Strike the Blood - Volume 21 - Chapter 1.6

6

“Snowdrift Wolf—!”

Behind the Saikai Academy campus building, there was no sign of prying eyes as Yuiri called out sharply while wielding the silver spear. Or rather, she was trying to wield it, but the blade of the spear wouldn’t unfold. It hadn’t even budged.

Consequently, Yuiri looked like the perfect picture of a ditzy cosplayer striking a dramatic pose with an oddly shaped stick in her hands.

“H-huh…?! It didn’t activate. Why not?”

Cheeks reddening in embarrassment, Yuiri swung the lance once more, but the result was the same. Snowdrift Wolf really wasn’t transforming.

“Let me borrow it, Yuiri. I’ll give it a try.”

Shio accepted the spear from her and examined it closely. She couldn’t find any sort of switch, lever, or other movable parts upon its smooth, metallic surface. Apparently, it was set up to deploy on its own whenever its wielder sent spiritual energy into it. Shio’s bow shared the same principle, so there was nothing to be particularly confused about, yet the spear refused to activate no matter how much energy she put into it.

“I’ll ask just to make sure… Type Seven doesn’t have a recognition system like the Type Six series, does it?”

A slightly wounded expression came over Shio as she returned the spear to Yukina, who awkwardly took it back.

“That is correct. It takes a considerable amount of spiritual energy to activate, and since it is nigh useless outside of anti-demon combat—”

“Even if someone steals it, the chance it’ll be used for ill is pretty low?”

“Yes,” went Yukina, nodding in response to Shio’s comment.

Kojou was leaning against the wall of the school building, watching Yukina and the others with boredom.

It wasn’t as if they were playing around. They were in the middle of a serious discussion of how to handle Snowdrift Wolf going forward. Snowdrift Wolf, one of the Lion King Agency’s secret weapons known as Schneewaltzers, would no longer operate for Yukina, its current wielder. Her resonance with Snowdrift Wolf had advanced to the point where she was becoming angelicized.

With Itogami Island in chaos, they did not have the luxury of leaving a powerful divine armament like Snowdrift Wolf an unusable toy. Consequently, Yukina had requested that Yuiri, a fellow Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency, try using it instead.

“But it’s not activating? Maybe it really is damaged?”

Yuiri grimaced in dismay as she prodded the inert spear with a fingertip.

“No… It should not be…”

Yukina posed as if she was readying Snowdrift Wolf for action. That instant, the metal shaft made a graceful sound as it slid, the main blade unsheathing as two more deployed to the right and left.

Yuiri and Shio gawked so much that their eyes seemed ready to fall out of their sockets.

“Huh? Why…?!”

“Why can only Himeragi…?!”

“Perhaps it has picked up some strange quirks during the time I have used it?”

Yukina seemed rather uneasy as she checked the state of the spear.

“Come to think of it…the lance was busted once before Fake Himeragi fixed it, right?”

Kojou suddenly remembered that while watching the exchange between the girls.

A mysterious girl calling herself Reina had repaired Snowdrift Wolf with the alchemist Nina Adelard after it was destroyed in a battle against IX-4, an Unknown.

“Don’t tell me they put something in it that even we don’t know about…?”

“…At the time, Type Seven broke because it couldn’t withstand Yukii’s spiritual energy…so then maybe…”

Yuiri grabbed Snowdrift Wolf, which was now back in standby, from Yukina and focused her thoughts as she quietly regulated her breathing. She then wove a chant in a solemn voice.

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

“Y-Yuiri?”

She gently danced before Shio’s surprised eyes, employing breathing and self-suggestion techniques to heighten her ritual energy to its maximum and pour it into the lance.

“Divine Blade of the Flaming Blood, Silver Dragon of the Sacred Feathers, emerge from the dark Abyss and strike down the devils before me!”

The instant Shio finished her dance, Snowdrift Wolf triggered. The three blades deployed, enveloped by the pale glow of the Divine Oscillation Effect.

“It activated…!”

Yukina breathed out in relief. Kojou spontaneously clapped. The expression on Shio’s face was grave rather than joyous, however.

“So it took Yuiri boosting her spiritual energy to finally get it to activate… Himeragi, just how reckless with your spiritual energy are you…?!”

“Well, I do not consider my actions particularly reckless, but…”

Struggling to respond, Yukina lowered her eyes slightly.

On her end, Yuiri’s cheeks reddened, her arms twitching as she continued to hold the spear up.

“I figured…it actually wasn’t broken, but actually using this in live combat might be a bit…much…”

Drained of strength, Yuiri put the spear down and broke into a coughing fit.

Both held Sword Shaman qualifications, so Yuiri hadn’t thought there would be that much of a difference between her and Yukina’s natural spiritual energy. The fact that Yuiri had been selected to temporarily act as Yukina’s substitute was proof enough.

Nevertheless, now that Snowdrift Wolf had been tuned to match someone as Faux-Angelicized as Yukina, it was virtually impossible for anyone besides her to use it. If Yuiri forced herself to continue wielding the spear, she would also Faux-Angelicize as a side effect. The only way to avoid that was to become—

“The Fourth Primogenitor’s…Blood Vassal, huh…”

“Shio…?”

When Shio turned to Kojou with a serious look in her eyes, Yuiri called out to her in a questioning tone of voice. Shio gasped and shook her head in response.

“No, it’s nothing. It’s nothing at all. We’re stuck, though. If Himeragi can’t continue her mission, then maybe retrieving the Type Seven is the right thing to do, but…”

“If we can’t use it either way, best to leave it in Yukii’s hands, right?”

Shio and Yuiri put their faces close together, mulling it over in indecisive tones. This was a secret weapon of the Lion King Agency, after all. Greenhorns like Shio and Yuiri didn’t know what the right call was.

The pair continued brooding in silence until a single crow flew right in front of their eyes.

The bird circled around the surprised pair before landing on top of Kojou’s head. It wiggled a wing as if inviting Yukina closer. This obviously wasn’t the behavior of a wild animal.

“Ow… Those talons hurt! What’s up with this thing…?!”

“It is a shikigami! There is something like a letter on its leg…”

“So why did it have to perch on top of my head?!”

“I am sorry, senpai. Please hold still for a moment!”

Ignoring Kojou’s objections, Yukina undid stationery tied to the crow’s leg.

Its duty at an end, the familiar kicked off from Kojou’s head and sailed back into the sky. Its movements were so terrifyingly natural that it was hard to tell it apart from the real thing. It seemed to have been constructed with a technique far more precise than those with which Yukina and the others controlled their metal shikigami.

“A message…? From Koyomi Shizuka?!”

Yukina exclaimed this when she spread open the stationery the familiar had brought.

Kojou peered at the letter from Yukina’s side.

“That sure is a high school girl’s handwriting… The phrasing, too…”

“That’s probably to camouflage the message so that the secrets of the Lion King Agency don’t get exposed if it’s stolen.”

“That’s Lady Shizuka for you,” purred Shio in admiration.

“Nah…I think it’s more like she let the real girl slip out…,” Kojou murmured offhandedly to himself.

He’d actually met her face-to-face, so he knew that Koyomi Shizuka, one of the Three Saints of the Lion King Agency, was in fact a young woman scarcely older than he was.

“Um, so what did Lady Shizuka say—?”

Yuiri asked Yukina this in a voice brimming with tension.

“That’s…”

Pure bewilderment flashed across Yukina’s eyes as she finished reading Koyomi’s letter. When she handed the stationery to Yuiri and Shio, they tilted their heads as they read.

““Huh…?””

The two simultaneously let out gasps of surprise.