Strike the Blood - Volume 21 - Chapter 2.4

4

Though the black, bloody mist scattering from Kojou’s body seemed like an incomplete mirage, it took the form of a beast as it gazed down upon the girls from on high.

He was in even worse shape than before. Further transformed into a monster, Kojou crawled over the ground, hunched over. Pitch-black scales were encroaching over his entire body, and several misshapen horns were protruding from the rear of his skull toward his back. One might wonder if there was anything of his own mind left.

Kiriha held her lead-colored forked spear at the ready as she glared at this monstrous Kojou.

“Miss Kisaki, why are you on Itogami Island…?”

Yukina asked Kiriha this as she rose to her feet. By rights, the Demon Sanctuary of Itogami Island was outside the jurisdiction of Kiriha’s Bureau of Astrology. She should have had no reason to intervene in the Electoral War on Kojou and Yukina’s behalf.

Kiriha, however, gave Yukina a cold look in response, resentfully narrowing her eyes for some reason. She looked like a hunter whose prey had been poached right before her eyes.

“Do not underestimate the Bureau of Astrology’s intelligence network. You fought a dragon, didn’t you?”

“Ah…”

Yukina lapsed into an awkward silence as she deduced the reason for the girl’s ire. Kiriha Kisaki was a proud Priestess of the Six Blades of the Bureau of Astrology, an expert in anti–demon beast combat. From her point of view, an encounter with a dragon, the mightiest of foes and the greatest of prey, was a godsend.

“You have quite some nerve, Yukina Himeragi, to leave a Priestess of the Six Blades behind as you lay hands upon a dragon.”

“Th-that was… He was cooperating with the Electoral War, so I had no choice…!”

Yukina defended herself in a frail voice. It was true that she’d crossed blades with a dragon, but she hadn’t wanted to fight him. The ancient Flame Dragon called Kreyd had lent his power to The Blood as a member of the Order of the End. It would have been far easier to not have had to battle that monster, thought Yukina.

Kiriha coolly shook her head.

“I have no interest in your excuses, thieving cat. Now, your man has no choice but to pay with his body to compensate for my stolen target.”

“H-he is not my ‘man’!”

Yukina nervously retorted with this as she repositioned her spear. Kiriha’s tongue was as sharp as ever, but her combat ability was equal or superior to Yukina’s own. She was quite grateful to have the woman at her side in this situation.

“So what has happened to Kojou Akatsuki? Last I heard, he relinquished the power of the Fourth Primogenitor and fell to the rank of a mere civilian.”

“Miss Zana—the First Primogenitor’s Blood Servant—implanted Beast Vassals into him.”

Yukina kept her explanation brief. The fact that the Bureau of Astrology had already discerned Kojou had lost the power of the Fourth Primogenitor proved that its intelligence gathering was quite something. Little wonder Kiriha was proud.

The girl grimaced blatantly the instant she heard Zana’s name.

“Zana Lashka the Assoluta? Implanting Beast Vassals? But how…?”

“She…employed…oral confiscation to…”

Yukina’s cheeks reddened as she beat around the bush. Kiriha gave Yukina’s maidenly reaction a brief snort.

“I see. Through the mouth, in other words. So when she stole Kojou Akatsuki’s lips before your very eyes, you were either in a bewildered state or turned on from watching.”

“I—I was not aroused!”

Agitated, Yukina refuted Kiriha’s unjustified insult.

“Well, setting your fetishes aside, I largely grasp the current situation.”

“What do you mean, ‘fetishes’…?!”

“So what do you intend on doing with him…?”

Kiriha asked this in a serious tone. It was as though the irreverent girl from before had been an entirely different person.

“I will stop the Beast Vassals.”

Yukina spoke this without any hesitance. Kiriha raised an eyebrow with exasperation.

“Isn’t that impossible? Wouldn’t it be far quicker to just stab him to death?”

“Th-that isn’t true!”

Yukina’s diction was flustered as she closed the distance with Kiriha.

“The First Primogenitor said the Beast Vassals can be controlled with enough Blood Servants. If worse comes to worse, I shall stop the Beast Vassals by myself.”

“…Blood Servants, you say…”

Murmuring to herself, Kiriha set her eyes upon the silvery chain wrapped around Yukina’s wrist. “Well, fine,” she said with a light shrug of her shoulders, laying a hand upon the scarf of her sailor suit. Before the other girl’s very eyes, Kiriha suddenly stripped off her outer garment. Just watching made Yukina flustered.

