Strike the Blood - Volume 19 - Chapter 3.1

CHAPTER THREE

RULER RANKINGS

1

Kojou heard the water running from the shower.

The room had the lingering scent of a perfume he didn’t recognize.

He was in a room illuminated by moody, indirect sources of light. There was a wide, king-sized bed. It came extravagantly furnished with karaoke, game machines, and a large TV. It looked like a fancy room meant for a pair of lovers. In other words, he was rooming in a love hotel.

A silver-haired girl was taking a shower on the other side of the glass wall of the bathroom. She was washing off all the dust that clung to her from fighting at the sub-float.

Keeping his eyes averted so as not to catch a stray glance at her defenselessly nude physique, Kojou clutched his head.

“Why…? Why me…?”

Kojou’s thoughts were still all over the place as he replaced the blood-smeared tissues packed into his nose with fresh ones.

The garbage bin at the side of the bed was already nearly full of bloodied tissues. His arousal had given him a massive nosebleed.

A beautiful black cat with a lithe frame gazed at Kojou and curtly exhaled. “Arousal over a nude little girl leading to a chronic nosebleed? How pathetic for the World’s Mightiest Vampire.”

“And whose fault is this?! ’Cause it sure ain’t mine!”

Kojou slapped the bed’s mattress for emphasis and closed the distance with the cat.

The black cat with gleaming golden eyes seemed oddly human in demeanor. In reality, this was the familiar of Yukari Endou, an elven Attack Mage in the employ of the Lion King Agency and the mentor to Yukina and Kirasaka.

A sorceress of exceptional skill, Yukari was able to converse with Kojou from the Japanese mainland hundreds of kilometers away. She’d said that once a mental link with a familiar or the like was established, physical distance exerted little effect, but there was no mistaking that her abilities were nonsensical regardless.

The wolf shikigami leading Kojou and Kanon off the sub-float on the verge of its collapse had also been controlled by her rather than by Yukina. It came as no surprise that the master and the pupil would use the same techniques. Kojou had misunderstood all on his own.

However, Yukari had no doubt engendered Kojou’s misunderstanding on purpose, the better to lure Kojou here.

It was Kanon who’d paid the price as a result.

Thanks to Kojou continuing to run with her in his arms, Kanon’s eyes had been thoroughly spinning from motion sickness.

“Setting me aside, Kanon’s just a regular human, so there’s no way she could have safely kept up with your shikigami! Show a little consideration at least!” Kojou berated the cat familiar.

He’d overexerted himself to keep up with the shikigami’s merciless sprint, so Kojou had been forced to run more roughly than Kanon could take. By the time he realized that Kanon was limp in his arms, he thought his heart was going to stop right there. He was so overwhelmed that he accepted the black cat’s subtle temptations and went with Kanon into the love hotel.

Of course, his objective was to let Kanon rest, so he felt no guilt about that. Incidentally, one significant problem with the Lion King Agency outpost on Itogami Island was that it was smack-dab in the middle of the love hotel district.

However, when he thought about it rationally, he felt these excuses were pretty flimsy. This really was an awful situation.

“Relax,” the black cat insisted irresponsibly, caring little for Kojou’s anguish. “No matter what you do to that girl from here on, I will not speak a word to Yukina.”

“Whaddaya mean ‘relax’?! I’m just sitting here, cool as a cucumber!”

“Oh, are you now?”

Kojou forced his heart to calm down as he spoke with a wearied tone. “…Uh, well, I’m a little grateful to you at least. Kanase and I were pretty much at our limits, so I’m glad we could take a breather in a safe place.”

The black cat let out a little laugh. “The ruler of this domain is the owner of the hotels in the area, you see. That makes it fairly safe for the customers lodging here. He seems to have hired a fair number of tough-looking bodyguards, too.”

“I’m not really sure if that info should make me feel safer or not.”

Kojou stuck his cheek on a palm as he made a weak, pained laugh.

The glass door of the bathroom opening interrupted their conversation, spreading forth an aroma from the shower. Kanon must have finished in there.

“Akatsuki,” she said, entering the room, “I am sorry for occupying the facilities first.”

“Are you feeling bet—? Aaah!”

“Yes, I am quite all right now.”

Kanon tilted her little head with a mystified look as she watched Kojou recoil, shaken.

