Strike the Blood - Volume 20 - Chapter 3.5

5

The tallest strata of Island North—

Sayaka Kirasaka gazed at the sea before daybreak from the branches of a roadside tree standing along an ocean cliff. But she was staring at it…upside down.

Her parachute had snagged in the branches of the tree, leaving her suspended in midair, swaying slowly as if she were a pendulum. Just before the helicopter she’d been on crashed, her co-occupants had basically shoved her out, whereupon she’d floated down via parachute, somehow reaching land in the process.

“Uu…no one told me I’d have to do parachute drops two days in a row…”

Mumbling that with a haggard expression, Sayaka undid the harness of her parachute. There wasn’t even a two-meter distance to the ground, so she wouldn’t have to use a physical-reinforcement ritual spell to drop down.

The instant she righted herself and loosened her shoulder belts, however, she lost her balance and became immobilized at an unexpected angle. Hand bound behind her head, she was now hanging upside down from a branch by her left leg—she looked like a pathetic rabbit caught in a snare.

“…Wait, no way…?! My leg’s caught in the cord, and I can’t pull it loose! What in the world is this?!”

Sayaka desperately wriggled to escape her inverted, suspended state, but in the end, all she managed to do was to make the parachute cords constrict even tighter.

When she’d lost her balance, the instrument case with her long sword inside had plummeted to the ground. And since both her hands were ensnared, she couldn’t use any spell tablets to summon a shikigami.

A youthful, eye-catching girl in self-bondage was hanging upside down on a roadside before dawn—if anyone saw her, they’d definitely suspect she had some kind of weird fetish.

What should I do? she wondered, at a total loss before she heard the footsteps of someone approaching.

“Kirasaka, are you all right?!”

“K-Kojou Akatsuki…?”

She swiveled her head around at his familiar voice.

Running over with his breath a little short and, for some reason, his hair dyed blond, was Kojou Akatsuki. It was difficult to say that the hair, resembling that of some delinquent punk from the far reaches of civilization, suited him, but now really wasn’t the time or place to bring that up.

He must have spotted her during the crash and came after her.

“Thank goodness! Save me, Kojou Akatsuki… Ah, wait, don’t! No don’t come! Don’t look!”

Remembering her current predicament, Sayaka panicked.

After all, the pull of gravity had flipped up her skirt to completely expose her butt and thighs. Her abdomen was almost entirely on display up to her belly button. She flailed around her right leg, her one free limb, in an attempt to at least conceal her panties somehow, but it was all for naught.

“Which is it…? Anyway, is it really all right to thrash around in a place like that…?”

“Huh?!”

His rather realistic take abruptly brought her back to reality.

Just then, Sayaka heard a craaaack from above. The branch of the roadside tree supporting her had broken.

“A-aaaaaaah!!”

Struck with the sensation of being suspended in midair, Sayaka let out a fervent scream. Her limbs were bound, so she would have no way to break her fall.

“Whoa there?!”

As Sayaka shut her eyes in preparation for impact, Kojou caught her from right underneath the tree. The force of her fall proved too much for him, however, so they both wound up tumbling onto the ground in a tangle.

Sayaka, who’d ended up nearly pressing her nether regions against his face, hastily leaped back and pushed down her skirt.

“Ow, ow, ow…wait…!! D-did you see?!”

“Er…well, yeah. But that’s not really what matters at the moment, right?”

Rubbing where he’d bumped his head on the ground, Kojou sat up and sighed.

Sayaka reddened as her eyes filled with tears.

“S-something that sensitive…?! Not important?!”

“Just explain yourself already. What were you doing falling out of the sky…?”

“I’ll have you know I wasn’t falling from the sky because I wanted to…ah!”

Sayaka paled as she swiftly lifted her head. She shifted her gaze toward the sea once more.

“Mother?! Mother and that man are…?!”

“…Mother?”

He turned back to the panicked girl, his expression like that of someone hoisting up a fox. He wondered if her mother had come to visit Itogami Island or something.

