Demon King Daimaou: Volume 6

by Shoutarou Mizuki

  “She’s gone...” Junko said. “But why did she run?”

  ○

  “I should be safe now...”

  Keena was hiding in the shadow of the boy’s dorm. She was totally naked except for a curtain she’d wrapped around herself. She’d grabbed it from a classroom when she was making her escape.

  “Junko won’t follow me to the boy’s dorm. Now, time to eat that pudding!” she said. “I didn’t expect to eat it outside, but I know that rice pudding eaten outside has to be even more delicious...”

  Just as she tried to dig her spoon into the white pudding...

  BOOOM!

  An explosion went off right next to her.

  “KEINA!” Fujiko howled angrily. Then she charged at her.

  “Huh?! Why?!” Keena started to run.

  Fujiko had said “Keina,” but Keena thought, of course, that she was referring to her.

  “Wh-Why is Fujiko after me too...?” Keena threw aside her curtain as she began to run, clutching the pudding cup in her hands.

  “Keina! Where did you go?!” Fujiko looked around for Keina, her face twisted with rage.

  “S-She really is looking for me... Oh no! It can’t be...!” Keena looked down at the rice pudding in her hands.

  “She must know I have it! I didn’t expect Junko and Fujiko to find out...”

  ○

  “I don’t understand why you’re chasing after me! If you want to join us for afternoon sex, then the three of us can all do it together!”

  Keina was jumping around to dodge Fujiko’s attacks, and firing back balls of light when she could.

  “The three of us... That might not be so bad... Wait! I can’t do that! Akuto belongs to me and me alone!”

  Fujiko was keeping up with her, attacking violently as she followed Keina. By now, Fujiko was totally serious. She wasn’t using the light balls, which were magic she was bad with. Instead she was slowly cornering Keina with the vials of drugs she always carried with her. She hit Keina’s clothes with a marker drug, and then summoned light balls that would automatically track it.

  The other students gathered when they heard the commotion.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Fujiko’s fighting the exchange student?”

  “Let’s help her! Fujiko’s such a nice girl! Something really bad must have happened for her to fight”!

  “The exchange student must have done something wrong!”

  So said the students, as they prepared to join the fight on Fujiko’s side.

  “I-It looks like we’re attracting a crowd!” Keina said. She didn’t know what was going on, but Fujiko’s attitude suddenly changed.

  “Everyone, stay back! She suddenly attacked me for no reason! And she was shouting lewd words when she did it, too! She’s like a dangerous beast!” Fujiko yelled.

  Of course, all the students believed her.

  “Get her!”

  “How dare she do that to a gentle girl like Fujiko!”

  Suddenly, Keina was being followed by an angry mob. Since it was a boring weekend, the other students in the dorm began to participate in the fun.

  “Wh-What’s going on? I didn’t do that! She’s lying!” Keina protested, but nobody listened to her. She was like a rabbit being chased by hunting dogs.

  “Nooo! Why is this happening?!” Keina kept running.

  And then for a moment, she stood still, unsure of which corner to go down...

  THUD!

  “Hyah!” And something invisible slammed into her and she tripped.

  Of course, it was Keena.

  But Keina didn’t have time to stop and think about it; the mob was after her, and she had to flee quickly!

  ○

  “Oww...” Keena had fallen to the ground as well, but she’d managed to protect her rice pudding. In her rush to protect it, she’d ended up naked on the ground with her legs splayed, but she was invisible, so it didn’t matter.

  “W-Whew... That was a close one.”

  Keena stood up to get away from Keina, who was glancing furtively around and trying to figure out what had happened.

  But then Fujiko came rushing towards her, with a massive group of students behind her. Of course, they were after Keina, but unfortunately Keena wasn’t the type of girl who was perceptive enough to figure that out.

  “I-I knew it! All these people are after my rice pudding!” Keena said, absolutely sure of it. “I’ll just have to eat it while I run...”

  Gulp.

  Keena gulped to stop herself from drooling. But then she shook her head.