She was wearing only a short white bathrobe supplied by the hotel. He could see her bare, white legs and her modest cleavage poking out from the gap at her collar. She wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Kojou shouted, his voice going shrill. “Clothes! What about clothes?!”

For Kanon’s part, her demeanor was as serene as usual. Making her behave in such a sensual fashion was savagely destructive to his psyche. Kanon being oblivious of the situation made him feel like an even bigger jerk.

“Ah yes,” Kanon said. “Akatsuki, please take off your clothes as well.”

Kanon’s demeanor was completely unguarded as she approached and squatted down before Kojou’s eyes.

Kojou earnestly turned his face away from her bust.

“N-no… This is wrong, Kanase. That’s something you should only do together with someone you really like.”

Kanon blinked her big blue eyes. “I do like you, Akatsuki.”

“Huh…?”

“Therefore, there is no problem in us washing our underwear together.”

“Wh…what do you mean?”

“There is a washing machine and dryer here.” Kanon pointed to a drum-style washing and drying machine. It was the latest model, a high-grade, low-energy machine even able to wash garments graded for handwashing only.

Kanon was telling him to strip so that they could wash Kojou’s dirty clothes together.

“O-oh… So hotels even have stuff like this nowadays.”

Assaulted by a ferocious sense of exhaustion and relief, Kojou wobbled his way to his feet. When he happened to glance at the pillows of the bed, the black cat was on her side as her belly convulsed. She was laughing so much that she was having difficulty breathing.

“Hey, Professor Kitty, you don’t have to laugh that much…!”

Kojou headed to the bathroom, having somehow overcome the crisis of Kanon trying to strip his pants off then and there. The room was lit up in seven differently colored lights, and he found this unhelpful for calming down. He took a shower and changed into a bathrobe before returning to the room.

Kanon was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding the black cat on her lap as she watched television. It looked like a ranking page for pop stars, but the landscape of Itogami Island was showing in the background.

“…What the heck is this?” he asked.

“These are the ruler candidate rankings,” the cat replied.

“Ruler candidate…rankings?”

“Yes, based on territory obtained and the number of subjects. Current standings and betting odds are broadcast to the general public. Updates are largely in real time.”

“Huh?” Kojou glared at the screen in astonishment.

A young demon he didn’t recognize was introducing the various candidates as if it were a promotional video. Information of name, type of demon, age, place of birth, and footage of combat scrolled on the screen.

“What the hell…? This is almost like some kind of sideshow…”

“That is exactly what it is,” the cat said scornfully. “They may call it the Electoral War, but to the vast majority of city residents, it is someone else’s problem, a nuisance and nothing more. It is no different from being a fan of an idol or cheering on a sports competitor. It is the nature of human beings to enjoy watching the conflicts of others.”

“But a lot of people are gonna get hurt because of this! And some people might even die…!” Kojou retorted.

The black cat lifted her chin, coldly blowing him off. “All the better, is it not? In ancient times, there was sword fighting, hunting, bull fighting… People delighted in any number of bloody undertakings. Can you really say with a straight face there aren’t humans who want to watch demons kill one another?”

Kojou’s blood started boiling at the cat’s glorifying tone. However, he said nothing to refute it. This was not because he’d accepted the black cat’s assertion. He was simply too stunned for words.

“Ca…Cas? Why is she…?!” he exclaimed.

The large TV in the love hotel room displayed a blown-up image of a girl with long white hair wielding a crimson long sword. In the schoolyard of Saikai Academy, she was shielding other students while fighting a ruler candidate from a neighboring domain. The footage seemed to have been shot by Itogami Island surveillance cameras.

The screen finally switched to a still, bust-up shot of Shizuri. It was her photo from her identification card used for the city resident registry in Itogami. Her tense, awkward expression was endearing, but of course the current situation did not allow Kojou to find it very amusing.

“Shizuri Kasugaya Castiella of Saikai Academy Domain. Domains ruled: three. Subjects obtained: twenty thousand. Class is grade B, group one. A firmly entrenched ruler at ranking eleven, it would seem.”

“I see, because she’s an ogre… She’s protecting Saikai Academy as its ruler…,” Kojou murmured with conflicted feelings.

As a registered demon, Shizuri was qualified to be a ruler candidate. To run around protecting those close to her out of a sense of justice and at some point naturally falling into this role genuinely fit Shizuri’s personality.

