Strike the Blood, Vol. 6 (light novel): Return of the Alchemist

by Gakuto Mikumo

  Astarte walked forward, replying in a flat, mechanical voice, “Accepted: Execute Rhododactylos.”

  As usual, she was wearing a maid outfit with the shoulders and back heavily exposed. From her pale, open back emerged a pair of giant, rainbow-colored wings. The wings changed into ghoulish, monstrous arms that thrust into the mass of liquid metal to pin it down.

  The entire body of the monster that was once Amatsuka shuddered and roared. “OOOOOOoooooo—!”

  The liquid-metal life-form, presumably able to slip past any physical attack, could do nothing against the assault from the “weak and helpless” homunculus.

  Astarte was the prototype for a man-made Beast Vassal symbiote, making her the world’s one and only homunculus able to summon a Beast Vassal. And the Beast Vassal she commanded drained the magical power and life energy from others.

  Natsuki, sounding like she’d already lost interest in Amatsuka, murmured, “A self-propagating liquid-metal life-form, yes? Perhaps it treads surprisingly close to an immutable body, but it’s outmatched here.”

  The surface of the metal lost its luster, cracking apart like rusting steel. Having been robbed of all its magical energy, it reverted to a simple lump of metal.

  “Five years ago…was it?”

  Natsuki picked up a piece of the smashed and discarded black gemstone. Sighing softly, she tipped her head back to regard the ceiling. The top floor of this building was Natsuki’s home, where she lived with a girl to whom she was the guardian—a certain Kanon Kanase, once known as the “Faux-Angel.”

  6

  In a corner of an abandoned warehouse, Kou Amatsuka seemed to stagger as he sat down. In one hand, he held a container with a fragment of the broken Dummy Core.

  There was a single line of blood flowing from his human forehead. His real body, resonating with a fellow Dummy Core, had been hit by the resulting backlash.

  “Ow-ow-ow… You’re as good as they say, Natsuki Minamiya…”

  Rising slowly, Amatsuka spoke as if it wasn’t his problem. But in the pale moonlight, the side of his face looked white as a ghost’s.

  The right side of Amatsuka’s body was a liquid-metal life-form almost identical to the composition of Wiseman’s Blood. By splitting off a piece of it and giving it a Dummy Core, he was able to produce clones of himself. But by the same token, making each clone literally meant losing a part of himself.

  Though he could restore lost mass by fusing with other metal, it also meant diminishing the purity of the Spirit Blood. Repeated cloning had already pushed Amatsuka’s body close to its limit.

  “—Yeah, sorry. I wasn’t able to get Kanon Kanase. My bad.”

  Amatsuka was speaking to someone, but there was no one else standing in the abandoned warehouse that was awaiting demolition. Rather, he was speaking to the silver cane in his hand, specifically a skull engraved into the handle.

  “No need to worry. I have other ideas when it comes to fuel.”

  As Amatsuka spoke, he gave his right wrist several twists. It was the same piece the Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency had lopped off several days prior. Her spear, able to nullify magical energy, was more or less the mortal enemy of Wiseman’s Blood, a sorcerous life-form. But put another way, without that spear, she was no threat to Amatsuka whatsoever.

  “The Wiseman’s Blood with the Dummy Core that got away should have begun to grow by now. It’ll show itself sooner or later, no matter what I do.”

  Amatsuka glared at the grim skull engraving as he left the lonely building.

  Perhaps he’d only imagined it, but he thought he’d faintly heard the skull laughing at him—

  “I know. Just make sure you don’t forget your promise.”

  That said, Amatsuka made his way back to the city once more. He had work to do—namely, destroying the one he had once called his mentor, and taking back what he’d lost five years before.

  7

  The next morning, around five AM, Kojou was in the apartment lobby seeing his little sister and her classmate off as they went on their field trip.

  His exhausted face was the product of not having slept a single wink the night before, having spent it all with Nina Adelard in search of Wiseman’s Blood.

