Strike the Blood - Volume 21 - Chapter 1.5

5

“You ceded the power of the Fourth Primogenitor…?!”

Shio’s surprised voice echoed through the cramped room on the third floor of the Special Education Building, which belonged to the Demon Sanctuary Research Club—Dem-Club for short. Asagi had just dragged Kojou and the others into it so that they wouldn’t draw even more attention to themselves in the schoolyard.

Shio was aghast at his unexpected confession. Even Yuiri was too shocked to keep crying.

For his part, all Kojou could do was laugh sheepishly while scratching his head with a slight blush.

“Yeah. In this case, maybe it’s better to say I returned them to their rightful owner.”

“Hmm. So that’s it. Huuuuh.”

Sitting in a folding-style pipe chair, Asagi made indifferent sounds while she followed along, then plucked a potato chip from a bag on the table. “Yeah,” went Kojou with a nod.

“Whoa, this manju’s pretty tasty. Wanna try some, Himeragi?”

“I am most grateful.”

Sitting beside Kojou, Yukina nibbled on the manju he handed to her.

Yaze stood in a corner of the room with a spare electric kettle in hand.

“The water’s hot! Green tea or coffee, which do you prefer?”

“Hey! This is no time to relax! This is a really big deal, isn’t it?!”

Shio shouted once more, indignant at the lackadaisical exchanges between Kojou and the others.

Yaze rummaged in the back of a shelf to get enough mugs for everyone.

“You say that, but Kojou was only the Fourth Primogenitor for a year… If you think of this as just goin’ back to normal, it’s not something to get all worked up about, right?”

“Not that I knew about it until pretty recently, mind you.”

Asagi glared resentfully at Kojou with half-lidded eyes. Mouth still stuffed with manju, he awkwardly averted his gaze. “Oof,” went Shio, faltering.

“Th-that might be true, but still…!”

“I’m sorry… This all happened because I tried to kill Avrora…”

Yuiri hung her head as she murmured fragmented words.

Kojou and Yukina shook their heads to let her know that wasn’t the case.

“Nah, it ain’t your fault at all. I’m the one who went and decided to hand the power back to Avrora. When you get right down to it, this whole thing happened ’cause that bastard The Blood kicked off the Electoral War anyway.”

“But,” protested Yuiri, trying to refute him with a frail voice. Regardless, it was really the Second Primogenitor’s fault she’d tried to kill Avrora. He’d convinced her that had been the only way to stop Kojou from going on a rampage.

Furthermore, the Second Primogenitor had made her try to assassinate Avrora in order to draw The Blood out of hiding, so in all likelihood, she wouldn’t have killed Avrora either way. If anything, when you considered what had actually happened, it was all thanks to Yuiri that Kojou had defeated The Blood without rampaging or Avrora vanishing.

There was little doubt that the only person who really couldn’t forgive her for having tried to off Avrora was Yuiri herself. She really is a good, kind girl down to the bone, thought Kojou.

“Well, forget Kojou for now—the real issue is Avrora falling into Nod.”

Yaze casually commented on this as he poured several cups of coffee with an oddly well-practiced hand.

“Yeah,” replied Kojou with a sober expression. His blood had rushed to his head right after Yuuma had sent him packing from Keystone Gate, but when he calmly went over what had transpired, he had to admit that she’d been right on the money. Now that he was an ordinary civilian who couldn’t use magic, Kojou would have difficulty returning from Nod alive, let alone bringing Avrora back with him.

That didn’t mean he could just leave Avrora as she was, though. It wasn’t simply a matter of his personal sense of responsibility. Shahryar Ren being able to use Avrora, now the World’s Mightiest Vampire, was the real problem.

What to do? thought Kojou, crossing his arms. Yaze twisted his lips with a conflicted look, but the very next moment, Yuiri wiped her tears and thrust up her hand.

“Me! I’ll do it—!”

What in the world are you trying to say? Shio seemed to say as she shot the girl a worried upward glance.

“Y-Yuiri?”

“I’ll go bring Miss Avrora back!”

“Huh?”

Shio was so surprised that she let out a shrill, inane shriek.

“Nuh-uh, what are you saying, Yuiri? There’s no way you can do that on your own!”

“But it’s my fault Miss Avrora got caught by The Blood and my fault she was taken into Nod!”

Yuiri rebutted Shio with a strangely obstinate demeanor.

“Um, Miss Yuiri… Not only will I insist that you had nothing to do with this, but I’ll also remind you that The Blood was the one who drove Akatsuki to the brink of a rampage in the first place—”

“Senpai played a part as well,” Yukina pointed out to Yuiri in a reserved tone of voice.

Just then, Yaze interjected with a sarcastic expression as he poured some green tea into a cup before Yukina.