But this also meant that she’d be targeted by other candidates.

Watching as the screen finally switched, this time it was Kanon whose voice trickled out. There was a familiar name among the list of candidates on display. “Ah…”

It was the ruler of Island West Domain 31, the Tensou Academy Domain.

“Yume?! Even she’s joined the Electoral War…?!” Kojou forgot to even blink as he gazed at the screen, dumbfounded.

He held some small hope that it was someone else of the same name and gender, but the still shot displayed was of an elementary schooler he knew very well. There was footage of her employing the power of the World’s Mightiest Succubus to hold a group of beast people at bay.

“Just now, I saw Nagisa.”

“Yeah, I only caught a glimpse, but there was that bastard Yaze, too. What are they doing in Yume’s domain?” Kojou frowned in confusion.

“Nonetheless, they’re safe.” Kanon smiled softly at Kojou. It easily melted away the leaden weight of anxiety weighing on his chest.

“Guess so. I’m sure they’re worried about you, too, Kanase. Let’s meet up with them as soon as we can. Well, not that we can do much until our clothes are finished drying.”

“Yes.”

Kanon nodded, her silver hair swaying gently. Kojou shifted his eyes toward the black cat on her lap.

“Hey, you. Isn’t there any way to get in touch with Himeragi? She’s the only one I don’t know is safe for sure—”

“Unfortunately, magic is not a cell phone,” Yukari replied bluntly through the cat. “I do not mind leaving Yukina to her own devices for the time being. If she lives, she will set eyes upon this channel sooner or later, like it or not.”

“I see… So she’ll go to meet either Cas or Yume, then…”

Kojou and Kanon met each other’s gazes and nodded.

If they realized that Shizuri and Yume were ruler candidates, Yukina and Asagi would surely try to meet up with them. The odds of reuniting with them by waiting in either domain seemed far higher than blundering around searching for the pair.

“Either way, the real problem comes afterward,” Yukari said cryptically. “Even if you manage to track Yukina and meet up with her, what do you intend to do afterward, Fourth Primogenitor lad?”

“…Won’t the Electoral War end if we take back Keystone Gate?” Kojou asked.

The source of the uproar was the Order of the End having hijacked the Gigafloat Management Corporation’s management system. In other words, if they could seize back Keystone Gate, this stupid event would be over. At the very least, it would surely stop the candidates from running amok.

The cat coolly squashed his hopes. “You and Yukina alone cannot retake Keystone Gate when even the Island Guard was unable to protect it.”

Kojou sullenly knit his brows in response to her provocative words. “It’s not like it’s just us who wanna end this war, right? What do the Lion King Agency and other groups think about this?”

“That is a somewhat troublesome subject.” The black cat lowered her head, conflicted for once.

“Ever since the war of the primogenitors, Itogami Island is an autonomous territory on paper. Without a formal request from the Gigafloat Management Corporation, even the Lion King Agency cannot dispatch Attack Mages on its own authority.”

“Well, isn’t it like this because the Gigafloat Management Corporation got raided?”

Kojou touched the black cat’s nose in exasperation. The black cat gloomily swatted his finger aside.

“True enough, but Itogami Island’s proper ruler is the Fourth Primogenitor. The Gigafloat Management Corporation merely represents him. Furthermore, it is none other than the Fourth Primogenitor himself who set up this Electoral War. In the current situation, Itogami Island is in a normal operating condition, politically at least. Carelessly raising a hand would be interfering in its internal affairs.”

Kojou’s tone turned hostile. “Wha…? Normal, my ass. He’s an impostor!”

To avert the Holy Ground Treaty Organization’s invasion of Itogami Island, Kojou had proclaimed Itogami Island to be the territory of the Fourth Primogenitor. That proclamation was the basis of the treaty formed between the government of Japan and the Gigafloat Management Corporation.

Even so, there was not actually a single nation on Earth that publicly recognized the existence of the Fourth Primogenitor. Even the Japanese government internally treated the matter as neither here nor there.

The emergence of a Fourth Primogenitor was an uncertain element greatly altering the worldwide power balance, so it was far better to treat his existence as vague to not kick up unnecessary chaos—such ran the thinking of numerous nations.