  More accurately, “search” had meant going onto the roof to help Nina as she tried a variety of suspicious-looking scrying rituals, but that had tired him out nonetheless. Yukina seemed about to catch on several times along the way, forcing him to employ special effort to pull the wool over her eyes. Just imagining what she might do to him if she caught him alone, on the roof, with the woman wearing Asagi’s face was frightening enough.

  In the end, Nina hadn’t been able to find any sign of the Wiseman’s Blood, even after three AM. If her spells could be compared to a submarine’s sonar, the Demon Sanctuary apparently put out too much “noise” for it to be effective.

  So after Nina and Kojou dragged their tired bodies back to the apartment and Kojou thought he could finally get some sleep, Nagisa had come in to slap him awake.

  Nagisa, wearing clothes for cool weather that looked out of place on tropical Itogami Island, buried Kojou and his bloodshot eyes in conversation.

  “Understand, Kojou? When you go out, make sure the fires are out and the door is locked. Do your homework as soon as you get back from school. Also, there are side dishes in the fridge for today and tonight. Don’t forget to take a bath and brush your teeth, and try to wake up on time so that you’re not late for—”

  “I feel like it was just yesterday that Himeragi was saying all this stuff…”

  Man, do I look that flaky? wondered Kojou, frowning.

  Yukina stood beside Nagisa, smiling broadly as she listened to the brother-sister exchange. In annoyance, Kojou replied, “Never mind me, you be careful out there. I mean, it’s been a while since you were off the island.”

  “Oh, it’ll be all right. Just wait for the souvenirs. Oh, wait, ick, I forgot something!”

  Nagisa checked her pockets. “My wallet!” she shouted as she ran back inside. With a loud patter of hasty footsteps, she hurried back to the elevator bank with liveliness you wouldn’t expect from someone who had lived in a hospital a couple years before.

  Kojou sighed with an exasperated look as he watched his little sister go into the elevator car.

  “Restless, isn’t she?”

  Having something like this happen right before she left made him even more anxious about whether it would really be all right.

  Nagisa had a lot of luggage with her, probably because she wasn’t used to trips. In contrast, Yukina only had a single brown travel bag with her. Maybe it just felt like she had less with her because she wasn’t carrying that black guitar case on her back like she always did. Yukina, wearing a somewhat large coat over her school uniform, appeared a little younger than usual.

  Looking like that, Yukina seemed to hesitate as she called out to Kojou. “Ah, senpai. About the substitute watcher for while I’m away…”

  Ah, thought Kojou, pressing a hand to his head with a groan. The ruckus with Nina Adelard had made him completely forget about that remaining concern.

  “Right, I did break Professor Kitty’s shikigami and all…”

  “…Professor Kitty?”

  Yukina did a double take.

  “A-anyway,” she continued after a moment, “the rituals for making a shikigami from scratch take too long. They’ll be sending a replacement from High God Forest after all.”

  “So they’re sending one straight from headquarters, huh? It’s going to take some time, then?”

  “Yes. The replacement will arrive this afternoon at the absolute earliest.”

  “This afternoon…huh?”

  So I can move freely until then. Either way, they couldn’t just sit on their hands with the Wiseman’s Blood off its leash. If they could wrap things up before the substitute watcher arrived, then—

  Yukina’s gaze sharpened, as if she could see Kojou hardening his resolve. “You seem rather e
xcited about this somehow…”

  As usual, she had razor-sharp intuition.

  “Eh?! No, that’s not it at all! I was just thinking, like, I could sleep till noon now, or something…”

  “Senpai…”

  Yukina glared at Kojou like she was staring at a high-maintenance little brother. “Please behave yourself while I’m gone. The alchemist is gone, so there should not be any direct danger, but I have a bad feeling about things somehow.”

  “G…got it. I’ll be careful.”

  Her words gave Kojou a chill up his spine.

  Yukina didn’t know that Amatsuka was still alive. And yet, her Sword Shaman spiritual senses told her the danger still existed.

  It was then that Nagisa, out of breath, arrived back and took Yukina by the hand. “—Sorry to make you wait. Let’s go, Yukina. Later, Kojou! I’ll be back soon!”

  Kojou made a perfunctory wave to the pair before heading back to the apartment.