“Right, right. Plus, when it comes to trying to kill Avrora, Yukina’s just as guilty as you are.”

“…So I am. I apologize.”

Yukina tightened her shoulders and hung her head. Yuiri hadn’t actually been the only one after Avrora’s life. In fact, Yukina had tried to kill the vampire girl for the exact same reason. Unable to resist her emotions, however, she’d defected to the side trying to protect Avrora in short order.

“Er, Himeragi, you tried to save Avrora immediately after that, so… Ah, um, of course I’m not saying you were in the wrong, Yuiri…”

Shio, familiar with the fine details firsthand, made a careless slip of the tongue while trying to defend Yukina.

“I have to!!”

Yuiri gripped the sword at her feet. Her voice was trembling, and she wore a brooding expression.

“I have to save my friend Avrora!!”

“I—I get it, Yuiri! I’ll help, too! So put Rosen Chevalier Plus down, okay? Slowly…slowly…just like that…”

Shio desperately tried to soothe Yuiri, who held the drawn blade in her trembling grip. Kojou unwittingly clutched his head. He was happy Yuiri had become so fond of the vampire girl, but the extent of it made him uneasy.

“Your friend Avrora, huh…”

Asagi spoke offhandedly, rubbing her temples as if she was enduring some kind of headache.

She’d been in contact with Avrora in middle school, but just like Kojou, most of those memories were already lost, consumed in the Blazing Feast that had turned Kojou into the Fourth Primogenitor. The headache was an aftereffect of that.

Grimacing from that pain, Asagi calmly posed a question to Yuiri.

“It’s fine that you want to save her, but how are you going to do that?”

“Th…that’s…”

Yuiri jostled with Shio over her sword, her perplexed gaze hovering as she replied.

“Shio, what’ll we do…?!”

“Don’t ask me…”

“…Hey, Asagi. Can’t you access Keystone Gate and control the gate to Nod?”

Kojou raised a question that offered a sliver of hope.

Shahryar Ren had used a dagger-shaped sorcerous device to control Keystone Gate. Kojou thought that Asagi, who was able to freely manipulate Itogami Island’s information network, might be able to directly hack the giant sorcerous device known as Keystone Gate to do the same thing as Ren.

“Hey, I just program as a hobby. Sorcery’s not my forte.”

Asagi put her chin against her palm with a mildly sour look. Despite her incredible reputation in the hacking world, the girl herself was insistent to the last that programming was merely a hobby. Analyzing a sorcerous device was probably something she had no interest in whatsoever.

But to Kojou, she was his last remaining hope at the moment. He couldn’t just back down.

“That got explained earlier, right? MAR was involved in building Keystone Gate so maybe we can get some kind of information out of it.”

“Information…huh.”

“Hmm,” went Asagi, tapering her lips as if she’d just thought of something.

The parallel world of Nod was still shrouded in mystery. They didn’t even know the true nature of the sorcerous device in Shahryar Ren’s possession. What they were sure of, however, was that the construction of Itogami Island had only taken place forty years prior. The Gigafloat Management Corporation still had documents from that time. Naturally, the blueprints and construction records for Keystone Gate had to be among them.

“Even if I can control the gate, what do you plan on doing in Nod? Starting a war with MAR special forces?”

Asagi stared dispassionately at Kojou as she asked him that. Finding it difficult to speak, Kojou lowered his voice in reply.

“I’ve been thinking about that a bit. Can you use The Cleansing to turn me back to a vampire?”

“Wha—?!”

“Kojou…?!”

Shio and Yuiri glared at him with wide-open eyes.

Yaze briefly whistled, but Yukina stayed silent. Perhaps a part of them had anticipated Kojou would say this.

Asagi, too, didn’t seem particularly surprised as she shrugged her shoulders.

“I guess I probably can.”

““You can?!””

Shio and Yuiri shouted simultaneously. Asagi cocked her head a bit as if to ask, Why are you so surprised?

“The story goes, Cain the Sinful God used the original Cleansing to change all the Devas in the world to regular old demons. Under the right conditions, I can probably manage that with Kojou alone.”

“J-just like that…!”

“Wait, Kojou Akatsuki. This is a decision with lifelong ramifications, so shouldn’t you think about it a little more carefully? Desiring to be a demon yourself means abandoning your rights as a human being…! A-are you fine with this, Asagi Aiba?!”

“Like I told you—under the right conditions.”

Shio and Yuiri tried to corner Asagi, but she brushed them away like nuisances.

“I’m not a proper magic user, so I can’t do the fine control that’s required to mess with a person’s individual cells. The best I can do is blot out demonic energy or turn a stretch of ocean into strawberry jelly.”