“M-Miss Kisaki?! Is now really the time for this?!”

“But isn’t stripping precisely what the moment calls for…? Using sex appeal to tame Kojou and make him drink my blood…isn’t that what you always do?”

Now dressed only in a thin tank top, Kiriha tilted her wrist slightly as she inquired back with a questioning look. Her slender, model-like physique was such that Yukina couldn’t help but consider her attractive despite being the same gender.

Demonstrating her pride in her attractive appearance, Kiriha sashayed toward Kojou. In spite of this, the grotesque monster he’d turned into merely howled menacingly at her.

“Huh?!”

The pitch-black wing protruding from Kojou’s back turned into a beast once more and assaulted Kiriha from the side. Her eyes widened as she intercepted it with a spatial severing.

“Wait a…?! What is the meaning of…?! Why is he attacking me?!”

For once, Kiriha’s emotions were bared as she lamented aloud. Apparently, she was less worked up by the Beast Vassal attack than her inability to seduce Kojou. It must have come as a shock considering how easily his lust took control under normal circumstances.

I get how you feel, thought Yukina with just a smidgeon of sympathy. She had undergone an identical experience just a short while before.

“Currently, Akatsuki-senpai is still an incomplete vampire, so he doesn’t have any vampiric urg—”

“In other words, he’s a pretend vampire monster who can’t even drink blood.”

Perhaps still nursing a grudge, Kiriha disparaged Kojou as she took out a bundle of lead-colored spell tablets hidden under her skirt.

“What do you intend to do?”

“If I cannot make him behave by feeding him blood, I am left with no choice but to capture him by force, yes?”

Kiriha replied bluntly with this to Yukina’s inquiry.

“The problem is, how much can Kojou Akatsuki heal himself in this state? I would rather not inflict any grave injuries upon him… Er, what?”

Beside her, Yukina’s eyes were practically bulging out of her head. Realizing this, Kiriha narrowed her eye with a questioning look.

Yukina shook her head with a touch of haste.

“No, I apologize. I simply did not think you of all people would be concerned for senpai’s safety…”

“You and I really need to have a little talk sometime.”

Kiriha glared at Yukina with an audible clench of her teeth. It was at this moment that the pair’s opportunity for a tension-free conversation came to an end.

The demonic energy being unleashed from the monsterized Kojou changed in character, and bloody mist gushed out of him with increased force. This swirled in midair, warping into a completely bestial form. This was a mass of demonic energy so dense as to possess sentience—a vampiric Beast Vassal.

“The Beast Vassals!”

“They’re manifesting…?!”

Yukina and Kiriha shouted this simultaneously. There were now two materialized vassals. One was a lion enveloped by pitch-black lightning. The other was a similarly pitch-black manticore.

“What are these black Beast Vassals…?!”

Kiriha shouted this while evading the sable lion that had transformed into lightning. This had to be her first time encountering them.

“They were The Blood’s! I heard they are prototypes whose power matches the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals!”

“I see… So this is the power the First Primogenitor gave to Kojou Akatsuki.”

Kiriha intercepted the ceaseless downpour of lightning attacks with her forked spear. She was using the pseudo-spatial severing ritual she’d stolen from Sayaka’s Lustrous Scale. The Bureau of Astrology had developed the Ricercare to copy any curse or divine armament ritual to fight demon beasts with a wide range of characteristics.

The downside of the weapon’s versatility was that it burned through ritual energy at a tremendous rate. If she continued deploying pseudo-spatial severing, Kiriha would wind up exhausted in the not too distant future.

“Miss Kisaki!”

Yukina tried to back Kiriha up, but black flames scattered by the manticore stopped her from getting close. Even with the demonic energy nullification of Snowdrift Wolf, suppressing the creature’s flame and poison was no easy task. Approaching Kojou while he was protected by the Beast Vassal was simply impossible.

Furthermore, those weren’t the only Beast Vassals that had been implanted in Kojou’s body.

“This isn’t good…!”

Kiriha’s face twisted with unease. The monsterized Kojou released more demonic energy, summoning a new servant, a pitch-black shelled beast enveloped by mist.

The attack range of this Beast Vassal, which symbolized the vampiric ability to turn into mist, was frighteningly broad. It was the worst possible matchup for Kiriha and Yukina, who both specialized in close combat. But their awareness of this wasn’t going to stop the summoning. The pitch-black shelled beast fully materialized during the time the pair was kept at bay, roared malevolently, and spewed vile mist that destroyed whatever it touched with incredible force.