  Yawning as he entered the elevator, Kojou was just arriving at the seventh floor when he realized he’d faintly heard a scream. It had come from room 704—Kojou’s apartment.

  “—Nina?!”

  Kojou unlocked the front door and rushed into the apartment.

  Nina ought to have been sleeping on the bed in his room; it’d taken quite a lot of effort to bring her in there without getting busted by Nagisa and Yukina. And there she was, kneeling on the bed, looking up at Kojou with tears in her eyes. The woman wearing Asagi’s face spoke with a voice that was half-cheerful, half-scared.

  “K-Kojou…”

  She was pressing down firmly on the bust of the T-shirt she was wearing in place of pajamas to hide her breasts from his gaze. It was rather adorable, exaggerated behavior from the self-described Great Alchemist. It was as if she was an ordinary high school g—

  Kojou was seized by sudden concern and asked timidly, “Wait, you’re…Asagi?”

  The body that looked like Asagi shuddered and nodded awkwardly.

  “Wh…why was I sleeping in your bed…?!”

  Kojou clutched his head. That idiot… Why did she have to sleep at the worst possible time?!

  Nina had hijacked Asagi’s consciousness the night before. Asagi had been taking a shower at the time. And then the next moment, as far as she knew, she had woken up on top of Kojou’s bed…

  No doubt, from Asagi’s point of view, there was only one possibility for what had happened to her.

  Asagi’s voice quivered as she looked down at the disheveled bedsheets.

  “Kojou…don’t tell me you…”

  Bright morning sunbeams shone in through the window; a seagull cried out from somewhere.

  Kojou desperately pleaded, “Wait, calm down, Asagi. Just listen to me! You have this all wrong!”

  He could foresee Asagi flying into a complete rage now. Anyone would be angry at having been dragged off to bed while unconscious. Of course Asagi would be, too. However—

  “H…huh…? Sorry, I just… This shouldn’t be happening…”

  Kojou stared as a flood of tears began to fall from Asagi’s eyes. Asagi herself seemed surprised at how she couldn’t control her own emotions. This was a first for her, yet she didn’t remember a thing about it, which must have come as a great shock.

  …Well, not that anything had actually happened to begin with, but regardless…

  “No, you’ve got this all wrong!!”

  Kojou desperately tried to find an explanation that might persuade her. Naturally, he came up with nothing. He couldn’t exactly tell her that she’d almost died and as a result, her body had been taken over by an alchemist. Kojou, his mind going blank from trying to think up some excuse, suddenly turned toward the nearest wall and smacked his own face against it, hard. A dull thud echoed as the concrete structure shook; the impact sent Asagi into shock.

  “K-Kojou…?!”

  “Look, just believe me! I didn’t do anything. You’ve got no reason to cry at all!”

  “I-is that so?”

  “If I’m lying, I’ll treat you to an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

  “R-right.”

  “A lot of stuff happened and you got tired and slept, that’s it. It’ll pass soon.”

  “R-right… I, I understand. Wipe that blood already, your face looks scary…!”

  Apparently shock therapy had fulfilled its purpose and brought Asagi back to normal operating condition. And what’s more, she tentatively believed Kojou, too.

  Oh, yeah I bet it does. After he nodded, he wiped off the blood that was liberally flowing from his sliced forehead. Cuts to the head tended to bleed a lot, but Kojou still did a double take as he looked at how it turned his towel bright red. It’d worked, but he’d overdone it. He was worried he might have cracked his skull, too.

  Asagi looked up at Kojou as he brought the heavy bleeding under control, sighing a bit as she asked, “Hey, Kojou?”

  Maybe because she was looking at Kojou with a tearful face, her shy expression seemed oddly adorable.

  “What?”

  “You…really didn’t do anything?”

  Kojou was hastily rummaging in his closet for a spare towel as he said in a throwaway tone, “I told you already, no. I wasn’t exactly in any condition for that either.”

  As he spoke, Asagi put her chin in her palms with an oddly sullen look. “That’s kind of depressing and annoying at the same time…”

  Kojou didn’t quite catch the words Asagi had murmured and looked back at her with a towel pressed to his head.