  “No! If I don’t eat it when everything’s just perfect, it would be rude to the craftsmen who made it! So much effort was spent in its creation!”

  And so Keena decided to run for real.

  “I need to get somewhere where nobody will come... I know! There’s a spot on the roof where it’s locked to keep people out!”

  Keena stopped running and started to fly up into the sky.

  “Rice pudding on the roof! It’ll be wonderful! Oh, it’s so white and smooth, and just a little sweet, like eating a cloud! Yes, it’s the perfect treat to eat under blue skies! They go together like salmon and grated radish! No, wait! If I start thinking about other foods it will dull my sense of taste! Yes, it goes together like morning dew and ladybugs! I need to get as close to the sky as I can!”

  Keena flew upwards, her voice more dazed than ever.

  ○

  “Whew. All they ever do is cause problems.”

  Student Council President Lily Shiraishi used a secret key that only she possessed to open up the door to the roof. She’d wanted to go somewhere with a lot of space, where she wouldn’t be bothered. The complaints from the neighbors after the chaos in town had been horrible, and the knights had been on her case, too. She was in a bad mood, so she’d brought a sandbag up to the roof so she could work off some stress.

  A lot of the students could use flying magic, but they all followed the rules about going up to the roof. And anyway, the roof had only become off limits recently, after a huge hole had been blown in it during the last war. There were rumors that the high priest of Suhara had died there, and even the students who could fly found the place too creepy to spend any time there.

  “Hmm, I was right, this place is empty. I can probably just leave this up here.”

  Lily used the same telekinetic power she’d used to bring the sandbag up to the roof to hang it from a pole on the fence. She gave it a few taps to test it, and then wound up a big swing.

  “It’s his fault in the first place for going into town.”

  Lily slammed a fist into the sandbag, hard. It started to shake with a creaking sound.

  “I don’t know what happened there, but I can guess. Fujiko Eto must’ve done something.”

  Thud. Thud.

  “And then there’s those damn knights!”

  Thud. Thud. Thud!

  “They’re trying to blame the whole thing on my students to cover up their own corruption!”

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud!

  “It pisses me off! I’m taking calcium pills every day, and it’s still not enough!”

  Thudthudthudthudthudthud!

  Lily began to tear into the sandbag with incredible force.

  That’s when Keena flew up, invisible. She had only heard a portion of what Lily had said.

  “She needs more calcium...? Ah! Even the student council president is after my calcium-loaded rice pudding? And she’s hitting that sandbag so hard... She must really want it! But how did the whole school find out about it, I wonder?”

  Keena hid in the shadow of the school’s water tower, mumbling to herself.

  ○

  “Over there, Fujiko!” One of the students pointed at the roof.

  “That’s where she ran to, huh?” Fujiko ran up the stairs.

  The group was following the marker that they thought was attached to Keina’s clothes — but right now, that marker was stuck to Ke
ena’s body. Of course, Fujiko and the other students had no idea.

  “The roof? Where we’re not allowed to go?” They realized that the door to the roof was locked.

  “It doesn’t matter. They say it’s off limits because the hole hasn’t been repaired. If she’s hiding up there, it means we’ve got her cornered!”

  Encouraged by her words, the students used magic to blast down the door. There was a BOOM sound as the door slid across the roof.

  “Get her!” Fujiko and her followers all rushed onto the roof. There were 20 of them in all.

  “Where are you?!”

  “Come out!”

  “You can’t escape!”

  They began to spread out across the roof, and one of them happened to step on the door that they’d just knocked down. He realized that there was something strange about the way it felt beneath his feet. And then it moved.

  “U-Uwah!” he screamed and jumped off.

  A shadow appeared from beneath the door — someone had been squished under it when it had been broken down.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

  Of course, it was Lily Shiraishi who lifted up the door and stood up. There were blue veins on her forehead, and a glare on her face that would’ve made a hungry, man-eating beast turn and run.

