Strike the Blood - Volume 20 - Chapter Ep

OUTRO

From the deck of a submersible aircraft carrier alongside Itogami Island, Giada Kukulkin looked up at the heavens.

Hovering like a mirage was a fantastical cityscape that glimmered with steel.

It was an inverted city, facing Itogami Island like its mirror image.

“Nod…is it?”

Narrowing her jade eyes, Giada murmured indifferently.

The air behind her back swayed and shimmered. A vampire in a red dress rode the back of a giant divine bird as it fluttered downward.

“Quite a nostalgic landscape, is it…not?”

Aswadguhl smiled fondly as the morning breeze toyed with his purple hair.

Giada narrowed her eyes, guarded. It was rare for someone normally so haughty to let her emotions show to this extent.

“What have you come for, Malik? Surely you aren’t actually planning to fight in this children’s game they call the Electoral War?”

As Giada bared her feelings of disgust, Aswadguhl calmly gazed back at her and sighed.

“Kenon has dissipa…ted.”

“…Is that so?”

Giada’s eyebrows made a distinct twitch.

The prototype Fourth Primogenitor, Number Zero of the Kaleid Bloods—she did not have a special attachment to him, but to the unaging, undying vampire primogenitors, he was one of their precious few fellows who had inhabited the world since time immemorial. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of loneliness over his annihilation.

Aswad’s next words erased her sentiments.

“Kojou Akatsuki has abandoned the power of the Fourth Primogenitor, it would…seem.”

“To save Dodekatos, I take it? That man truly betrays our expectations to the end.”

Giada grimaced, frustrated.

The human boy who had the power of the Fourth Primogenitor through a misfortunate twist of fate—she’d fought him once. The battle was a bit of play to substitute for a greeting, but the fact remained that his mysterious resilience had stirred her heart. His “companion” girls had also amused her to a fair degree. Perhaps she was fond enough of the boy named Kojou Akatsuki that she had anticipated the day he would become the complete Fourth Primogenitor.

“But his decision is in error. A manufactured ‘Mightiest’ cannot win—not against us and not against the Devas.”

“I suppose…not… It is disappoint…ing… Truly…disappointing.”

Aswad closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.

Hmph, went Giada’s little snort as she looked up at the firmament once more.

Nod had appeared in the real world thanks to the Twelfth, Avrora, turned Fourth Primogenitor. The Electoral War and The Blood had been nothing more than tools to bring this about.

The same went for Giada and her peers. Notwithstanding the fact they’d intentionally gone along with the mastermind’s scheme, it didn’t feel particularly good to be played like that.

“What will you do…now, Chaos Bride?”

Aswad asked this with a smile as if he was reading her heart.

Taking his bait, Giada made a ferocious smile.

“As if you need to ask. The Electoral War determines the ruler of Nod, does it not?”

“Tee-hee, perhaps finally our desire shall be…granted?”

Aswad turned a suggestive gaze toward the otherworldly metropolis.

“Desire…you say. What is your desire, Fallgazer? Is it war? Destruction, perhaps?”

Giada asked that of the purple-haired primogenitor with an air of scorn.

Aswadguhl said nothing in reply. He merely curled up the corners of his beautiful lips.

The Simurgh flapped its enormous wings, soaring up into the sky of daybreak.

Giada watched the creature leave without a word.

It was the dawn of the deadly engagement that would determine who obtained the right to rule that fantastical city.

Dressed in a gym outfit, Asagi Aiba was tying up her sleep-mussed hair as she peered at a personal computer screen. The screen was packed full of countless windows through which binary data was coursing in with incredible force. A normal person wouldn’t be able to make hide nor hair of the information, but when she stared at it, her eyes filled with shock.

“The Gigafloat Management Corporation’s functions came back online…?”

Heat blew out from the large mainframe computer installed in the Dem-Club clubroom as its fans rotated at full power. It couldn’t cope with the previously dammed-up information cascading in all at once.

“What the heck’s going on, Mogwai?! What’s that thing floating in the sky?! What’s up with the Electoral War?!”

Asagi posed these questions to her partner AI.

However, the avatar in the form of a badly sewn teddy bear said nothing in reply. He was lazily spinning in the corner of the screen, as though he were a polygon without a will of his own.

“…Mogwai?”

Asagi operated her keyboard. She tried to restart her AI client app, but before she could input the command, her screen jumbled.

