Strike the Blood - Volume 11 - Chapter Pr

INTRO 

“Yes, I know it’s late. That’s why I’m asking you— Where have you been?!” 

Nagisa Akatsuki sat in the passenger’s seat of an old car, holding a smartphone in her hand, displeasure obvious in her voice. However, the alarm in her tone was probably due to the weak signal. 

The landscape visible through the front window was marked by a treacherous cliff and a narrow, winding mountain road. 

It was a little past eight PM. The prefectural road was dark, the only light coming from the occasional lamppost, and there were no signs of other vehicles passing through. 

“Huh? The hospital?! What the—?! Who’s in the hospital?! Celes…ta? Who? Er… Those voices just now… Yukina and Kanon are both with you?! Hey, Kojou…?! Ah!” 

When the call suddenly cut off, Nagisa glared at the smartphone’s screen with her cheeks puffed out. She immediately tried to reconnect, but the text displayed on the screen read a heartless O UT OF R ANGE. The car had entered a tunnel. 

“Oh? Kojou brought that middle schooler over to our place?” asked Gajou Akatsuki in amusement as he gripped the steering wheel. 

When he chuckled aloud, Nagisa glared sullenly at the side of her father’s face and said, “That’s right. Sheesh, stupid Kojou! And here I was worried because I couldn’t get through since yesterday!” 

“Well, I’m sure a lot happened on the brat’s end. Seems he had a scary chick from the CSA come visit and all.” 

“A chick?! What the—?! I can’t believe it. This can’t be happening. The minute I take my eyes off him, this happens…!” Nagisa murmured, sulking after Gajou’s comment. 

Gajou narrowed his eyes as he gazed at the side of his beloved daughter’s upset face. He gave the car a little extra gas. 

He hummed to a tune on the radio, which was a pop group’s most recent song to hit the airwaves. The lyrics spoke frivolously of love and romance, and they did not suit him, a man dressed like some mafia gangster born a century too late, in the slightest. However, he didn’t seem too concerned about his appearance. 

Gajou and Nagisa were on their way to Kamioda District—a little village in the Tanzawa Mountains on the western edge of Kanagawa Prefecture—a peninsula surrounded by a lake. 

This lake, known as Kannawa Lake, was a giant manmade body of water produced through the construction of a dam. It doubled as a bustling tourist attraction popular with fishermen and hikers. 

The dam-created lake overlooked an old temple quietly constructed in the Tangiwa Mountains, away from prying eyes. 

It was an odd shrine, and it was far from certain whether it was officially designated as a temple. The chief priest in charge of the priestesses therein was Hisano Akatsuki, Gajou’s mother, and consequently, Nagisa’s grandmother. He and Nagisa had traveled all the way from Itogami Island to see her. 

“Took more time than I figured. Wonder if that old hag is still alive,” Gajou murmured as he drove the car to the temple at the foot of the mountain. 

From there, they’d have to walk up a long series of stone steps that ran all the way to the main building of the temple grounds. 

“Gajou, you didn’t call Granny to tell her we’d be arriving late? Is that okay? She’s not going to be angry, right…?” 

“It’s fine. You get more patient as you get older, so she can cool her heels a bit. Besides, I’m gonna tell her we arrived late because you said you wanted to go shopping in Tokyo.” 

“Huhhh?! Wait, you’re saying it’s my fault?! You’re the one who whined about needing to go to Dreamland and have lots of fun, Gajou!!” 

“N-nah, that was just Daddy doing a favor for the family, y’see.” 

Gajou opened the driver’s side door and got out of the car as if fleeing the scene. Then, when he looked up toward the temple’s archway, his brows knotted in discomfort. 

“Good grief… Things just ain’t goin’ my way.” 

“What?” 

“Nagisa, sorry, could you wait here for a little bit?” 

“Whaaa? Here? By myself?” Nagisa surveyed the surrounding darkness as a forlorn expression came over her. “I don’t wanna. It’s dark, it’s cold, and I can’t get a cell signal.” 

“Yeah, but having you climb stone stairs with your bags is a bit too much, ain’t it? I’ll call someone over. Hey, I’ll lend you some handheld games.” 

“Geez, I’ll pass. You wouldn’t have anything but pervy dating sims and strip mah-jongg.” 

“Nonsense! I’ve also got a fighting game with state-of-the-art jiggle physics for the ladies. All the DLC outfits are unlocked, too.” 

“That’s even worse!” 

Nagisa stayed in the car with a look of dissatisfaction while Gajou headed toward the temple carrying a Boston bag in one hand. 

It was the middle of winter, and there was too much snow falling for him to see the moon. However, Gajou’s steps were confident as he climbed up the long stone stairway. 

Kamioda Temple was virtually unknown to the public, but it had a long history deeply entwined with sorcery. Hisano, the chief cleric, was apparently involved in suppressing large-scale magical disasters several times over, and her ties to sorcerous governmental agencies did not run shallow by any means. 

