Strike the Blood - Volume 20 - Chapter 4.6

6

Yukina and Sayaka’s fierce battle with the beautiful redhead suddenly appearing from parts unknown began in earnest. Kojou kept the girls in the corner of his vision as he and The Blood traded glares.

He and The Blood were both near their limits. The fight would probably be decided in a single instant. The tension rose between them like a stifling silence between a pair of gunslingers.

“Do you remember the words I spoke to you previously, Kojou Akatsuki?”

A crimson mist enveloped The Blood’s small body. The vast demonic energy transformed into the shape of a beast.

“I said, you cannot defeat me in your incomplete state! And so it remains!”

Demonic energy emanating from Kojou’s back became pitch-black wings that struck The Blood.

But just before they could skewer the boy’s youthful body, Kojou’s wings were swatted away. The Blood had deployed his own pitch-black wings to intercept Kojou’s.

“!!”

“It’s useless, Kojou Akatsuki. I am the prototype Fourth Primogenitor. Even if I am incomplete, even if I am a failure, I can do anything you can!”

A confident smile came over him as he howled.

Compared to Kojou, who had to defeat him while keeping his own Beast Vassals from running amok, all The Blood to do was back his foe to the wall, even if he was annihilated in the process. From the very outset of the battle, Kojou had been at an overwhelming disadvantage.

“And the more demonic energy you use, the closer the hour of the banquet approaches! Victory is mine, Fourth Primogenitor!”

The sable wings protruding from The Blood pierced Kojou’s body again and again.

Blood spilled out of Kojou’s mouth. His vision was dyed crimson.

Falling to one knee on the blood-smeared floor, Kojou smiled ferociously as he tilted forward.

Behind the triumphant vampire, The Blood, was the transparent chunk of ice. The beautiful golden-haired girl slept within, clutching her knees like an infant.

Just like when he’d first met her—

“Reverberate!”

Sayaka scattered silver spell tablets. They transformed into birds of prey that assaulted Zana Lashka from all sides.

“—Roaring Thunder!”

As Sayaka used her shikigami to blind, Yukina spun and slammed a heel kick toward Zana. Their coordination was perfect since they’d lived together so long. Their uninterrupted attacks from all directions didn’t give Zana the opening to employ Paper Noise. But—

“Chassé!”

Zana’s body swayed like a mirage, easily slipping past Yukina’s attack.

“Glissade assemblé—grand jeté!”

“What are these movements…?!”

Sayaka’s face twisted out of nervousness.

The shikigami she had unleashed bounced off one after another without so much as touching Zana.

Their foe was moving freely like a passionate dancer on the dance floor. Yukina and Sayaka couldn’t keep up with her bizarre movements. Even with their Sword Shaman Spirit Sight, Zana was making sport of them.

“Fouetté!”

She swung her right leg up high to assault Sayaka as if cracking a whip. Sayaka groaned as she blocked with her right hand and her long sword went flying, rolling onto the floor.

“—Fouetté! Fouetté! Fouetté! Fouetté! Fouetté!”

“Wha…?! Khh…!”

Zana spun as she unleashed a flurry of super high-speed kicks. Sayaka crossed her arms, fending off a direct hit, but her opponent cared nothing for her attempts to guard. Zana blew away Sayaka’s tall body like a sheet of paper, driving her as far as the stairwell.

“Sayaka?!”

Yukina let out a brief yelp as she watched her ally being pummeled.

However, Zana’s unending spins gave her no opportunity to deliver Sayaka aid. If she carelessly forced her way in, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t end up hitting Sayaka instead.

Moreover, Sayaka’s winning personality wasn’t the sort to just stand and take it. Overlapping physical enchantments beyond her limits, she took Zana’s kick the hard way, ignoring defense and launching an all-out attack.

“Why you… Full Star/Saiha!”

“Oh wow!”

Sayaka unleashed a lethal blow toward the woman’s vitals that couldn’t be ignored—a palm strike targeting the diaphragm from point-blank range. Zana was forced to defend herself. The woman’s eyes sparkled with delight as Sayaka’s resistance exceeded her expectations.