Before that mist could press down on the pair, a roar echoed that sounded like a female shriek. The ritual energy–imbued cry generated a ferocious blast of wind that blew the huge creature away, along with its black mist. It was a large-scale ritual spell artillery attack that had used sound as its catalyst.

“The Lion King Agency…!”

Saved from peril, Kiriha looked back with a sour expression.

A tall girl stood on the coastal breakwater wielding a silvery recurve bow as her ponytail flapped in the breeze. Without a pause, she nocked a second arrow and repeated her ritual spell artillery strike, shoving the pitch-black shelled beast down into the sea.

“Miss Sayaka!”

“Yukina, you’re all right?! I’m so glad… Wait, what are you doing with Yukina, Kiriha Kisaki?! And why are you showing your underwear?!”

Leaping down from the breakwater, Sayaka Kirasaka raced toward Yukina. She’d apparently come running after receiving Yukina’s shikigami turned carrier pigeon.

Kiriha clicked her tongue, looking back with blatant annoyance as Sayaka came closer and began making a fuss.

“Hah?! Hold on. Even if it was just because Yukina was here, I did save you, Kiriha, so what’s with the attitude?! It was only because she was here, though!”

“What a noisy monkey you are. I understand you’re happy to have finally learned human speech, but could you keep it down a little?”

“Wh-who’s the monkey, you Bureau of Astrology mutt?!”

Sayaka snapped over Kiriha’s blatantly abusive language, angrily shouting at her like a little girl. Yukina knew they’d genuinely tried to kill each other the first time they’d met, but the two got along even worse than she’d imagined.

Regardless, Yukina was happy that Sayaka had arrived on the scene sooner than she’d expected. To be honest, without her support, she couldn’t imagine a way they could have sliced through three Beast Vassals’ attacks and emerged unscathed.

“Just shut up and shoot them with the bow already. You are a creature with knowledge of tool use, are you not?”

“I was thinking of firing right now whether you said to or not… And hey, don’t talk about people like they’re wild animals!”

“—Goodness. It seems we have made it in time. You have my thanks, Witch of the Void.”

Yukina heard a calm voice from behind the ongoing, lowbrow war of words between Kiriha and Sayaka.

Appearing from a ripple-like sway in midair was a small doll-like woman wearing an extravagant dress and carrying a black cat in her arms.

“Master! And Ms. Minamiya…!”

Yukina’s expression brightened a bit as she addressed both. It seemed Natsuki, who’d vanished to repair her Guardian, had brought Sayaka and the black cat with her.

An instructor from the Lion King Agency and Itogami Island’s strongest Witch—under the circumstances, the two were probably the best reinforcements they could possibly hope for.

“I take my eyes off him for a few moments, and that idiot’s done something strange again…”

Natsuki spat out frigid words as she gazed at her pupil turned into a misshapen monster.

When she snapped her fingers without warning, the air around Kojou distorted. Crimson briars shot out from nowhere, binding him and his two Beast Vassals. The briars that Natsuki referred to as Gleipnir were sorcerous devices for capture from which even the Fourth Primogenitor’s familiars could not escape. Bound to the ground, the pitch-black lion and manticore ferociously thrashed, but this only caused the thorns to tighten around them further.

“It is my fault for not stopping this. The First Primogenitor’s Blood Servant forced a…kiss…onto Akatsuki-senpai, and The Blood’s Beast Vassals—”

“So she shoved them down his throat…”

“Er…ahhh, yes. More or less.”

Yukina thought her wording was somewhat objectionable, but no human present was willing to give Natsuki lip about it.

Kiriha and Sayaka worked as an unwitting team to keep the black-shelled beast in check. They divided their labor, Kiriha using pseudo-spatial severing to draw off the enemy’s mist attacks and Sayaka providing rear support. They were a surprisingly efficient pair.

Even with both girls working at it, they could not inflict effective damage on a Beast Vassal. They needed a more decisive method of dealing with the situation.

“The Lost Warlord and his favorite concubine… It’s not surprising that was too much for Yukina on her own. If anything, she has done rather well to hold out this long.”

The black cat wore a look of rare gravity as she, or rather, Yukari Endou, commented.

Her statement was not a reflection of her favoritism as a mentor. By rights, having come face-to-face with the First Primogenitor and living to tell the tale was something to consider good fortune aplenty.

