Strike the Blood - Volume 21 - Chapter 3.1

CHAPTER THREE

GIRL TALK

1

Before daybreak—

A powerful sea breeze blew through the steel-colored cityscape shrouded in darkness.

Senra was its name.

It was an artificial city floating on the Great Sea of Nod, a corridor that continued into the Eastern Lands, the realm of Else. It also served as a frontline fortress to protect against dragon invasions.

A spiral-shaped structure known as a Goplam towered at the center of the city with four artificial isles in its environs, one in each direction. The countless throng of islands floating in the surrounding seas were where captives forcibly relocated from Else were made to live.

Even this metropolis of over a million souls had gone silent, seemingly asleep under the morning sky.

A man quietly stood at the northern cape of that desolate city on a cliff facing the Great Sea of Nod.

“Cain!”

He slowly turned around, realizing someone had called his name.

Though the man had a shapely facial structure, he was average-looking on the whole and unlikely to stand out. He wore the robe of a technological officer, and he held a carnelian stone tablet in his hands. The pale tone of his skin and the golden glow of his eyes marked him as one of the Devas.

“Cain! Damn you, what are you still doing out here?”

When the person raced over, lightly out of breath, the man cocked his head with a mystified smile.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“Don’t ‘oh’ me! How long do you plan on strolling around? Get back to the Goplam!”

Grasping the utterly unconcerned Cain’s cheeks with both hands, the person forced his gaze toward the sky above the sea to the east. Over there, like a dark reflection of the water’s surface, the sky had begun to turn white. It was almost daybreak.

However, even when this was pointed out to him, Cain obstinately shook his head.

“Wait. Please wait. This is a critical juncture. Glenda, are you finally ready?”

Cain called this out behind him. In an open, austere stretch of ground at the edge of the sea stood a young girl who looked six, maybe seven years old. She had long, steel-colored hair.

The girl was tracing a magic circle at her feet that was so large, you could plop an entire house into it. A cable stretching out from it connected to Cain’s tablet. The surface of the tablet was lined with numbers from a complex mathematical formula that changed from moment to moment.

“The hell is that? Some way to do magical calculations?”

The person grimaced and asked about the unfamiliar formula, but Cain ignored this as he continued operating the stone tablet. He was inputting such a vast quantity of numbers without hesitation that it boggled the mind.

“Wait. What’s with this stupid, huge volume of information?! What kind of grand spell are you trying to use?!”

“Observe and all will be clear. Glenda, it’s dangerous so move back a little?”

“Dah!!”

The girl with steel-colored hair ran over to Cain. She’d left some kind of doll in the center of the magic circle in which she’d stood until that moment—a badly made figure that looked like a small wild animal.

“Let’s go.”

Cain inputted the final command into the tablet. The carnelian stone device emitted a dazzling light as he unleashed his own vast divine energy in concert. The air shuddered with its strength; just watching it stung one’s skin.

The divine energy flowing through the tablet activated the magic circle on the ground. A crimson ball of light emerged from the circle’s interior, enveloping the doll placed at its center.

The change that occurred at that point was dramatic. The figure, which was made from nothing more than simple fabric, morphed into the form of a living creature, sitting up of its own will in defiance of the power of gravity. There was a glint of intelligence in its eyes fashioned from resin, and its lips opened wide to form a smile. It showed off its jagged, sharklike teeth as it made a sarcastic “keh-keh” laugh. What was once a doll devoid of life was now clearly demonstrating emotion.

“Did it work…?”

Cain drew in his breath and gazed at the figure transformed into a living creature. Glenda was so worked up that she’d changed into a little dragon, happily swaying her tail.

However, this miraculous event did not continue for long. Unable to withstand the burden of the magical calculations, the stone tablet shattered. Simultaneously, the glow of the magic circle vanished.

See ya later, the doll’s mocking laugh seemed to say as its movements came to a halt. Its entire body whitened and hardened like stone, crumbling apart moments later.

“No good, huh…? And I thought it would go well…”

Lowering his shoulders like a child being scolded, Cain fell to his knees on the spot. Glenda curled up in disappointment.

“Cain, you bastard…! You were trying to give that doll life, weren’t you…?!”

When Cain hung his head, the person grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back up. Cain blinked in wonderment as if he didn’t understand why they were angry with him.

“Do you even understand what you’ve done…?!”

“Y-yeah. Of course I know…”

“It’s not just an issue of giving an object life! You rewrote the laws of the world!”

“To be more accurate, I tried to rewrite them, but I failed.”

Cain calmly shook his head even as he was being jerked back and forth.

Changing the composition of matter, granting artificial sentience to an object—that was fine. That much was in line with what ordinary alchemy could accomplish.

However, Cain’s experiment was nothing as superficial as the alteration of matter. He wasn’t trying to change the doll. Inside that ball of light, he’d constructed a world where a sentient doll could exist.

He was rewriting the very physical laws of reality—his was a forbidden ritual even the Devas were not permitted to touch, technology so dangerous that misusing it would threaten the destruction of the world itself.

“Hmm. My magic computational abilities simply aren’t up to snuff. I need to find a partner who can help me resolve the issue.”

“This ain’t the time for laid-back talk like that! What do you think you’re doing, trying to complete something this forbidden?!”

The person’s face came close, their bloodlust evident. Unexpectedly, Cain did not avert his eyes. He spoke with his usual evasive tone, yet his answer was completely serious.

“Isn’t that obvious? To make this work and save the world.”

“…You? Save the world with that forbidden spell? That’s some pretty big talk.”

The person’s incredulous voice brimmed with anger.