  At the Academy, how good you were in a fight meant everything, so as student council president, Lily was one of the best. The whole school knew how scary she was. The students all got a look on their faces like a person gets when the “friend” he thought he was pranking turns out to be a yakuza.

  “N-Nothing... We didn’t see you here. We didn’t know you’d be here...”

  “What? Are you saying I’m so small you didn’t notice me?”

  Lily was being unfair. She was just extremely sensitive about her own height.

  “N-No, I didn’t... I’m sorry. I just never notice the little stuff...”

  Those were the worst words the student possibly could’ve chosen.

  “A-All of you...”

  Lily was angry enough to begin with. Now, she put her hand on the brim of her fancy hat. When she turned it around, it was a sign that she was really pissed.

  “You’re not leaving here alive!”

  The hat was turned around.

  In the next moment, 20 people flew into the air at once. Lily’s arms multiplied like a statue of Kannon, stretching out and punching each person ten times in an instant.

  “If it were night, I would’ve turned you all into constellations. You’re lucky it’s daytime.”

  Just after she said that, the students all landed head first on the ground. And then Lily glared at the last person standing.

  “I-I-It was really just a tiny... I mean a minor mistake!” Fujiko tried to say while laughing uncomfortably. Even Fujiko tried to avoid fighting the student council directly.

  “Did you just say tiny? Huh?” Lily screamed.

  “Heh... heheh... I guess I’ve got no choice, then. Everyone else is unconscious, so I don’t have to hold back!”

  Fujiko realized she couldn’t escape, so she decided to fight instead. She tossed off her uniform, revealing her leather bondage outfit underneath.

  “Cerberus!” she shouted, and a huge beast appeared on the roof in a blast of wind. The Demon Beasts had been in hiding since the war, but this one was a personal favorite of Fujiko’s, and she’d kept it.

  “You want a fight, huh? Well, you’ve got it,” Lily said.

  “I didn’t plan on this, but if we’re going to fight, I’m going to fight for real! And if I win, I’m taking the student council presidency!”

  By now, the two of them seemed to have completely forgotten what they’d been doing.

  Lily faced off with Fujiko, who was now astride Cerberus. Tension began to build between the two. If someone gave a signal, they both would’ve moved at once.

  But instead, someone came through the broken door.

  “Fujiko! I heard from Korone and Doronz what happened! What do you think you’re doing?!” It was Junko, with Keina trailing behind her.

  When Junko was chasing Keena, she’d run across Keina instead, and heard the story from her. All Keina had said, though, was that Fujiko had suddenly attacked her. From Junko’s perspective, she had not the slightest idea why Lily and Fujiko were facing off with one another.

  “W-What are you doing?” she asked again.

  But neither Lily nor Fujiko knew why they were fighting anymore.

  “Hmph. We were fighting about what’s the best side dish for dinner tonight.”

  This was Lily’s idea of a joke. Fujiko loved being sarcastic, so she joined in.

  “The student council president says that whatever it is, she wants as much of it as possible. She says she hopes it will help her chest grow.”

  “You’re a dead woman...” Lily’s expression grew even more ferocious. If a child saw it, it would traumatize them for life.

  “Both of you, calm down. I’m afraid I’m going to have to put a stop to...” Junko tried to interrupt, but Lily jabbed at her with an extending arm.

  Smack!

  The fist hit Junko’s face and bounced off. It was a weak attack, a message to stay out of this.

  But...

  “Don’t try and stop me. You couldn’t beat me in the labyrinth, remember?”

  Junko had staggered back and dropped to her knees, but those words lit a fire in her eyes.

  “...Take that back, please. I’m not who I once was. I will join in this battle over side dishes!”

  Junko drew the blade at her waist. It was her family’s treasure, the Sohaya no Tsurugi. A blade blessed with incredible powers by the god Suhara. Now that Suhara was dead, its powers had weakened, but it was still an extremely powerful sword. It still had the power to rapidly boost its wielder’s mana.

  A rainbow light ran along the blade, covering Junko’s body with mana. The intense pressure radiating from her was enough for Lily to get serious.