“I see… Right, the real Cleansing is supposed to be a huge burst of forbidden magic…”

Kojou raised his brows. The Cleansing was a vile spell with maximal destructive power, but that made it frighteningly difficult to control. Even if you activated it with Itogami Island, the sorcerous device created for the sole purpose of triggering The Cleansing, the only people who had been able to follow through with it to date had been Meiga Itogami and Dimitrie Vattler. In those instances, even they had required magical calculations borrowed from the Priestess of Abel or Asagi to make it controllable.

On her own, Asagi could only activate a small portion of The Cleansing’s power. Fine control was just too much to hope for.

“Let’s say we turn Kojou back to a vampire. First of all, what about the Beast Vassals he needs? The Cleansing can only handle the body. Do you really think it can handle Beast Vassals?”

“Oh…”

Asagi’s difficult question stumped Kojou. The shock on his face was evident.

“Now that you mention it, The Blood said that creating the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals required ‘sacrificing’ countless living Devas…”

Yukina wore a grave expression as she recalled something.

A vampire’s Beast Vassals were summoned creatures from another world. Since they were tethered to one’s blood, only vampires could employ them on account of the infinite negative life energy at their disposal. Barring special cases, such as instances of cannibalism, there was only one way to acquire new Beast Vassals: A vampire of the parent generation had to allot blood and Beast Vassals to the newly born vampire—in other words, they had to clone the Beast Vassals. This was why vampire abilities weakened with successive generations.

However, no parent had granted Beast Vassals to the artificial vampire known as the Fourth Primogenitor. Nor was it possible to acquire the World’s Mightiest Beast Vassals through cannibalism.

That was why the Devas had needed to sacrifice their own species to produce the World’s Mightiest Beast Vassals for the World’s Mightiest Vampire to use. You couldn’t acquire those kinds of familiars without considerable sacrifice. Of course, there was no way Kojou and company were going to do that in the present.

“Guess you’re right… Beast Vassals… Beast Vassals, huh…”

Kojou exhaled, seemingly deflated.

As demons went, vampires were pretty frail. Without Beast Vassals, their combat abilities paled in comparison not only to other demons but even to human Attack Mages. That being said, Kojou doubted that transforming himself into a beast person or the like would let him oppose Shahryar Ren so late in the game. He was at a complete stalemate.

“Also, there’s one more thing I really wanted to ask.”

Asagi stared at Kojou reproachfully as she continued her questions. He lifted his face with suspicion.

“What?”

“Why do you have to go that far to save Avrora?”

“Huh?” Kojou lowered his voice in apparent irritation. “Isn’t it obvious I have to save her? She’s being used by Shahryar Ren in my place, you know?”

“She’s the real Fourth Primogenitor, right? All you did was return her power to her and go back to being human. So why do you need to risk your life to go save her again?”

“Hey, Asagi…!”

Yaze addressed the programmer as though chiding her for her increasingly barbed tone, but she completely ignored him, pretending not to hear.

“Do you like her?”

“…Huh?”

Asagi’s question, lacking any logical connection, made Kojou drop his jaw and stiffen. Suddenly, all eyes fell upon him.

“W-wait a sec. What’s with those stares…? What do you mean, ‘Do I like Avrora?’”

“Oh, geez, you’re so indecisive, you klutz! I’m asking if you’ve fallen head over heels for her! Do you really plan on making Himeragi and everyone help you bring back the girl you’re in love with?”

Slam, went Asagi’s violent strike against the table. Her sudden reference to Yukina and the others left them bewildered.

“Um…ah…I am senpai’s watcher…so I do not really mind…”

“I—I don’t intend to get in Aiba or Yukii’s way, either…”

“‘Himeragi and everyone…’ Wait, you aren’t including me in this, are you…?” Yuiri asked.

The Attack Mages of the Lion King Agency all started to squirm. “Oho,” went Yaze, watching with great interest. Kojou was the only one shaking his head like he had no idea what was going on.

“Er, are you seriously asking that? What does whether I’m in love with Avrora or not have to do with you girls…?”

“Augh, Kojou… You moron…!”

Yaze instantly paled and tried to cover his mouth. Yukina and the others’ horrified expressions froze in place.

“This guy…”

An unsettling creak echoed as Asagi clenched her back teeth.

Pouring her remaining coffee down her throat in a single gulp, she folded the laptop on the table, then slowly rose to her feet.

“I’m leaving.”

“Hey, Asagi?! Where are you planning on going? Your house isn’t in this domain, right?!”

“Shut up. Outta my way.”

When Yaze tried to give chase, Asagi violently kicked him down and headed out of the room. Despite this, he still went after her out of concern for his bullheaded childhood friend.

“What the heck’s up with her all of a sudden…?”

Kojou tilted his head in exasperation, still watching the door through which Asagi had left the room.

“Senpai…”

Yukina heaved a long, quiet sigh while gazing at the side of Kojou’s face.