Strike the Blood - Volume 14 - Chapter Ep

OUTRO 

Meiga Itogami was wandering around a back alley of Island West. 

He’d used a spell tablet sewn into the interior of his body to employ a teleport ritual. It was a dirty trick made possible with a jiangshi body that felt no pain. He could have never slipped away from Yukari Endou without resorting to such extreme measures. 

However, at present, that immortal body had begun to break down. There were deep cracks over him, and pieces had begun falling away like dried-out plaster. It was the fault of the vast divine essence that had coursed from Yukina Himeragi. His body, wrought from a corpse, had been purified and was returning to its original form. 

“High Priestess…!” 

Using a mental communication ritual, Meiga called out to her. 

Her avatar had been hijacked by Asagi Aiba, but the real body of the High Priestess, resurrected from a corpse, ought to have remained at the MAR lab. Even at that late stage, with her aid, Meiga could still employ the power of The Cleansing. Of course, having lost control of the Coffin, large-scale combat was impossible, but she could surely endure the burden of restoring his broken flesh. No, he would force her to endure it. 

“Answer me, High Priestess… Priestess of Abel…!” 

Meiga resisted his fear of his own collapse as he continued calling out to her. However, she did not respond. 

MAR had enabled him to use the ritual that made this sort of communication possible. If he could no longer employ the mental communication ritual, he could only think of a single possibility. 

MAR had cut Meiga Itogami loose. Now that he had betrayed Akishige Yaze and, furthermore, lost to the Fourth Primogenitor, they had probably decided that they no longer had any use for him. 

“Shit…” 

Meiga’s breath was ragged as he thrust a hand against the street railing. A few of his fingers snapped off, turning into sand and scattering across the ground. His body was closer to its limit than he had imagined. 

With Meiga in such a state, he heard an amused voice from very close by. 

“So the man who betrayed the Lion King Agency, betrayed his own father, betrayed Akishige Yaze…is betrayed and abandoned by MAR in the end. You make quite a pitiful sight, Meiga Itogami…” 

“…?!” 

Meiga lifted his face in surprise. A slender man was standing in the back of the dark alley ahead. The voice belonged to a blond, blue-eyed vampire aristocrat clad in a white three-piece suit. 

“Dimitrie Vattler…” 

How did he know about this place? was the question Meiga silently harbored. Then his gaze fell to his own right arm. It was the arm Vattler had given him when he had lost the original in his first battle with the Fourth Primogenitor. He’d probably implanted a transmitter of some kind during the repair process. An unexpectedly meticulous man, thought Meiga in admiration. 

“Though it is an unfortunate end from your perspective, I thank you, Meiga Itogami. Thanks to you, I have not been bored. No, rather, I have been considerably entertained.” 

Vattler praised Meiga with an overly theatrical voice. 

Meiga’s shoulders fell in exasperation. “Entertained? By the Forbidden Ritual meant to destroy Demonkind?” 

“But of course. A power that can destroy even a primogenitor—splendid, is it not?” 

Vattler gave a handsome smile. Suddenly, Meiga’s expression stiffened. 

Meiga’s crumbling body began to quiver in fear. The repeatedly whimsical actions of the man called Dimitrie Vattler—he laid one over another until they took shape in his mind. 

Meiga realized that this formed a truly frightening picture. 

“I understand now…Dimitrie Vattler… The real purpose of your coming to Itogami Island…” 

Under Vattler’s beautiful, blue-eyed stare, Meiga could no longer move, frozen under the gaze of a serpent—that was his present circumstance. One false move and he would be consumed. Whether he fled or fell prostrate and begged, the handsome vampire aristocrat was unlikely to stay his hand. 

There was only one outcome he would countenance. And that was— 

“The power of The Cleansing—incomplete though it might be, you can still use it, yes? Care to give it a try?” Vattler taunted. 

Yes—as always, this man desired but one thing: to wager his life in deadly combat. 

“Ugh… Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh…!!” 

Meiga screamed. The right arm Meiga stretched toward Vattler was enveloped by particles of light. 

No longer receiving the High Priestess’s support, Meiga could not control the vermillion bullets. All Meiga could manage at that moment was to offer his own arm as a sacrifice with which to summon the power of The Cleansing. 

It was the world-altering radiance that nullified a vampire’s supernatural power. If he pounded that home, the possibility of defeating even Vattler was not zero. Vattler gazed at Meiga’s desperate resistance with an enthralled expression. 