  “Ah?”

  Asagi glared at Kojou before breaking out in an elegant smile. She bared her teeth with a teasing sound before quipping, “You klutz.”

  The hell’s that for? Surprised, he was ready to retort off the cuff when, a moment later…

  “—!”

  Kojou’s entire body stiffened from an incredible pulse of magical energy it had detected.

  A great explosive roar bellowed like a thunderclap, making Itogami Island’s artificial ground shake. Kojou rose back up from the ground like he’d been given a stern kick, pulling himself to the window to look outside.

  At some point during that, Nina Adelard had awakened. With Asagi’s face and voice, she announced, “The Wiseman’s Blood is on the move…”

  Kojou could say nothing. All he could do was gaze at the city, dumbfounded.

  At the far corner of his vision, faint black smoke was rising up from a coastal area. Ground zero for the explosions was probably the harbor district in Island East, with its piers and airports serving as the entrance to Itogami Island.

  It was also the location of the ferry Nagisa and Yukina were heading toward.

  8

  A young man was standing atop a giant crane, one that stood at the harbor’s breakwater.

  He wore a boy’s uniform from Saikai Academy, and had his short, spiky hair combed back, with a pair of plain headphones over his ears. His mouth was full of small capsules.

  Motoki Yaze bit down on the capsules with a hard crunch.

  “So it’s on the move…”

  Looking down from the crane, there was no visible disturbance in the area. However, Yaze was a Hyper-Adapter—a natural psychic not reliant upon magic. With his hearing augmented by the drug he’d just taken, his range was acute enough to pick up the drop of a pin or the slightest difference in air pressure within a one-kilometer radius.

  He could even detect the liquid-metal life-form wriggling its way through the man-made island’s aqueducts…

  Yaze drew up the pin microphone on his chest. “Hey… Can you hear me? Captain, the target’s coming out of the aqueduct. Send Blue Team to B7. Send Green Team to B9. Have Second Company seal off the marine park, please.”

  He was communicating with the Island Guard’s law enforcement unit, which had already deployed two companies’ worth of manpower to the harbor area.

  He heard the unit captain’s voice through the osteopathic receiver, filled with naked anger.

  “Ro
ger that, Heimdall.”

  Of course, Yaze was not the target of his ire. The captain’s hatred was directed toward the metallic life-form known as the Wiseman’s Blood, and the alchemist who controlled it.

  The Island Guard had already lost twelve members through the course of the incident. It was the worst number of fatalities caused by a single criminal all year. Even during massive, national-scale events such as the raid on Keystone Gate and the Black Death Emperor Front terror incident, they had not suffered such losses.

  Furthermore, this criminal was not a man fighting for faith and pride like the Lotharingian Armed Apostle or the Black Death Emperor Front. He was a filthy, rotten burglar who’d stolen a locked-away magical device to satisfy his own selfish greed. The captain was indignant that such a man had slaughtered his comrades.

  That’s not good, murmured Yaze to himself. High morale was a good thing, but losing your cool in the process was decidedly not. After all, this wasn’t an opponent that could be overwhelmed with numbers alone.

  “The target’s a liquid-metal life-form. Don’t get funny ideas about bullets bringing it down. Bide your time and wait for the Attack Mages to arrive.”

  Yaze dished out orders again, but this time there was no response. Yaze clicked his tongue a little. It wasn’t a very good situation. He really had a bad feeling about it, in fact.

  As Yaze scowled, he heard a sarcastic synthetic voice coming from his chest.

  “Keh-keh… Wiseman’s Blood on the loose, huh? This is getting pretty interesting.”

  It was the voice of the avatar of the five supercomputers that held all of Itogami Island’s vital functions in its grip, the artificial intelligence Asagi had dubbed Mogwai. Apparently it had taken the liberty of eavesdropping on Yaze’s radio conversation.

  “Not at all,” Yaze replied listlessly. “Maybe it’d be different somewhere else, but this is a Demon Sanctuary. We’ve got plenty of ways to neutralize even immutable self-propagating life-forms. We could chuck it into another dimension, smash it with Beast Vassal–level magical power…”