Changing the lifeless into a living thing meant the opposite was equally possible. Furthermore, unlike alchemy, Cain’s forbidden spell did not require fuel in the form of materials to be transmuted. If he could secure a sufficient power source, he’d be able to rewrite the world however he wished.

Forget saving the world. For all intents and purposes, this was a spell for destroying it.

Cain did not falter under the scolding, however. If anything, he was puffing out his chest in pride.

“I’d prefer if you called it the Holy Flash and not a forbidden spell.”

“Holy Flash?”

“The name of this ritual. Cool, isn’t it?”

“…Oh, please.”

The person shook their head, deeply dispirited at Cain for not displaying even a sliver of guilt.

“So, um, you fine with this? That doll just now, that’s the one Aswad really likes, I think?”

“Yes. So it is. That was why I thought I’d breathe life into it. I thought this would make him happy—”

“Even though it’s a pile of salt now?”

The moment this was pointed out to him, Cain gasped and turned his eyes to the center of the circle. The figure that was there a moment earlier had been unable to retain its shape and was now a pile of translucent sand.

The wind picked up the pile of sediment and grazed Glenda, who went “geh” and stuck out her tongue. These were grains of salt. Cain’s forbidden spell had turned the doll to salt.

“…This is bad.”

“It’s the natural consequence of your foolish endeavor. Have fun with that kid’s righteous wrath.”

The person dismissively spoke those words, feeling like they’d gotten something off their chest.

Cain, however, was gazing not at the salt pile that had once been a doll but off to the horizon over the water in the distance.

“No, I don’t mean that. It’s daybreak.”

Cain murmured this in a tone of rare seriousness. The person turned to him and reflexively hurled an insult.

“You piece of trash! I told you to get your ass back to the fortress! Hurry!”

“Unfortunately, I seem to have used up all my power with the earlier Holy Flash.”

Cain wobbled and wilted then and there. His divine energy was completely exhausted, and now it seemed he could no longer stand.

During that time, the brightness in the eastern sky increased, and white light trickled in from the horizon. The Deva’s skin burned with the glow of the cellular destruction that heralded his demise.

“Hot, hot, burning, scorching—I’m turning to ash…!”

“…J-just how much of an idiot are you?!”

Dragging Cain along as he pathetically cried out, the person desperately ran in the direction of a building. Glenda was there to help, too, but the rising of the morning sun proved swifter. At this rate, they’d all go down together.

“Dammit all. Shit, hold on tight! We’re jumping to the Goplam!”

“Sorry, Giada. You’re a lifesaver.”

A trusting smile came over Cain as he looked up at the sorcerous device she instantly whipped out.

“Hmph.”

Snorting with pronounced irritation, she activated the teleportation device.

…Where the hell is this…?

That thought arose dimly from the edges of Kojou Akatsuki’s consciousness. He was surrounded by darkness, utter blackness in which not a single source of light existed. There was no scent, sound, or even gravity. Even the contours of his body were vague and seemed to be melting into the darkness.

Amid this, only the fragmentary memory of the past that had emerged from the back of his mind was raw and vivid. It was far too fresh to dismiss it as a dream, yet Kojou had never experienced it. This memory belonged to the woman named Giada.

“Giada… Was I…seeing a memory from the Third Primogenitor?”

Just after he realized that possibility, something shifted within that thick blackness. He couldn’t pick it up with his five senses, but Kojou felt someone’s presence right beside him—a girl with jade eyes and beryl-colored hair.

“It is impressive that you are conscious while captive in Coatlicue’s womb.”

The familiar voice directly touched Kojou’s soul, causing it to tremble.

“Giada…Giada Kukulkin…”

“On top of that, you went so far as to intrude upon my memories, didn’t you, Kojou Akatsuki?”

Despite having someone peek into her own past, Giada’s words contained no anger. If anything, she was conveying that his astounding resiliency was worthy of her praise.

Coatlicue was probably one of the Beast Vassals serving Giada. She had used this Beast Vassal once before to imprison Dimitrie Vattler in another dimension. And now, she had aided Yukina and company by locking the rampaging Kojou away in other-dimensional space.

Unlike the Prison Barrier of Natsuki Minamiya, this area wasn’t anything as ephemeral as the inside of a witch’s dream. Rather, the Beast Vassal had used its ability to physically create a subdimension. That was why she had been able to capture Kojou and The Blood’s Beast Vassals in one fell swoop. This did, however, place a great burden on her. He didn’t think Giada could keep this up forever, even with the inexhaustible demonic energy she boasted. Inevitably, the Third Primogenitor would reach her limits, and when that moment arrived, she would be forced to let Kojou loose.

This, however, was not the reason why he was confused at the moment.

“Giada, why were you with Cain? Don’t tell me those are memories of Nod?”

Kojou pressed the issue with her. He didn’t really feel like his voice had come out, but his inquiry seemed to reach the woman nonetheless. Oddly, he got her unamused response loud and clear.

“…Is that truly what you wish to ask of me, Kojou Akatsuki?”

“What?”

“Surely you already know the answer. To inherit the curse of the Fourth Primogenitor is also to inherit that person’s blood memories.”

“…!!”

Kojou felt Giada’s words hit him like a punch out of nowhere.

He remembered his momentary glimpse at the landscape of Nod from once before. At the time, Kojou felt like someone’s vestigial thoughts were trying to tell him something, but had they been his own—?

“Fine, then. One can fairly argue you have a right to know the truth.”

Giada frostily conveyed this to Kojou while observing his bewilderment with pronounced amusement.

“Dig deeper into those abominable memories. Do so and curse your fate for having inherited the name of the hollow monster known as the Fourth Primogenitor—”