“Your parents! They were on that transport craft earlier!”

“With Kirasaka? How the hell did things wind up like that…?”

“That would end up a fairly long explanation but…”

Sayaka hemmed and hawed. Perhaps the fact of the matter was that she didn’t exactly understand how this situation had come about herself.

What Kojou had vaguely picked up along the way was that his mother had defied MAR when she’d ensured Avrora’s escape from the Demon Beast Park on Blue Elysium.

He didn’t know where Mimori Akatsuki had gone since. But if MAR had captured her, and Sayaka had subsequently rescued her, that would explain why those helicopters were after them.

That aside, the question still remained as to exactly who was piloting the aircraft they’d been on. And what’s up with how wishy-washy she’s being? pondered Kojou when, suddenly, a mix of voice and static coursed out from Sayaka’s back.

“…Hey, Sayaka, you hearin’ this?”

“Gajou Akatsuki?! You’re all right?!”

Plucking off a transceiver attached to the parachute harness, Sayaka snarled back as though she were biting him.

Kojou frowned at hearing his father’s name on her lips.

It certainly wouldn’t have surprised him if his dad of all people could fly a chopper, and he had the motivation to rescue Mimori. Why Gajou and Sayaka had been together was definitely a mystery, but she didn’t seem to have much of a handle on that part, either.

“Somehow…we crash-landed on the water, so it’s gonna take a little while to get back to Itogami Island, but hey, unless sharks come out, we should be just fine.”

“I’m so hungry—I wanna eat ice cream—”

He heard Gajou’s and Mimori’s carefree voices against the sound of waves in the background. Their helicopter had fallen into the sea, but they seemed safe for the moment at least.

An expression of relief came over Sayaka as she confirmed this. And then…

“How dare you shove me out the door like that…!”

“Hey, I put a parachute on you, didn’t I?”

Sayaka lashed out at him resentfully, only for Gajou to respond as though he’d done her a favor.

“That’s not the point?! How could you treat me like that after twisting my arm into helping you rescue Mother?!”

“Anyway, it seems like we’re all safe for the time being. That’s all. If you see my idiot son, tell him I said hi… Whoa, oh crap, we’re sinking!”

“Ice cr—…”

Static drowned out their voices until they finally cut out entirely. Tossing away the completely silent transceiver, Sayaka hung her head.

“Hah…really, what in the world…?”

“Ahhh…yeah. I get the gist of it. You’ve had it rough, too, huh?”

“I most certainly have…”

When Kojou turned a gaze of pity toward her, Sayaka looked back with a bundle of conflicting emotions on her face.

Then, as if abruptly realizing something, she widened her eyes and looked all around.

“Come to think of it, where’s Yukina? She’s not with you?”

“She’s in the Second Primogenitor’s domain right now. She went to save Shio and stuff.”

“To save Shio Hikawa…?! You’re saying she went to meet Avrora Florestina?!”

Her eyes widened as she closed the distance with him. Her sheer aggression threw him off.

“Yeah, that’s right… You sure figured that out fast, huh?”

“Why didn’t you stop her?!”

“Stop her? Professor Kitty’s the one who sent her, you know?”

“That’s the problem!!”

Sayaka grabbed hold of Kojou’s collar, violently shaking him to-and-fro. Her lips twitched and trembled, and she looked as though she’d been backed against a wall.

“Master is going to have Yukina kill Avrora Florestina!!”

“…Huh? Kill her… Why would she…?”

Kojou stared back at her, bewildered. The leap was so huge that he couldn’t keep up with it.

Suddenly, Yukina’s parting words came to mind.

“I am sorry,” she had told him.

“No way…to stop the Blazing Banquet…?”

All warmth vanished from Kojou’s voice.

If Avrora’s body, the very seal itself, were to vanish, the twelfth Beast Vassal slumbering within her would be freed. Then the freed Beast Vassal would go to join Kojou, its proper host and master. After all, the twelfth Beast Vassal, Alrescha Glacies, had been torn away from the Fourth Primogenitor.

