keep the wool pulled over Aya Tokoyogi’s eyes, making her careless while Natsuki herself waited for a chance to regain the time that had been stripped from her.
For a single moment, the shaken, fire-eyed witch looked at Natsuki with something like pity.
“Yukina Himeragi, distract Aya Tokoyogi—I only need a moment. You! Ponytail! Is Aya’s daughter still conscious?”
“P-ponytail…?!”
Though not exactly fond of the nickname Natsuki had pinned on her, Sayaka immediately nodded.
Apparently, Natsuki remembered that the only one who could save the wounded Yuuma was another witch—Natsuki.
“So you turn against me to the very end, Natsuki?!” Aya roared bitterly.
Along with the lethal aura that erupted from her, countless symbols drew themselves in the air. Illusions of sorcerous criminals emerged from them, all at once.
When it came to witches using spatial control magic, Natsuki was without peer. Aya, who specialized in the manipulation of written symbols, couldn’t lock on to Natsuki’s coordinates.
“Blow ’em away, Al-Nasl Minium—!”
Kojou’s Beast Vassal went about annihilating the illusions Aya ha
d created with glee. Then, it brandished its twin horns and charged toward the defenseless fire-eyed witch.
Aya redeployed her wall of symbols to defend against the assault. However, Kojou dematerialized the Beast Vassal just short of colliding with the wall. The incandescent bicorn had been a decoy for drawing Aya’s attention. Breaching the wall and leaping through was not the Beast Vassal, but a girl wielding a silver spear.
“Roaring Thunder!”
Yukina’s right leg leaped up and caught Aya Tokoyogi’s chin.
With the witch’s attention focused on deploying the wall, she had no way of evading the attack. With the defensive magic enveloping her breached, Aya’s brain was scrambled by Yukina’s ritual energy-infused kick.
Aya lost consciousness for one brief moment, severing her link with the Guardian that served her. Not letting that moment go to waste, Natsuki unleashed her magical chains.
“Faceless knight protecting the spiraling abyss, emerge from thy prison of frozen anguish—”
Silver chains bound the black knight’s entire body.
The black knight thrashed violently to shake off the chains hindering it, acting like a wounded beast. However, the magic-infused chains did not break; instead, they ate into the black knight’s armor.
Natsuki continued to chant her spell.
“My name is Void. With the Eternal Flame, I burn away thy Oathbreaker Curse. Shatter thy black-blooded yoke and return to thy proper form. Raise thy sword for she who is blessed by the spirits, the Blue Maiden!”
Natsuki channeled her magical energy through the chains; it visibly coursed through the black knight’s entire body like electric shocks. The armor encasing the Guardian’s form cracked all over; from beneath, a new suit of armor emerged.
Blue armor like the deep sea.
Kojou’s group instinctively understood.
The curse Aya Tokoyogi had cast upon the Guardian had been lifted.
“Yuuma!” Kojou called.
That was the most Natsuki could accomplish.
Only one more thing was needed to save Yuuma: the will to sever herself from her mother’s control. The will to live, even if Yuuma knew her own existence was without “meaning.”
Something in Yuuma’s hazy consciousness caused her to shout.
“Le Bleu!”
The now-blue knight howled. The ripped-up spiritual pathways had been restored; her connection to her Guardian had been reestablished.
Yuuma had regained her powers as a witch.
In turn, that meant Aya Tokoyogi had lost her own Guardian.
Blood dripped from the corner of Aya’s mouth as she panted and spat out, “So the doll that I created defies my rule…!”
It was the same thing she had herself done to Yuuma. Her spiritual pathways had been ripped apart from having her Guardian forcibly taken away.
As the fire-eyed witch fell to her knees, Natsuki looked down at her and calmly stated, “It’s over, Aya… Return to the prison barrier. Your dream is over.”
As she was the mastermind plotting the destruction of Itogami Island and thereby plunging its entire population into crisis, Aya’s crimes were most grave. The circumstances differed from when Eustach had illegally entered Itogami City and caused an incident. It was barely conceivable that the sentence awaiting her would be as lenient as the death penalty.
But if she was sealed inside the prison barrier, she would be beyond the reach of the Gigafloat Management Corporation. It was the best option Natsuki had for the sake of her old friend.
Even understanding how Natsuki felt, Aya slowly shook her head.
“Solitary confinement? To think that my turning on LCO’s sorcerers would come back to haunt me like this…”
Aya herself had already cut ties with the organization she had governed, the criminal organization LCO. She didn’t need them anymore, regardless of whether her experiment succeeded or failed.
But as a result, she’d lost a great many usable pawns. Aya had few options left.
But even though she was backed into a corner, Aya said with thorough amusement, “However, Fourth Primogenitor, surely you must be suffering, controlling other Beast Vassals while having summoned one powerful enough to support the entire island. How much longer before you lose control? If I can endure until then, I win. The effect is the same.”
Kojou silently grimaced. He didn’t care to admit it, but Aya was right. Just like his other Beast Vassals, Natra Cinereus, the Beast Vassal of mist, was frighteningly difficult to control. One slip and it’d completely run amok.