  “I like it! That face! That power! I’m excited for this now! Both of you, come and get me!”

  Wind blew across the concrete hill. The three pretty girls were the only ones standing among the unconscious students. Each of them had their own style of elegance and strength, and each of them was tensed and ready for battle.

  It was like a beautiful sight, that is, if you forgot the fact that none of them knew why they were fighting.

  “Eeyaaaah!”

  It was Lily who made the first move. She wasn’t lying when she said she intended to fight them both. Her flurry of punches reached out towards both Fujiko and Junko.

  “Dodge!” Fujiko ordered Cerberus, who reacted with bestial speed. The huge, three-headed beast showed no fear in the face of the simultaneous attacks, dodging them perfectly with a series of leaps to the left and right.

  Junko created a clone to dodge the attacks. When Lily’s punches hit, it disappeared, and Junko was already gone.

  “Tch!” Lily looked around for Junko.

  “Standard combat theory says she’d jump up... which means she’s below?!”

  Only someone of Lily’s strength would’ve been able to detect the flow of mana at the last second and dodge. She leapt up slightly to dodge the attack at her feet.

  “You dodged it?!” Junko had used her mana to create a false concrete floor to hide under while she charged at Lily, and now that her attack had failed, she was crouched down and wide open.

  “Hah!” Lily tried to punch downwards, but before she could, Fujiko took action.

  “You’re not fighting just one person!” Fujiko’s whip struck at Lily. She’d waited for lily to jump off the ground, but since Lily could fly, it didn’t give her the advantage she’d expected. Lily stopped in mid-air and slashed apart the whip with a mana-coated strike.

  “‘Oh no, I failed...!’ Is what I’m NOT going to say! I’m not the type who fights with brute strength!” Fujiko’s plan had been for Lily to slash at the whip all along. When she did, she sim
ply let it go. The whip wrapped itself around Lily like it had a will of its own.

  “What? It was a trap?” Lily gasped in surprise. The whip squeezed her torso, and she moaned in pain.

  “Hahahaha! I never thought I could beat you in a straight-up fight!” Fujiko laughed as if she’d already won.

  “You coward! Don’t fight with your tools! Fight me bare-handed!” Lily grunted. She could still reach out her arms, but since she couldn’t use her shoulders, she couldn’t move them fast enough to turn them into punches. Fujiko’s Cerberus hopped around to dodge them.

  “Fighting bare-handed is what barbarians do!” she laughed. “Also, when most girls get caught like that, their breasts get wrapped up and squeezed by the whip, and gives anybody seeing it a nice show. But with your skinny body, that doesn’t happen. Hahaha!”

  “Ugaaah! I’ll get you for this!” Lily screamed, while Fujiko just laughed.

  But then, the laugh froze on her lips.

  “Shameless!”

  The whip was sliced apart with a shout. Lily was free. But before Fujiko could even react, there was someone standing on top of one of Cerberus’s heads. It was Junko, with her arms crossed and looking down at Fujiko.

  “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you about that!”

  “Yeah, and I’ve been getting pretty annoyed at your goody-goody act!”

  Fujiko tried to go on the attack, but Cerberus staggered and Junko was forced to leap away.

  “It doesn’t matter, I’m still taking you both down!” Lily started punching randomly in Fujiko and Junko’s direction.

  “Stop messing around!” Fujiko howled as Cerberus started running.

  “If you want a brawl, then you’ve got one!” Junko created another clone, so she was facing off against Lily and Fujiko at the same time.

  Lily turned towards her, ready for a fight, and Fujiko spurred Cerberus onwards to join in the brawl. The battle got fiercer, things got even more confused, and chaos manifested on the roof.

  Meanwhile, there were two people watching as the battle unfolded: Keena and Keina.

  Keena was watching from the shadows, and she’d gotten a strange idea in her head.

  “Oh no! This is all because of my rice pudding! When they talked about side dishes for dinner, this is what they meant! What do I do? My wonderful rice pudding is making my friends fight! It’s such a horrible thing that the world can never be at peace!”