For that reason, Hisano had many guests visiting her around the start of the New Year. There were also worshippers native to the area, so Hisano and the priestesses ought to have been ready to receive guests during the season. 

However, when Gajou arrived at the Kamioda Temple grounds, it was quiet—as still as the grave. 

The lights were out in the main building and the clerical office. He did not detect any signs of people nearby. 

Thanks to the grove of trees surrounding the area, it was pitch-black within the grounds, making him feel surrounded by complete darkness. Gajou stopped walking, unamused as he exhaled dramatically. 

“Looks like I was right to leave Nagisa in the car… Come on out, already.” 

Gajou stuck his right hand into his coat pocket as he called out into the darkness, but no one answered. Even so, he was certain that humans had concealed themselves within the grounds. It was a projection of ill-intent too faint to call an aura. It included a tingle and a sense that there was a burning stench mingling with the air. It was a feeling he’d picked up on battlefields across the world: bloodlust from his enemies. 

He snorted, grinning ferociously as he threw the grenade in his right hand without warning. 

It exploded on the near side of a stone lantern some fourteen or fifteen meters away, kicking up an incredible blast of wind. 

It was a stick-shaped hand grenade intended to neutralize an enemy through the explosive’s concussive blast. Compared to a frag grenade, the lethal radius was rather small, but its power at point-blank range was high. The shock wave from the blast toppled the stone lantern, sending it tumbling down onto the figure hiding behind it. 

Gajou’s weapon changed what should have been cover into a weapon. There should not have been any time to get out of the way. But the fragment of the stone lantern that should have squashed the enemy flat flew against the shock wave of the explosion as it fell to the ground. It had fallen unnaturally, almost as if it had struck an invisible wall. 

The hidden foe emerged, seemingly slicing through the rising cloud of dust. 

It was a young girl in a school uniform. With both hands, she wielded a long, silver-colored, fully metallic sword. 

“What the—?!” 

Gajou grabbed a submachine gun from his bag and opened fire. It was loaded with rubber bullets, but it was a vicious weapon, certain to knock over anyone taking a square hit. However, the rounds bounced away from the girl right before her eyes. She’d created an invisible wall with a single flash of her long sword. 

“Pseudo-spatial severing?! Der Freischötz…no, Rosen Chevalier Plus?!” 

The instant Gajou’s barrage relented, the sword-wielding girl closed the distance between them. 

The girl’s sword was a powerful holy weapon able to emulate the effects of a spell and sever space itself. The severed space in the wake of her blade functioned as a shield that could block any physical attack. Furthermore, the space-severing cuts of her sword could slice matter apart. Gajou’s submachine gun could not fend off the girl’s sword strikes. Trying would only result in the destruction of his firearm. 

However, Rosen Chevalier Plus had weaknesses, too. 

Gajou’s right hand kept its grip on the submachine gun while his free left hand tossed a new hand grenade. This one sailed over the girl’s head and exploded behind her. 

“Urk!” 

The girl turned her back on Gajou, swinging her long sword to slice the empty air. 

Rosen Chevalier Plus’s spatial severing effect lasted only for an instant, and furthermore, in a single direction only. The girl had been forced to turn her back on Gajou to protect herself from the grenade’s blast. 

Gajou trained the barrel of his submachine gun toward her wide-open back. 

However, before he could squeeze the trigger, a blow struck his left hand. An arrow sailing through the darkness knocked Gajou’s submachine gun from his grasp. 

Another girl emerged, standing atop a sacred tree within the temple grounds. She was gripping a recurve bow that glowed silver. She had used the swordswoman as a decoy while she took aim at Gajou. 

“Freikugel Plus…! This is bad. That thing can—!” 

Gajou contorted his face out of anxiety. In the meantime, the girl had finished nocking a new arrow. 

This second arrow launched without fanfare, releasing a high-pitched roar as it soared across the sky. The whistle attached to the arrow’s tip created a spell incantation effect, activating a high-density curse. Freikugel Plus was no mere bow. It was a ritual-spell gun turret, able to spew curses anywhere within its range. 

“Tch, a binding—” 

Showered by the curse, Gajou’s body was stiffening against his will. 

This was a wide-area suppression ritual for neutralizing enemy infantry. Even Gajou never expected it to be used for the sake of a single person. His opponent cared not about appearances nor excess. 

However, it wasn’t impossible to counter—so long as you knew what made it tick. 

Using his still-free right hand, Gajou narrowly managed to toss a new hand grenade overhead. This was a stun grenade, with no lethal force whatsoever. 

An incredible flash of light tore through the night sky. The roar accompanying the blast shook the very air, creating a disturbance in the whistle arrow’s high-density curse. 