That was why Kojou did not announce himself as the Fourth Primogenitor. It was far better and more convenient for him to go back to his normal high school student life.

And The Blood had made full use of that ambiguous situation.

He’d announced himself as the Fourth Primogenitor and plunged Itogami Island into chaos. And that ticked Kojou off. The Fourth Primogenitor had an awful reputation to begin with. False crimes attributed to him burned him to no end.

“You believe The Blood is a false Fourth Primogenitor? Well, can you prove that?” the cat inquired.

“…Huh? Prove?”

The black cat’s logical question left Kojou at a loss for words. He’d never thought Yukari of all people would ask him that question.

“We certainly know that you are the proper Fourth Primogenitor, but there is insufficient proof for you to be recognized as such. In contrast, The Blood and his allies made a great big show of their own might, enough to put your claims to shame.”

“So that’s why they went out of the way to wreck Keystone Gate after they’d already occupied it…!” Kojou growled, recalling the scar on Keystone Gate as if it had been impaled by a gigantic sword. Such destruction carved over the course of a single night eloquently fit the legend of the power of the World’s Mightiest Vampire.

It was precisely because of that initial display that the people of Itogami Island had so easily believed the words of The Blood when he proclaimed himself the Fourth Primogenitor.

“And so, the government of Japan has no reason to interfere. Though I imagine the truth is really they do not want to sacrifice even more people.”

Yukari’s self-derisive words tugged at Kojou as he pressed for more.

“…Sacrifice?”

“The Order of the End’s assault on Keystone Gate killed a great many. The Island Guard has essentially been destroyed. We also lost a Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency—and Koyomi Shizuka.”

“Koyomi—wait, you don’t mean that Paper Noise person?”

Kojou’s eyes went wide with surprise. The black cat let out a heavy, pained breath.

“Yes. One of the Three Saints of the Lion King Agency. Her condition is grave, and we know not whether she shall ever regain consciousness. Had she not been here in a Demon Sanctuary, she would have most certainly perished.”

“Even her…? You’re kidding…” Kojou shook his head, struck by dizziness.

He knew the girl who others called Paper Noise. Once, Kojou had fought her, only to be defeated without being able to raise hand or foot. He’d lost to her, and she had gone easy on him.

The defeated Sword Shaman probably had power equal to Yukina, if not more. That was because, by rights, Yukina was a Sword Shaman candidate still in training.

“That is the reason why the Lion King Agency is dragging its feet about dispatching others. It is far more efficient to let the ruler candidates crush one another than to exhaust our fighting strength interfering. If things go well, we can learn the Order of the End’s inner workings as well.”

“So bringing me and Kanase here was to tell me all this…?” Kojou flopped onto the bed, sulking.

He had no intention of complaining to Yukari. The Lion King Agency had already been through enough. He couldn’t bring himself to twist their arms for anything further.

This issue was between the Fourth Primogenitor and The Blood. In other words, it was Kojou’s turn to deal with it.

“Well, that is one reason certainly. Besides, you have no hope of victory if you charge into the enemy’s headquarters without even understanding the situation,” Yukari teased.

That way of speaking was her usual, sarcastic self, but he had no doubts that her warning came from the heart. If Kojou charged in without a plan, he would lose. Yukari knew that, too.

It might have peeved him a little, but he could not refute her words whatsoever. Kojou knew exactly how dangerous The Blood and the Order of the End could be.

“You had some other reason, too, right?”

“I suppose I do. It would seem that preparations are finally complete.”

“…Preparations?”

Right after Kojou murmured this with a suspicious look on his face, he felt a ferocious swaying of the air.

Space within the room twisted, and a wave of high-density magical energy gushed forth.

“Spatial control magic…! Natsuki?”

When Kojou saw the mirage-like contours of a person appearing, for a moment, he expected to see his diminutive homeroom teacher. However, it was a middle-aged man with a stern face who emerged out of thin air.

“Geh?! Why are you…?!”

Upon seeing the man, Kojou went pale as he sat up in a hurry.

Kanon opened her eyes wide with a start and put a hand over her mouth. “Father…?”

With a dark expression, Kensei Kanase, former Court Sorcerous Engineer of the kingdom of Aldegia, beheld the sight of Kojou and his daughter sitting upon the bed of a love hotel, dressed only in bathrobes.