At the moment, he had it behaving while supporting the man-made island, but that wouldn’t last for long. If that Beast Vassal went berserk, no doubt Itogami Island would literally go up in a puff of smoke.
Yukina posed her spear and stated, “We shall defeat you before that happens.”
Aya narrowed her eyes and smiled.
“Can you do it, Sword Shaman?”
Her expression somehow seemed darker than before.
Realizing that something very wrong was happening to Aya, Natsuki became visibly shaken, her tiny body shuddering. She shouted up, her voice almost shrieking:
“Stop! Don’t do it, Aya!”
The next moment, Aya Tokoyogi’s entire body was enveloped by fire. It was not fire in a physical sense; these were ominous, black flames that seemed like they came from the pits of hell itself.
Aya’s body, completely enveloped in flame, was no longer visible from the outside. Only her fiery eyes were visible, blazing amid the darkness. The magical power trickling out from her became a frightening torrent, now rivaling that of Kojou’s own Beast Vassals.
“Wh-what the hell…is this?!” Kojou shouted.
Sayaka, the only one observing the battle with a cool head, was the first to identify the calamity. “She’s losing her soul!” she shouted. “It’s a witch’s final stage—her soul is consumed by her devil, while her flesh becomes that of a true demon—”
Natsuki bit her lip in despair.
“…At this point, no one can stop it. Aya is beyond saving…”
No one could appreciate the fear of losing one’s own soul more than a fellow witch.
Kojou nervously clenched his fists. “No way…”
His control over his Beast Vassals was at its limit. If they couldn’t stop Aya then and there, Itogami Island would be destroyed by Kojou’s own hand.
However, now that she’d become a full demon, Aya’s magical power was off the scale. How could he defeat a monster like that if he had such a hard time even keeping his Beast Vassals on a leash—?
As Kojou brooded over the matter, Yukina gripped his hand firmly.
“No, senpai. We will stop her. For Yuuma’s sake, too—”
Yukina’s eyes were filled with unshakable determination. She knew what she had to fight for.
They couldn’t abandon Aya with the injured Yuuma watching. They couldn’t let the mother perish before the eyes of the daughter who’d spent a lifetime waiting to meet her.
Yukina was functionally an orphan; she had not known her own mother. That was why she wanted to save Aya. It was thinking well suited to the considerate, deeply serious Yukina.
“Guess there’s no helpin’ it, then,” Kojou replied, gripping her hand back.
That was enough to tell each other how they felt: Whatever it takes.
“She herself stated,” began Yukina, “Snowdrift Wolf does not nullify magical energy, but rather, it returns the world to its proper state. If that is so—”
“Got it. I’m about at my limit, anyway.”
“Yes. It’s now or never!”
Yukina raised her spear and charged.
The being that was once Aya Tokoyogi traced symbols with her fire-enveloped fingertip. From these, she created amorphous monsters not known to them. They were probably creatures from the demonic realm.
The monsters rushed toward Yukina, as if to block the witch from her.
“C’mon over, Regulus Aurum—!”<
br />
It was a lightning-shrouded golden lion that blew the amorphous monsters away, the fifth Beast Vassal of the Fourth Primogenitor. Its lightning, infused with incredible demonic power, burned the creatures to ash. They’d blazed a trail for Yukina.
The girl danced through, her silver spear held high.
“I, Maiden of the Lion, Sword Shaman of the High God, beseech thee.”
As she made her solemn chant, her spear was enveloped by a white glow.
The witch losing her soul stopped moving, as if she feared that glow.
“O purifying light, O divine wolf of the snowdrift, by your steel divine will, strike down the devils before me!”
A single flash of the silver spear bisected the black flames that enveloped the witch.
Aya’s body, bathed in the magical light, lost her divine power. This also meant that the pact with her devil had been broken. Her corrupted witch’s body had been severed from the demonic realm.
From behind, they heard the lisping voice of a very young girl…
“Well done, my students!”
Silver chains shot out from thin air to pluck Aya’s body right out of the black flames.
Having lost their reason for manifesting in the world of men, the demonic flames twisted and burned savagely but for a single moment before puffing out and vanishing.
Then the ward enveloping the school and the effects of the Black Bible vanished.
Kojou and the others were instantly assaulted by a feeling akin to color returning to the world. Magic had returned to Itogami Island. With that, Kojou dismissed his mist Beast Vassal.
The silver fog slowly lifted, and the entirety of Itogami Island and the blue sea that surrounded it came into view.
Kojou groaned as the first dazzling rays of light poked over the horizon.
The rays of the morning sun shone upon their tired, beat-up bodies.
At some point, night had yielded to dawn.
OUTRO
At the very center of Itogami Island, there was a small museum inside the building called Keystone Gate.
Its proper name was the Demon Sanctuary Museum. The facility served as a showcase for the fruits of Itogami Island’s Demon Sanctuary scientific labors, oriented toward tourists. It sold pictures of Senra Itogami, designer of the man-made island, and mock-ups of the island itself; packages of commercial products developed in the Demon Sanctuary; replicas of Island Guard gear and famous sorcerous devices; and so forth—the abundance of rare goods one would never catch sight of on the mainland made it one of Itogami Island’s most famous tourist attractions.
Fiesta for the Observers Page 21