Mogwai’s CG image split apart. Strange symbols appeared in its place.

There were lines of short characters arrayed in some kind of code. Someone who wasn’t Asagi had stuffed some kind of message into Mogwai—or rather, into Itogami Island’s main computer.

“The hell…is this…?”

Asagi muttered, perplexed and gazing at the lines of characters.

The shock in her wide-open eyes grew greater still.

In the ruin of the completely wrecked warehouse, Yuiri Haba held her knees as she crouched.

She hung her head, her cheeks drenched with tears, letting out small, suppressed sobs.

“Yuiri, are you all right?”

Shio squatted beside her and called out to her in concern. However, the girl did not lift her face. All she could do to reply was let out a little hiccup.

“Do your wounds hurt?”

Shio asked this as she looked over the girl’s tattered uniform. Since she’d borne the brunt of an attack from The Blood’s Beast Vassal, her wounds were the injuries of the people who remained here.

That said, ritual spell treatment was effective. In a week, she wouldn’t even have any scars.

Yuiri shook her head silently, as if to say, I’m fine.

“Then stop crying already.”

Shio told her this as she placed her hands on her best friend’s shoulders. Yuiri lifted her tearful face and looked at Shio. She was weeping defenselessly, like a young child.

“I mean… I…tried to…kill Miss Avrora…”

“Well, you couldn’t help it. Yukina Himeragi and Avrora understood exactly how you felt, Yuiri.”

Shio hugged her crying friend. Yuiri’s decision to try and kill Avrora to stop the Blazing Banquet hadn’t been wrong. After all, Yukina had tried to do the exact same thing, and Avrora had accepted that fate as well. No one was blaming Yuiri—no one, save the woman herself.

Motoki Yaze watched Yuiri and Shio together like that from a slightly removed location.

“A floating artificial isle… Another Itogami Island, huh…”

Since Itogami Island’s communications network had recovered, the Order of the End must have no longer been occupying Keystone Gate. A flood of messages from the Gigafloat Management Corporation was reaching his smartphone.

Thanks to The Blood’s annihilation and the riot instigated by rogue ruler candidates, the Electoral War taking place on land had devolved into a temporary ceasefire.

Nevertheless, three vampire primogenitors still remained on Itogami Island. The Electoral War wasn’t over. The stage where the conflict was set had shifted to the wondrous metropolis in the sky. That was all.

“So the fate of the world is riding on whoever gets control of Nod first, huh? Well, isn’t this is a mess.”

Yaze rudely clicked his tongue as he shook his head.

Even if it grasped the situation, there was nothing more the Gigafloat Management Corporation could do about it.

The greatest fighting strength the Demon Sanctuary of Itogami Island had up its sleeve was the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire.

But that Fourth Primogenitor no longer existed.

The boy called the Fourth Primogenitor was no more.

The ocean’s horizon was pronounced when viewed from the topmost floor of the half-destroyed Keystone Gate.

The water was as blue and clear as a gemstone. Scarlet gradients spread out toward the sky. The sun hovering in the gap between sea and sky gave off a fiery glow.

Kojou and Yukina stood side by side as they gazed straight at it.

“So pretty, Himeragi.”

The offhand murmur coming from Kojou made Yukina lift her face in surprise.

Yukina’s cheek shone red with the light of morning as he stared at it.

“I’d forgotten for all that time that the light of the sun can feel this good.”

He added in a voice that sounded…cheerful, somehow. Yeah, went Yukina as she nodded in apparent agreement. So that’s what he meant, she thought, shrugging in embarrassment.

“You’re really human again.”

Yukina stated this as if she was keenly absorbing that fact.

The vampirized Kojou had greeted the morning sun with nothing but gloom as the excessive dazzle pricked at his skin. Even if they wouldn’t actually turn him to ash, the fact remained it was an unpleasant stimulus.

Now he stared at it, deeply moved. Even he must have been surprised by this.

“I always thought it was possible. That if Avrora became the real Fourth Primogenitor, not just a vessel to seal a Beast Vassal inside of, she wouldn’t have to disappear—”

Turning serious, he tried to justify himself.

It hadn’t been a baseless gamble. Even if it had been for a single moment in time, Avrora had been the Fourth Primogenitor once before. Chances were high that the Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor would acknowledge her as their host and master.

But of course, that didn’t mean he was certain everything would go that well.

