Strike the Blood - Volume 19 - Chapter 2.5

5

“Urk… So tight…”

Asagi Aiba was pressing down on her belly with both of her hands, wobbling and teetering as she flopped against a wall. They were midway on the long, hilly path that led to Saikai Academy.

“Aiba?!”

Yukina, walking ahead of Asagi, looked back with a bit of surprise.

Asagi audibly loosened the metal fastener of her skirt, at which point she finally let out a more comfortable-sounding sigh. She looked back at Yukina with an air of exasperation and envy hovering in her eyes.

“Ahh… No way, it just won’t work! Himeragi, you’re too slender! What the hell is your waist?!”

Asagi was wearing a Saikai Academy uniform as she spoke. However, this was not Asagi’s uniform—it was one she’d borrowed from Yukina.

Having escaped from the sub-float, Asagi and Yukina had gone straight to Yukina’s apartment building. It had been closer, and Yukina needed to get her gear in order regardless. Accordingly, Asagi had showered in Yukina’s apartment and changed out of her battered personal clothes.

There was no particularly deep meaning involved in borrowing a Saikai Academy uniform. Yukina had a large stock of brand-new uniforms on hand, so thanks to that, there was virtually no necessity for her to have personal clothes besides.

The hard part was that the size of Yukina’s uniform was markedly smaller than Asagi’s.

“Can you use a safety pin?”

Seeing that Asagi had a hard time moving like that, Yukina posed her question with delicacy.

“Nah. It’s all right. If I leave all the adjusters open, I can manage. Makes a girl feel awful, though…”

“No, pay it no mind. You are taller, Aiba… Also, your bust is…”

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it. More to the point, thanks for lending me the uniform. Thanks to you I got to take a shower, too. I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do if I smelled like artificial strawberries any longer.” Asagi strained a smile. She sounded tired.

It would soon be 10:00 AM. It hadn’t even been six hours since the pair had returned to Itogami Island, and far too many things had happened in that brief span of time. Until now, they’d barely had any time to even take a breath, making Asagi feel like she had several days’ worth of accumulated fatigue.

“It would be good if senpai and Nagisa read that letter…,” Yukina murmured with her spare guitar case on her back. Asagi nodded.

They had shoved a letter with all the information they knew into the mail slot for the Akatsuki residence next to Yukina’s apartment. Also written within was that the pair was heading to Saikai Academy.

If Kojou and others read it, they’d all be able to group up at Saikai Academy, provided everyone was safe and sound.

“Well, at the very least, Kojou wouldn’t give up even if you killed him. Thanks to you and Kanase protecting them, Motoki and Nagisa are probably all right, too. And if any of them were hurt, they should get rescued by the Electoral War Administration Committee,” Asagi said, keeping her spirits up.

“Yes,” Yukina said with a little nod. Then she sullenly lowered her eyes. “MAR…was it?”

“Yeah. That’s right,” Asagi replied curtly. They continued walking in silence for a while.

Asagi had established the mechanisms of the Electoral War and the existence of the committee from data Mogwai had left on Asagi’s smartphone. The conspiracy was a massive operation underpinned by a scrupulously laid-out plan.

Of course, a considerable amount of time had been necessary to make preparations beforehand. In other words, MAR having created all of this with prior knowledge of the Order of the End’s existence.

This fact cast a dark shadow over Asagi’s and Yukina’s hearts. After all, Mimori Akatsuki, mother of the Akatsuki siblings, was an MAR employee herself. They didn’t want to think that she was lending support to this conflict, but they had no basis for summarily ruling it out.

“W-well, MAR is a huge company. It wouldn’t be strange for workers in one division to have no idea what another division is doing.”

“I—I suppose so. The establishment of the Electoral War Administration Committee likely advanced in the greatest of secrecy.”

“Right, right. Besides, maybe Mimori is helping out the medical staff treating the wounded. That’d be good news for Kojou and Nagisa. It’s way safer than if she stayed inside Itogami City.”

“Yes. It would be good if that was truly so.”

Saikai Academy was located in Island South, a residential area with numerous homes, schools, hospitals, and the like. Normally, a holiday would have been filled with much greater liveliness at that time of day as people enjoyed their leisure time.

However, signs of human life in the city were sparse, and the level of traffic was bizarrely scant. People were surely holed up in shelters and their own homes out of fear of getting involved in the violence.

Even so, compared to the area with the Rogues Alliance prowling about, they felt little bloodthirstiness in the air. Nor was there any eye-catching damage to city facilities or buildings.

Apparently, the ruler candidate of that domain was comparatively dependable.

Yukina’s feet stopped at a curve just past a broad intersection. The Saikai Academy campus had come into view. “Aiba.”

“So we’ve finally arrived.” Asagi languidly relaxed her shoulders.

Thanks to the halt of public transportation, it had taken quite a bit of extra time to get there. They had nonetheless arrived at their destination.

“I am glad we were able to avoid unnecessary combat.”

“Yeah… Somehow, this area has a pretty peaceful atmosphere, but…”

Asagi and Yukina hid in the shadows of roadside trees as they observed the campus. They were on guard against the possibility that a candidate akin to the Rogues Alliance was occupying Saikai Academy.