“Yes, this… This is a power suitable for me to consume…!” 

Vattler bared his fangs. The destructive surge of demonic energy he unleashed struck down Meiga’s damaged body in an instant. The light of The Cleansing had now been rendered meaningless. 

As Meiga went rigid, Vattler sank his fangs into Meiga’s windpipe. It was not Meiga’s stagnant blood that the Warlord’s Empire’s Master of Serpents was draining from that place, but Meiga’s memory of the past. 

“Dimitrie Vattler… Your objective…is the knowledge of Cleansing… The intellect of Cain…” 

Meiga’s final murmurs were inaudible, for before his voice could make them, his windpipe had been torn out. 

Having exceeded its limits, Meiga’s body collapsed, white smoke rising as it disintegrated without a trace. 

In a back alley of Island West, amid the darkness of Itogami Island, Vattler’s white fangs were dyed pitch-black from fresh blood as he laughed heartily. 

“Now the stage has been set. Let us begin the final banquet. We shall dance most beautifully, Kojou Akatsuki. Beautifully, beautifully, beautifully, beautifully, beautifully, beautifully, beautifully, beautifully, beautifully………” 

Dusk had fallen. 

Kojou walked along a coastal footpath with Yukina and Asagi in tow. 

Their destination was Kojou’s and Yukina’s apartment building. After all, the pair was beat-up and exhausted from prolonged combat, and on top of that, Asagi attracted the eyes of others. So, unable to take the bus or the monorail, the three had to drag their tired bodies, continuing to putter along on foot. 

“So why do I have to walk around hiding my face behind a mask?” 

Asagi was complaining about having to wear a baseball cap and a medical mask as she walked around in the middle of sweltering, humid heat. 

“Can’t be helped!” quipped Kojou, earnestly trying to pacify her. “You’re a celebrity. Well, just put up with it for now. The Gigafloat Management Corporation apologized and said it’d give you bodyguards until things settled down and all. Everyone’ll forget in no time.” 

“Ugh… I ordered Mogwai to wipe out every shred of promo material that was on the net, but it’s just not enough. Geez, taking on the Priestess of Abel was a piece of cake compared to this!” 

Asagi sighed deeply as she gazed at the screen of her beloved smartphone. 

It was certainly a large helping of gloom, but Kojou could deeply appreciate why she wanted to complain. She’d been shut inside a submarine for the last two weeks, and furthermore, her face and name had been spread all over Itogami Island during that time. And on top of that, there was even a promotional video that she had no memory of ever shooting. Any normal person might well have fallen into a complete panic by that point. 

That the citizens’ reaction to it was largely positive was a saving grace, but setting that aside, having complete strangers call out to you was quite a thing to have to deal with. 

So for the near future, Asagi would have to put up with stress and anguish she hadn’t signed up for. In the end, she was definitely the number one victim of The Cleansing. 

“But Aiba, is your body really fine?” 

Carrying her black guitar case on her back, Yukina asked Asagi that in a timid, hesitant manner. 

After all, she’d spent two weeks confining herself and being at war with the Priestess of Abel. Normally, it would be cause for immediate hospitalization followed by rigorous medical tests as a precaution. 

In fact, Natsuki Minamiya and Lydianne had arranged medical services, but Asagi had said, “That’s just a nuisance.” With that one phrase, she had brushed it off—and thus had they arrived at the present. 

Asagi shook her head with a distinct lack of urgency. “Yeah. Well, time was basically frozen for me while I was locked inside the sub, okay? It felt like being in cryostasis. Thanks to that, I’m pretty hungry—” 

“Don’t complain. You already bought up every last onigiri at the convenience store. You scared the hell out of the dude at the register, y’know?” 

Kojou muttered his retort in a voice so small that it was unclear whether Asagi ever heard him. After all, regardless of whether it was surprising to see a local idol who was all the rage at the moment suddenly entering the store, she’d bought thirty rice balls, the store’s entire stock. It wasn’t difficult to imagine why the boy working part-time had been shocked. 

“Well, if we’d gone to a family restaurant, they would have kicked us out because of the uproar, so I couldn’t help it, all right?” Behind the mask, Asagi pursed her lips as she resentfully glared toward Kojou. 

Then she turned on a dime, facing Yukina, who was behind her, as she said, “More importantly, this has been bugging me for a while now—Himeragi, what’s up with that ring?” 