Almost simultaneously, Gajou’s coat was enveloped in flames. The anti-spell charm woven into the coat’s lining had activated. Magical symbols came to the surface of the smoking fabric, releasing Gajou from the binding spell’s paralysis. 

“A sonic magic circle from Freikugel Plus—broken by such a primitive method…!” 

The sword-wielding girl’s face twitched with shock as she rushed at Gajou with her blade. Gajou, still empty-handed, turned toward the girl, visibly annoyed as he curled up the corners of his lips. 

“Sheesh, that’s too dangerous for a brat like you to be swinging around. You need a spanking.” 

“Ah…?!” 

When the girl tried to slice at him, Gajou dodged, slipping past her defenses. 

The girl’s defenseless flank was wide open to Gajou. A man of Gajou’s close-combat skill ought to have been able to deliver a decisive blow that very instant. However, Gajou’s hand slipped past her side, not touching the girl’s body in any way. 

“W-wait… Agh!” 

Instantly, the girl spun around to pursue Gajou as he moved past, poising her sword once more. But a moment later, she went down like a ton of bricks. Something had entwined around the girl’s legs, robbing her of her mobility. 

That something was the girl’s panties. As they had moved past one another, Gajou had pulled them down, tripping her up with her own underwear; she tumbled down on the spot. 

“You bastard! How dare you do that to Yuiri—” 

Standing up for the humiliated swordswoman, the archer moved to nock another arrow. However, before she could, Gajou pulled a new weapon out of the bag he’d dropped on the ground: a large-caliber, single-shot, break-action grenade launcher. 

The girl readied her bow as Gajou looked her way and mercilessly fired a grenade at her. 

The archer’s expression did not shift as she aimed at the grenade in mid-flight. She meant to shoot the grenade out of the air. However, the grenade vigorously swelled in size before she could loose her arrow. 

“Wha—?!” 

The enlarged body of the grenade engulfed her. Its body turned out to be a highly adhesive, birdlime-like substance. 

The bow-wielding girl, still poised to fall from the tree branch, had been glued upside-down to the trunk. She desperately attempted to hold down her skirt to prevent it from slipping up, but she was largely unable to move her body, thanks to the birdlime round’s adhesiveness. Adorable yelps characteristic of her young age slipped out. 

“Shio?!” 

For an instant, the fallen sword-wielding girl paid attention to the plight of her birdlime-smeared comrade. Just as she did, Gajou blew a medical sprayer right in front of her nose. Attacked by powerful drowsiness, the girl could not even raise her voice as she collapsed and lost consciousness. 

Checking that he’d completely put both out of commission, Gajou tossed the empty sprayer away. 

“Sheesh. This is what happens when you give weapons to kids. Don’t take it personally,” he murmured apologetically. 

He gazed at the long sword the girl had dropped. Gajou knew what the weapon truly was—and the name of the organization that had crafted it. 

The temple had been empty, and these girls had attacked Gajou—those two facts were likely connected. The first thing he needed to do was question them and glean what information he could. 

What a pain in the butt, Gajou thought, sighing as he approached the two girls. A moment later, Gajou heard a serene voice echoing from behind. 

“You are in no position to look down on others, grasshopper.” 

“—?!” 

Gajou felt a shudder course through his entire body as he drew a pistol from his pocket. The pistol fell to pieces while still in his hand. 

“What the—?!” 

“Too slow.” 

Gajou tried to look back, but his vision swayed. By the time he realized his chin had been struck, he’d been slammed into the ground. 

“Ka-ha!” coughed Gajou, raggedly breathing out from his mouth. His limbs were too numb for him to make a move. 

He did not even have time to gather his senses before someone drew close, pounding Gajou down with a bare hand. Even so, Gajou somehow managed to plant one knee on the ground and lift his face. 

There were bright lights shining into Gajou’s field of vision—lights from military pocket flashlights. Even at a single glance, the number of light sources exceeded twenty. Amid the backlight, a group emerged wearing camouflaged suits and armed with vicious-looking weapons. The firearm-wielding group of soldiers seemed to appear out of thin air, surrounding the temple grounds. 

“That’s crazy… Why are you…?!” 

Gajou looked up at the person before him as he let out a painful groan. 

The woman gazing down at Gajou with cold eyes was a silver-haired woman dressed in a dougi, a sleeveless outfit typically used for martial arts training. She gripped a wooden naginata in her right hand. And her left arm was wrapped around Nagisa, unconscious and asleep. 

The camouflaged soldiers thrust their gun barrels toward Gajou, who was unable to rise to his feet. Even for him, resistance in this situation would be reckless. Gajou sluggishly raised both hands, looking up at the starless sky. 

“…Well, ain’t I shit outta luck.” 

Gajou sighed, his breath visible against the cold air, as he murmured to himself. 

Thus Gajou Akatsuki’s homecoming began in the absolute worst way he could imagine.