“You do know you could have been totally annihilated, don’t you, senpai?”

Yukina glared at him reproachfully.

“Oh, yeah…suppose that could have happened, too.”

He shrugged and limply smiled.

There had been no guarantee that he would become human again after relinquishing the power of the Fourth Primogenitor. The natural thing was for a vampire to dissipate when he’d lost his demonic energy. That Kojou could greet the morning like this was a stroke of luck, not calculation. Small wonder this impulsive action bothered Yukina.

“Goodness…you really are incorrigible, huh?”

Like someone scolding her misbehaving little brother, Yukina made an exaggerated sigh.

Feeling like he was in for a prolonged lecture, Kojou hastily tried to change the subject.

“Hm, come to think of it, where’s Kirasaka?”

“She went off to see Master to report about President Ren’s actions and about Miss Avrora.”

She replied soberly.

“I see.”

Kojou gave a lonely grin as he looked up at the sky.

Shahryar Ren’s ambitions had become clear. Now that the Electoral War was playing out on the stage of Nod, the Lion King Agency couldn’t simply let it slide. Sayaka and the others were probably going to head into Nod and chase after him.

“Then this is where we part ways, huh, Himeragi?”

“…Wh-what?”

Yukina blinked in surprise. Her reaction genuinely perplexed him.

“You’re the watcher of the Fourth Primogenitor, right? Then you don’t have any reason to hang around me any longer, do you?”

“…Hang around?”

She tapered her lips in a pout. Kojou’s careless words had implied she was a nuisance.

“Er, I mean, you’ve been taking care of me up to now, so in spite of everything, I am grateful and all.”

“In spite of… I see… So that’s how it is…”

As he hastily tried to amend his words, she continued glaring at him as she let out a fervent siiigh.

“Just to make this clear, I’ll be sticking with you, senpai.”

“Eh? Why?”

“Why are you so unhappy about it?!”

Yukina rolled her eyes in anger, thrusting her right hand before him.

On her finger, she wore a silver sorcerous device in the form of a ring. This used the Fourth Primogenitor’s negative life force to keep her excessive spiritual energy in check.

“Have you forgotten? Because you’re no longer a vampire, I am unable to use spiritual energy. After all, I became your ‘Blood Servant’ to keep my spiritual energy from running amok.”

“Ah… Oh yeah…then your…”

Kojou stared at her, dumbfounded. His decision to relinquish the power of the Fourth Primogenitor had taken her power from her.

Yukina, however, shook her head without a single word of complaint.

“Yes. I am no longer a Sword Shaman, just as you are no longer the Fourth Primogenitor.”

She teasingly smiled up at the shaken boy.

Then her expression abruptly tightened and sharpened.

“Besides, just because you’ve turned back into a mere human being doesn’t mean you’re going to abandon Avrora, right?”

He looked back at her, wordless for a time. Her stare never wavered. Kojou raised both hands in a show of defeat, surrendering to eyes that seemed to stare through everything.

“Avrora became the Fourth Primogenitor and fell into Nod because of me.”

He murmured quietly, keeping his emotions in check. She nodded slowly and silently.

“I can’t let that guy, or anyone else, use her again. Don’t matter if it’s Devas or primogenitors. I’ll bring Avrora back. From here on, this is my fight…!”

Kojou clenched a fist against his chest.

Yukina tapped the back of his hand with her own fist. Then she enveloped both of her hands around his hand, as though praying. It was a childlike gesture so unlike her usual overserious self.

“No, senpai. This is our fight.”

“Himeragi…”

Her words, spoken like they were the most natural thing in the world, left him at a loss before he burst into a tiny fit of laughter. Yukina seemed faintly peeved as she gripped Kojou’s hands, perhaps dissatisfied by his reaction.

“Let’s go.”

Yukina smiled strongly as she spoke.

Right now, Kojou did not have the strength of the Fourth Primogenitor. Compared to the destructive and bizarre abilities the descendants of the Devas and the vampire primogenitors possessed, he was powerless. But despite that, he still had things he needed to do.

And he wasn’t alone.

“Yeah.”

Kojou looked up at the fantastical city floating in the sky. Somewhere therein was the Fourth Primogenitor, Avrora Florestina—the girl he had to bring back.

After gazing upon it, he walked toward the city spreading out before him on the earth—the Demon Sanctuary of Itogami Island.

There he went, to obtain the power to fulfill his desires once again—