Still, Asagi had a reason to visit Saikai Academy even with the risks involved. That was the room for the Saikai Academy Demon Sanctuary Research Club—Dem-Club for short.

Placed within that Dem-Club room was a cutting-edge workstation able to access the Gigafloat Management Corporation’s systems. Yaze had brought it in as a hedge against exactly this kind of emergency situation.

To be blunt, even with the equipment in the Dem-Club, she probably wouldn’t be able to take back control of the City Management System occupied by the Order of the End. Even so, surely it would allow her to gather information to lend Kojou support.

However, that meant infiltrating Saikai Academy first.

Asagi squinted to try and see into the school buildings, but there were simply too many obstructions to see anything. The only thing she could tell was that there wasn’t anything visibly out of place outside the school buildings.

“Figures, but we really can’t tell what’s going on inside the school from here.”

“I shall release a reconnaissance shikigami. There is a chance the ritual energy will be traced back to us, however.”

Yukina lowered the guitar case on her back and took out a silver ritual tablet from within. When she tried to summon and release the shikigami, her expression stiffened as if she’d received an electric jolt.

“Aiba, get down—!”

“Huh?!”

Asagi, suddenly sent flying by Yukina, rolled onto the ground.

When Asagi looked back in shock, Yukina’s shikigami exploded before her very eyes.

Upon seeing this, Asagi finally grasped what was occurring. Someone had sniped at them—with magic as opposed to a normal bullet, no less.

“Don’t tell me, a ruler candidate’s attacking?!”

“Please do not move!” Yukina warned, drawing her spear.

Having determined where the sniper was lurking from the angle the round had flown from, she attempted to close the distance. However, Yukina was just leaping out from the shadow of a roadside tree when her movements halted, for she had noticed the fresh enemy silhouette attacking her from above.

“A beast person?!” Asagi muttered in fright at the assailant’s leaping ability, utterly unthinkable from any normal person.

The person was small but had incredible speed. Furthermore, she bounced off buildings and roadside trees to close the distance from unexpected angles.

“White Rabbit Kick Number Two, Jeweled Moon!”

“—Raw Lightning!!” Yukina cried.

Sensing that she had no time to defend with her spear, Yukina used an unorthodox hook resembling an uppercut to intercept the assailant’s kick.

Their mutual attacks struck each other, one infused with demonic and the other ritual energy. In contrast to the midair assailant, Yukina had both feet planted on the ground. This apparently added some force to Yukina’s blunt strike.

“Nyaa?!”

The assailant made a somehow silly-sounding cry as she heavily lost her balance.

Yukina lowered her posture, spear in hand to make a follow-up attack the instant her opponent landed. As if waiting for this moment, incredible demonic energy blew her way from the blind spot behind her.

The initial sniping attack and the assault from overhead were simple diversions.

This was the third enemy, the heavy hitter.

The fighting spirit was far too blatant to come as a surprise. Yukina was a bit perplexed as she responded with time to spare.

The third assailant was an individual clad in an eye-catching white coat. Her appearance made one think of the Order of the End. She was gripping a gleaming crimson long sword in her hands. Its flame-like blade was imbued with almost unbelievably vast demonic energy.

“Prepare yourself, invader! I shall avenge Yuno!”

“Snowdrift Wolf!”

Yukina blocked the crimson long sword’s attack with her spear. Snowdrift Wolf’s Divine Oscillation Effect neutralized both the cutting attack and the explosive demonic energy it unleashed.

She felt odd feedback, from which she gathered that the girl wielding the long sword was shaken. It was a beautiful girl with white hair and wearing a long cobalt-blue wimple.

“You blocked Hauras?! Invader that you are, I praise you for that much! But—”

The girl stubbornly put strength into her sword to shove Yukina’s guard aside and cut her down. Yukina stared at the girl’s face and let out a voice of surprise.

“…Eh?!”

“Eh?”

They recognized each other at the same moment. The girl’s already large eyes opened even wider, and her movements came to a halt as if she’d frozen solid. Their weapons remained locked together as she and Yukina stared at each other without a word.

An awkward silence fell between the pair.

“Miss…Kasugaya?”

“Yukina Himeragi? You’re…the invader of this domain…? Eh?”

The ogre attending middle school at Saikai Academy, Shizuri Kasugaya Castiella, drew back her sword, a confused expression still on her face.

“…Domain? Eh?”

Yukina was just as perplexed as she lowered her spear. It hadn’t even been fifteen seconds since the initial sniping attack. Too much had happened in that brief span of time for her comprehension to catch up with it all.

Judging that combat had ended, Asagi brushed dust off herself as she rose to her feet. “Uhhh…what’s going on exactly?”

Yuno Amase was crawling out from bushes by the roadside, smiling awkwardly as she lifted her bestialization. “Um, Shizurin, I’m still alive…”

The last to emerge was Rui Miyazumi, carrying a sniper rifle–type Spell Thrower.

Asagi and Yukina stood stiffly as Rui turned toward them with a crisp smile. Then, with a spell symbol hovering on the surface of his hand, he held it out as if seeking a handshake as he spoke to Asagi.

“Hiya, welcome back, Cyber Empress. I welcome you both to the Kasugaya Domain.”