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Strike the Blood - Volume 20 - Chapter 2.2




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2

What returned Kojou to consciousness were the sweet aromas of simmering soy sauce, mirin, sugar, beef grease, and long green onions fried into a single harmonious form. The scent of Kansai-style sukiyaki.

He was in a broad underground chamber with numerous sorcerous devices along the edges. A number of people had gathered in a section of the room. They were surrounding a frying pan placed upon a workbench.

“Akatsuki, are you awake?”

Adjusting the output of the gas-controlled flame, Kanon Kanase called over upon realizing Kojou had roused.

Kojou looked back absentmindedly at the sight of Kanon wearing an apron over her school uniform. It was so surreal that it felt like a very convenient dream.

“…Kana…se?”

“The meal will be ready very soon.”

“Eh?”

Not realizing he was still befuddled, she excitedly went off to fetch fresh utensils.

Approaching in her stead were Shizuri and Yukina. They bore chopsticks and bowls, so they were probably in the middle of a meal of their own.

“Kojou, you’re awake!”

“Where are…?”

He gazed up at Shizuri as he asked. The instant he saw the two girls’ faces, Kojou remembered what had happened prior to him passing out. Just before the power of the Fourth Primogenitor made him go berserk, Natsuki had teleported in out of nowhere and blown him away nice and good.

“This is Kano’s father’s lab. We couldn’t think of another place where you could be treated and examined, senpai.”

This time, Yukina replied to Kojou’s question.

Heaving a sigh, he glanced around the subterranean chamber.

Itogami Island Sorcery Lab Number Six, located in the lowest strata of Island North. Since it was completely isolated from the outside world, the place was closer to a prison than anything else. It was one of the few Gigafloat Management Corporation facilities spared from the effects of the Electoral War.

“So in the end we wound up back here…”

Kojou sat up sluggishly and examined a clock on the wall.

It was past six PM. Based on that, he’d continued sleeping for nearly half a day, probably because of how his rampage had affected him more than the damage from Natsuki’s attack.

“How do you feel, Fourth Primogenitor?”

The man in charge of the lab, Kensei Kanase, posed that question in his usual gloomy voice.

“So far as I can tell from this data, there is nothing wrong with your body. That being said, a primogenitor’s body cannot accept magic spells, so I can only rely on standard medical practices, which may be small comfort.”

“Nah, I’m grateful. Guess that’s another one I owe you.”

Rotating his limbs, Kojou checked his physical condition. Thanks to the particular healing abilities vampires possessed, his external wounds were all healing. There was a strange emptiness in his stomach and a dryness in his throat, but considering that he hadn’t had anything to eat since the night before, it was a normal response if anything.

“Come to think of it, how are we able to cook sukiyaki in a place like this?”

“That’s, erm… These are meat and vegetables the subjects provided to us, you see.”

Yukina shifted her eyes to the food on the table as she spoke.

“…Subjects?”

Whose? went Kojou with a tilt of his head. Presently, the only ruler candidate there was Shizuri, but her domain was the Saikai Academy area over in Island South. That was a bit of a hike to bring over beef and veggies.

“Actually, senpai, ah…while you were sleeping, Ms. Minamiya subjugated approximately seventy percent of the domains in Island North.”

Yukina continued her explanation like that, perhaps finding it a little hard to spit it out because she thought it wouldn’t seem true.

His eyes bulged as he looked back at her.

“Natsuki did that all by herself…? I wasn’t even sleeping half a day, right?”

“Many of the ruler candidates in Island North were from the Island Guard, so they were submissive to… Er, rather, they favored Ms. Minamiya to begin with. Even if that hadn’t been the case, the influx of stray ruler candidates had overwhelmed the domains in Island North, you see.”

“So I guess I should be real grateful Natsuki became a ruler candidate, then?

“I see,” mused Kojou, folding his arms in comprehension.

With vampire primogenitors descending upon the three regions of Islands East, West, and South, the only region they weren’t occupying, Island North, had turned into a dangerous battlefield as small, weak ruler candidates clashed among themselves. Many of the subjects must have yearned for the appearance of a powerful ruler before the petty warlords succumbed to mutual collapse. It was then that the Witch of the Void, the most qualified person available to put Island North in order, came onto the scene.

“So where did Natsuki go off to?”

A questioning look came over Kojou as he looked around the lab. Natsuki was nowhere to be found, something that had bugged him since earlier.

“Ms. Minamiya returned to the Prison Barrier, apparently to repair the seal on her Guardian. Because of that, she said she wouldn’t be returning to this world for the time being.”


There was a bit of gloom mixed into Yukina’s voice. Bewildered, Kojou knit his brows.

“Natsuki’s Guardian? You mean that stupid-huge thing that’s like a suit of armor…and hold on, seal?”