This said, it was hard to say if she could safely slice her way through the First Primogenitor’s dangerous ordeal. Even with Kiriha and Sayaka’s aid, she was about at her limit of how much she could keep Kojou contained while on the brink of rampage.

“Ms. Minamiya, can you temporarily isolate Akatsuki-senpai in the Prison Barrier?”

Yukina poured her faint hopes into the question she posed to Natsuki.

The Prison Barrier was an otherworldly prison built inside Natsuki’s dreams. Yukina had heard that she could freely control the passage of time within that world because of that.

If they trapped Kojou inside the Prison Barrier, time would be frozen for him. During the time his rampage was kept in check, they could assemble the necessary number of Blood Servants or come up with some other countermeasure. It was probably the surest way of breaking the current stalemate.

“No, it won’t work,” replied Natsuki, coolly shaking her head.

“I’m sure you are already aware that I cannot bring Beast Vassals into the Prison Barrier. Even if I dragged Kojou Akatsuki in, the creatures he’s summoned will remain behind in this world.”

“Aaa…”

Natsuki’s statement left Yukina at a loss for words.

Now that she mentioned it, the same thing had happened when Yukina and Kiriha fought Natsuki. Even the Prison Barrier could not completely seal the power of the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals. If anything, it was likely the sealing of the host’s body would only make their rampage worse.

“On the other hand, it’s impossible for us to subdue the Beast Vassals by force. Maybe we could manage if it was one or two, but if more come out, Itogami Island won’t hold.”

Natsuki spoke as she glared at the three Beast Vassals that had already fully materialized. A total of twelve of The Blood’s servants had been implanted in Kojou. The more time that passed, the more likely new ones would awaken. Even Natsuki’s sorcerous device couldn’t bind them all.

“I will deal with the Beast Vassals somehow since I am Akatsuki-senpai’s only Blood Servant at present…!”

Yukina strongly gripped the shaft of her spear as she made the vow. In truth, the spiritual pathway between her and Kojou had been severed the moment he relinquished the power of the Fourth Primogenitor, but Yukina didn’t think that was any excuse to forsake him. Yet the black cat, seemingly irritated by her resolve, spoke with a cruel tone of voice.

“Stop. It is no use.”

“Master?!”

“Even if you completely Faux-Angelicized, that wouldn’t be enough to destroy a dozen Beast Vassals equal in power to the Fourth Primogenitor’s.”

“…!!”

Her final trump card analyzed and rejected, Yukina was left speechless.

“If it was viable, I would eliminate the boy serving as their host, but it is best to refrain. This ruckus hasn’t gotten any worse because he’s been holding those things in check.”

The black cat sighed wearily as she looked at Kojou within the cage of briars. Though his outward appearance was monstrous, he was still stopping the Beast Vassals from rampaging through the force of his will. The fact that only three of the twelve had materialized was proof of this.

Objectively, destroying Kojou would only make the situation more dangerous. Completely freeing the Beast Vassals from their host’s shackles would only cause them to scatter demonic energy without rhyme or reason.

“What is the First Primogenitor’s goal? If he merely wanted to make Kojou Akatsuki suffer, why bring back The Blood’s Beast Vassals at all?”

Natsuki posed this question aloud with great calm. Binding two Beast Vassals had to be a strain even for her, but she showed no signs of fatigue.

“The First Primogenitor came to Akatsuki-senpai with a deal.”

Yukina desperately kept her nervousness at bay as she replied with this. Natsuki raised an eyebrow, finding this somewhat surprising.

“A deal?”

“He said he would give Akatsuki-senpai the power to go to Nod and bring Miss Avrora back. In exchange, he would have to protect this world from the threat the city poses.”

“I see. And he got the The Blood’s Beast Vassals out of that?”

“Hmph,” went Natsuki, twisting her lips at an angle.

Yukina looked down at the silver chain wrapped around her wrist and nodded.

“The First Primogenitor said that The Blood’s Beast Vassals can be controlled if we assemble twelve Blood Servants at minimum—”

“Failing that, the rampaging creatures sink the island, so the gate to Nod disappears either way, I take it. Rather violent means, I must say.”

“—He’s always been so careless.”

The unfamiliar voice suddenly interrupting the conversation made Yukina and others gasp and poise their weapons.

The speaker was a woman with pale-green, gemstone-like hair flapping in the breeze as she stood at the water’s edge. She showed no fear despite standing right beside Kojou’s Beast Vassals.