“Oh…this?” 

Startled, Yukina widened her eyes. She was no doubt surprised that the ring, which did not have a design that stood out in any particular way, had attracted Asagi’s attention. 

“This is a ring that Akatsuki-senpai gave me, so I really cannot take it off now—” 

“H-huh?” 

As Asagi listened to Yukina’s explanation, her eyes opened wide, practically bulging out. 

The dramatic reaction made Yukina all the more flustered as she tried to clarify, “You are mistaken. Um, it is not like that… Akatsuki-senpai simply put it on my finger as a kind of good luck charm, so—” 

Yukina’s assertion still came off as desperate. In spite of every word being true, she managed to make Asagi’s mood even sourer. 

Asagi levied a bloodlust-filled gaze at Kojou. “Oh, really…? Would you mind explaining, in detail, what that ring actually means?” 

“Er, a bunch of stuff happened on our end during the time you were stuck in that sub…” 

“Whaddaya mean, a bunch of stuff?!” 

“Ah, I mean, the full story is gonna get super-annoying so, um, well…” 

With Kojou backed into a corner, Asagi opened her mouth to yell, clearly annoyed. 

But then they heard another shout from a nearby footpath. 

“Ah, there you are! Yukina!” 

Nagisa Akatsuki, apparently on her way home from visiting her father at the hospital, pointed at Kojou and the others. 

As soon as the crossing signal turned blue, Nagisa ferociously raced toward Kojou and the others. Kojou felt like seeing her that menacing just had to be an evil omen. 

“N-Nagisa? What’s wrong that got you all worked up like…?” 

“Don’t ask me what’s wrong, Kojou! What did you do to Yukina, you idiot?! You beast! Yukina, are you all right? I’m on your side, no matter what happens, Yukina!” 

Nagisa slammed her tote bag into the side of Kojou’s face, then firmly took hold of both of Yukina’s hands, eyes tearing up as she unleashed her tongue in rapid-fire speech. Kojou and Yukina looked back at Nagisa in astonishment, neither having a clue what was going on. 

“B…beast…?!” 

“N-Nagisa?” 

“I really am a little reluctant to call someone an in-law at your age, but if I call you Big Sis, it’s totally okay, right? I mean, I think any baby of yours is definitely gonna be cute, Yukina. More importantly, what about the name? Is it a boy? Is it a girl?” 

“B-baby…?” 

Asagi, overhearing Nagisa’s explosive statement, dropped her jaw, as if physically struck senseless. 

Yukina looked genuinely conflicted, her gaze roaming around as she said, “I-I’m sorry, Nagisa, I have no idea what you’re talki—” 

“There’s no need to hide it. It’s all right. I heard everything from Miss Kirasaka!” 

“From Sayaka?” 

Yukina’s expression clouded over, for apparently even she was getting uneasy at that point. 

What the heck did she say? thought Kojou, unwittingly raising his face toward the heavens. 

Nagisa displayed not a single shred of guilt, seemingly arriving at the memory as she touched a hand to her lips and said: 

“Sayaka said something really big was happening to Yukina’s body because of Kojou, and the testing fluid had a positive result. Come to think of it, Yukina, lately you haven’t been very energetic, you haven’t had any appetite for food…” 

“Ah…” 

Yukina’s big eyes blinked as if something had suddenly occurred to her. 

Then, a tiny “hee” spurt out of her as she bent forward, her shoulders beginning to tremble. She was desperately trying to resist breaking into laughter. Sayaka and Nagisa’s misunderstanding was apparently quite amusing to her. 

However, viewed from a side angle, Yukina could also look like she was about to break into sobs. 

“Wh-what’s the meaning of this, Kojou?! Testing fluid, positive… Don’t tell me, that ring means you intend to take responsibility as a man…?!” 

Grabbing Kojou by the collar and lifting him up, Asagi interrogated him in a very shrill voice. 

Kojou, unable to breathe properly due to the pressure on his neck, desperately wrung out his voice. 

“You’ve got it all wrong! Himeragi, stop laughing and save me, dammit! Listen to me! It’s all a misunderstandiiing!” 

The tragic cries of the World’s Mightiest Vampire floated along the sea breeze, melting into the twilight sky. 

This was a brief moment of tranquility before the new banquet was about to begin. 

It wouldn’t be much longer before any of them realized it.