“Apparently, Ms. Minamiya’s Guardian’s mere existence warps space in our realm, so she normally keeps it restrained using a sorcerous device. However, during combat with the Order of the End, it unshackled itself from the restraining device…”

“…You mean its power has been held back all this time…?” Kojou murmured in astonishment.

The Guardian that Natsuki called Rheingold had once suppressed a Beast Vassal of the Fourth Primogenitor through raw force. But apparently the golden knight statue hadn’t even been serious back then.

“Thanks to her Guardian appearing, no one can deploy spatial control–type magic spells in the general vicinity. I don’t think the effects will subside soon, either.”

Kensei Kanase stated this, as though to drive Kojou’s surprise even deeper.

“It’s all crazy stuff with her as per usual.”

Kojou acted half-exasperated as he shook his head. That monster warped space just through manifesting in their world. It was on par with a natural disaster. Little wonder, then, that sealing its power was a chore even for Natsuki.

In reporting that spatial control–type incantations were now unusable, she’d also inadvertently hit upon an inconvenient truth. Namely, that they couldn’t rely on Kensei Kanase’s teleportation spells as a means of getting around.

“Even if it was a surprise attack, the power was sufficient to put the Fourth Primogenitor out of commission for nearly half a day as a result. If anything, perhaps you should be glad there weren’t any other effects.”

Kensei nodded gravely as he spoke.

“Well, not that the causes of your stupor were limited to her attack alone.”

“…I suppose you’re right.”

Kojou lowered his shoulders dejectedly. Certainly, he’d taken a lot of damage from Natsuki, but she hadn’t been the only reason he’d recovered so slowly.

Back at the monorail station, a bizarre sense of hunger and thirst had overtaken him. The byproducts of the sensation remained deep in Kojou’s body, a weariness that made him feel like molten lava that had cooled and hardened in place.

“Famished, perhaps?”

Reading his emotions, Kanase asked that as if making idle conversation. Perhaps unconsciously reacting to her words, Kojou’s stomach grumbled loudly.

“Shall I serve you some sukiyaki as well, senpai?”

Yukina giggled and smiled as she picked up an empty bowl.

As if trying to compete with her, Shizuri posed with chopsticks and a ladle.

“Looks like I’ve got no choice but to step up. Just wait a few moments.”

“Ah, er, I…”

Which one should I stop? thought Kojou, dithering as he watched the pair snatch ingredients from each other. Of course, figuring out who got to serve sukiyaki shouldn’t have been a competition. Up until that moment, it probably hadn’t been.

“Please wait, Miss Kasugaya. Perhaps you are not aware of this, but since Akatsuki-senpai has difficulty with green onions, I believe it would be best to reduce them slightly—”

Yukina asserted this with a reserved tone of voice as she watched the other girl pile up food in her bowl.

That one casual statement caused Shizuri to sullenly knit her brows.

“I have spent a very long time with Kojou, so I’m obviously aware of that. Himeragi, do you not think there’s a nutritional balance issue with how you are preparing to serve nothing but meat?”

“Ah, I am deliberately using a fair bit of meat since Akatsuki-senpai has lost a great deal of blood. Proteins are vital nutrients for the production of red blood cells and hemoglobin.”

Even as her expression stiffened under Shizuri’s unexpected rebuttal, Yukina calmly issued her retort.

This served only to irk the other girl further.

“If you’re going to talk about the components of blood, then the types of vitamins contained in green onions are also very important. Indulging Kojou in his likes and dislikes will do him no good.”

“The allicin contained in green onions has the same composition of that in garlic, does it not?”

“Mere garlic is nothing to the World’s Mightiest Vampire. For that matter, Kojou had no problem eating gyoza or peperoncino!”

“Are you really bringing up something that happened in the virtual space of Onrai Island?!”

“Even if it occurred virtually, it’s undeniable that Kojou and I were together, nonetheless!”

“Ahhh…er, none of that stuff really matters, so you don’t need to argue about it…”

Kojou was a bit at a loss as he watched Yukina and Shizuri engage in a fruitless war of words. Both were possessed by such an ultra-serious sense of responsibility that neither felt prepared to yield. The way he saw it, they were actually pretty similar, so maybe that was why they didn’t see eye to eye on a fundamental level. Plus, there was the fact they’d thrown genuine punches at each other the first time they’d met.

“Akatsuki, here you go.”

Serene as always, Kanon didn’t notice the dispute between Yukina and Shizuri and tendered a bowl of sukiyaki in front of Kojou. His lips stiffened as he accepted the bowl from the smiling girl.

“Ahhh…thanks, Kanase.”

“You are welcome.”

Desperate, he dug into the sukiyaki. Kanon watched with a grin on her face.

Somehow, the stares Yukina and Shizuri gave Kojou as he ate seemed rather resentful.



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