“So he anticipated this, causing a disturbance in my domain? You owe me for this, Warlord.”

The girl narrowed her jade eyes and murmured this to herself. Her apparent age differed little from that of Yukina and the other girls. She possessed a lovely and powerful-looking face reminiscent of a wild leopard.

Yukina, obviously Sayaka and Kiriha, and even Natsuki and Yukari had failed to notice her presence, despite the fact that she was enveloped in such an enormous amount of demonic energy that it put Kojou’s Beast Vassals to shame.

“…You are…!”

Yukina uttered these words in a daze as she gazed at the jade-eyed girl.

Her presence was unexpected, yet when Yukina thought about it, the fact she was here made sense. Yukina and the others were in Island South, the domain under her rule.

The girl looked back at the surprised Yukina and purred.

“It has been some time, wielder of the Schneewaltzer. Have you improved your skill a little since then?”

“The Chaos Bride, is it?”

Instead of Yukina, frozen in place and unable to raise a voice, Natsuki invoked the woman’s popular title. She was one of the true primogenitors along with Ki Juranbarada and Aswadguhl Aziz. Her true identity was that of the Chaos Bride—the Third Primogenitor, ruler of the Central American Dominion known as the Chaos Zone.

“I do not like being addressed by that stuffy name. Giada is fine, Natsuki Minamiya.”

The jade-eyed girl made a ferocious smile that showed off her sharp fangs. Slowly shifting her gaze, she scrutinized the silver chain Yukina possessed as if to test her.

“Twelve Blood Servants to serve as offerings—certainly that amount would be able to subdue the black Beast Vassals, but is that brat truly worthy of so many vassals?”

“…We will assemble them. Provided we have time, I am certain of this.”

Giada seemed like she could kill people with a glance, yet Yukina stared right back at her. Even when the glow in the Third Primogenitor’s eyes increased, she still did not look away.

The next moment, Giada broke into a soft smile, gazing with amusement at Yukina’s attitude.

“Very well. I will grant you all half a day.”

The next instant after the Third Primogenitor stated this, three lightning strikes poured onto the ground. The bolts shot right through Kojou’s three Beast Vassals, blowing their huge sable frames away.

These lightning strikes were attacks from Giada’s own Beast Vassal. The giant thundercloud now enveloping all of Itogami Island’s sky was one of her familiars.

Kojou’s materialized Beast Vassals wavered, bathed in a ceaseless downpour of electricity.

A moment later, both the creatures and their host were swallowed up by darkness. Without a sound, Kojou and the others had been surrounded by a vast blackness over one hundred meters in diameter.

The mist, flames, and lightning from the familiars couldn’t escape the void, either. They vanished noiselessly into the darkness as suddenly as they had appeared. The only thing left was a semispherical scar carved into the beach.

“Spatial control…no, the space itself is your Beast Vassal, Giada Kukulkin…!”

Natsuki observed this with a grave expression. She understood more than anyone just how frightening Giada’s Beast Vassal was precisely because she employed a vast array of spatial control spells herself.

A world filled with infinite darkness—this was her Beast Vassal. By enveloping Kojou within it, she could seal him and his servants. It was a brute force measure only a vampire primogenitor could accomplish.

“Even I cannot keep him sealed without painstaking efforts.”

Giada commented on this with a strained smile, her tone calm and devoid of pride.

“Midnight. Assemble your offerings to him by midnight tonight. I will keep Kojou Akatsuki at bay until then, along with the Beast Vassals that damnable Kenon left behind.”

“—You have my thanks, Giada.”

Yukina lowered her spear, touching a hand to her chest as she bowed.

They’d only put the rampage off by half a day. Until then, they had to look for a way to assemble twelve Blood Servants to bring the Beast Vassals under control. The possibility of achieving this was better than zero, for the beautiful primogenitor before them had granted them the precious time needed to do it.

“Make sure to entertain me with your next move. Do not betray my expectations, Sword Shaman Girl.”

Giada smiled, her body melting away and vanishing.

Suddenly freed from the primogenitor’s oppressive aura, Yukina abruptly lost her strength. As she paled, the black cat shouted something up at Sayaka and raced over.

Using her spear to support her wobbling body, Yukina forced her consciousness to remain tethered. Nothing was over yet. It hadn’t even truly begun.

Gazing at the cavity in the beach from which Kojou had vanished, she thought desperately of what she could do to save him. The silvery chain around her left wrist emitted a cold glow.