With the twelfth Beast Vassal incorporated into him, Kojou would become a complete Fourth Primogenitor, and the Blazing Banquet would be averted. That was Yukina’s mission. She was heading to eliminate Avrora in order to put an end to the banquet.

That was why Koyomi Shizuka had given Yukina that order in front of him.

So that Kojou would know the Lion King Agency had decided to take out Avrora. So that he would know Yukina bore no responsibility. So that he wouldn’t hate her for it.

“Are you aware? Of what’s happening inside your own body…?”

Sayaka turned to him in surprise. He nodded sadly.

“Did Mom…? Did my mother seriously spring Avrora in order to stop this? To make me consume her…?!”

“Consume? You, consume Avrora Florestina…?”

Sayaka blinked, eyes wide open as she stared at him.

Kojou couldn’t hide his bewilderment at her unexpected reaction.

“It’s not that? This is what Ki Juranbarada told me. Wipe out Avrora or watch Itogami Island get destroyed in the inevitable banquet—make your choice.”

“And Yukina and the others bought it, huh…”

Sayaka gnawed on a fingernail, murmuring.

“You’re saying he was lying through his teeth?”

“No, it’s not a lie. But it’s not the whole truth, either. There’s one other way to stop the Blazing Banquet.”

“Huh…?”

He grasped both her shoulders and pulled her close. He was staring straight into her eyes; her cheeks reddened.

“Do Shio and the others know that?”

“I—I don’t think they know. Your mother said she’d kept it a secret, see.”

“Why would she do that?!”

“She had her reasons. If they’d known, Shio Hikawa and company would have probably hesitated to bring Avrora to the island. That’s why.”

Faltering, Sayaka tried to stand up for her mother. Kojou frowned slightly.

“It’s that bad a way?”

“Anyway, we need to catch up to Yukina.”

Finally recovering from her inner turmoil, Sayaka straightened up, her expression taut.

“Yukina’s headed to Island East, then?”

“Yeah. But are you okay with this, Kirasaka? Isn’t this going against the Lion King Agency’s ord—”

“I don’t know what’s right or wrong here, either!”

Sayaka shouted frailly, as if reassuring herself more than him.

Even if the Lion King Agency had put her up to it, Yukina would surely agonize over killing Avrora, a completely innocent girl. Sayaka couldn’t sanction that.

“Anyway, I hate Yukina being unhappy more than anything! If it’s going to be like that, I’d rather depend on someone like you…!”

“Depend on…me?”

What does she mean? thought Kojou, slack-jawed.

But his statement was drowned out by an incredible roar that came from out of the blue.

It was an unpleasant, high-pitched wave of noise, like a howl from a giant speaker placed right next to your ear. The resonance caused windows to shatter around Itogami Island.

“What’s that sound?!”

“It’s coming from the direction of the Keystone Gate…!”

Covering their ears, they shifted their gaze to the structure. An unforeseen circumstance had arisen right where Shizuri was heading.

“Cas’s work? But this sound… That’s the Unknowns’ resonant destruction?!”

“Unknowns…?!”

Kojou’s utterance made Sayaka’s expression frost over.

Of course, she also knew about the Unknowns that had appeared on Itogami Island not so long ago. Their vile nature, absorbing demonic energy to evolve at a tumultuous pace, had become the subject of fierce debate among demon beast researchers across the globe.

In truth, the Unknowns were artificial life-forms that researchers at MAR had created. The giant conglomerate was the link between the monsters and the Electoral War.

“Cas…!”

He waved a clenched fist, glaring at the Keystone Gate all the while.

Yukina was heading to the Second Primogenitor’s domain to kill Avrora. And on top of that, there was no doubt in his mind that Shizuri was falling into peril that very moment—

Asking himself which one to go after, Kojou froze, unable to find an answer.

As he did, the roar of resonant destruction echoed once more, violently shaking Itogami Island.

And yet, all Kojou did was stand in bewilderment.