Although she fended off the attack, this allowed Sayaka to create a crack in Zana’s movements, which had been completely flawless up to that point. The crack was as tiny as the eye of a needle, but it was the first opening she had shown.

“—I, Maiden of the Lion, Sword Shaman of the High God, beseech thee.”

Raising her silver spear, Yukina danced. Enveloped by vast spiritual energy amplified by Snowdrift Wolf, her physical capabilities temporarily reached a realm beyond human ken. She could not defeat Zana with close-combat skill. She could only overcome her foe with pure, overwhelming force.

“Heh, so marvelous. I just love that about you!”

Zana beamed as she read Yukina’s intentions. Then she adopted a stance the girl didn’t know. It was a beautiful pose resembling that of the deity dubbed the King of Dance.

“O purifying light, O divine wolf of the snowdrift, by your steel divine will, strike down the devils before me—!”

“Navaratri, First Goddess—Shailaputri!”

The silver knuckles Zana wore over her fists collided with Yukina’s spear head-on. The pressurized spiritual energy blew apart all at once, knocking both to their rears.

The light of the explosive spiritual essence filled the entire floor, robbing Kojou and The Blood of their vision.

But even amid that dazzling radiance, Kojou gazed only upon the girl trapped in the chunk of ice.

“Avrora—can you hear my voice?”

Kojou murmured under his breath.

Naturally, she didn’t reply.

But he knew. The blood of the Fourth Primogenitor that flowed through them linked both their souls. Memories of the past linked to will trained upon the future.

The eleven wings protruding from Kojou’s back transformed into eleven Beast Vassals.

The torrent of destructive demonic energy blew away the roof of Keystone Gate like it was nothing at all.

Spreading above their heads was the sky before daybreak. The morning glow spread like an aurora. A dawn sky.

Kojou summoning all of his Beast Vassals shook The Blood for an instant as he widened his eyes. Then he released his own twelve Beast Vassals.

The Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals collided with pitch-black Beast Vassals of equal strength.

But The Blood had a twelfth Beast Vassal that Kojou lacked. If their power was truly equal, Kojou would have no way of defeating him.

Yes. So long as Kojou’s twelfth Beast Vassal was not unleashed, this was absolute—

“This time, I’ll grant your wish for real! I’ll bring you to our school—to Saikai Academy. Together with Asagi and Yaze and Nagisa—and me!”

Kojou reached his hand out toward the girl sleeping within the block of ice.

A moment later, she changed.

The color of her hair, gold like a shimmering flame, altered. Her eyelids, rimmed by long eyebrows, opened. She looked at Kojou with glimmering blue eyes. The ice enveloping her broke apart, and she reached out a slender arm toward Kojou. Rushing over, he grasped her hand.

Yukina, Sayaka, Zana, even The Blood—everyone present stared awestruck at the impossible scene.

Kojou and Avrora did not exchange a single word.

Gazing at each other for only an instant, they raised their joined hands overhead.

Then they shouted simultaneously. It was as if the two had become a single vampire—

“—Come forth, Alrescha Glacies!”

A pale, transparent, monstrous bird of water spread its wings into the daybreak.

Pure cold enveloped the world around them, freezing everything in sight.

“Kojou…Akatsuki…!”

His entire body frozen white, The Blood looked completely lost as he stared at Kojou and Avrora with wide-open pupils.

Kojou could not defeat him so long as the twelfth Beast Vassal remained sealed. But if the twelfth Beast Vassal awakened, their mutual demonic energy capacity would determine who won the day.

The Blood, unable to endure even his own negative life force, could not triumph against the true Fourth Primogenitor, boasting inexhaustible demonic energy.

“Sister…why…?!”

Avrora’s hand joined Kojou’s as The Blood weakly posed her that question.

The next moment, his entire body broke into tiny pieces.

After becoming an ivory mist, the boy named Kenon was blown away in the morning breeze, vanishing without a trace.