Strike the Blood - Volume 22 - Chapter 5.7

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At the tip of the steel-colored bridge floating in the sea of clouds, the girls let out voices of agony.

“I’ll…remember this, Kojou Akatsuki… You will pay dearly for my pure blood…khhh…!”

Biting her lip, the mortified Kiriha Kisaki pressed on her left hand. The white nape of her neck poking through the gap left by her disheveled white hair was pink, and the hot breath she let out was mixed with a most lovely voice.

“No…noooo…I’m, Yuiri is…aaa!!”

“Uuu…uuu…I’m sorry, Yukii…I can’t take any more…!”

Shio and Yuiri strongly embraced each other, desperately holding out against the surging ecstasy.

The powerful pulses from the crimson-dyed rings biting into their fingers continued.

From a place slightly removed, Shahryar Ren gazed at the girls’ state with a grave expression.

“What is this…? A bacteriological weapon…no, some kind of curse…?!”

The President of MAR’s eyes were filled with bewilderment.

Eliminating the immobile Attack Mages was simplicity itself, but if that meant he’d be infected by whatever bacterium or curse was afflicting the girls, that carried the possibility of an unfortunate occurrence he could never take back. Nod was a closed environment. The spread of bacterial contamination or any kind of curse was a threat deserving maximum caution.

For once, Ren was indecisive, unsure whether to attack or relent.

This was why he was slow to notice the final abnormality occurring at the exact same time.

“I, Avrora Florestina, inheritor of the Kaleid Blood, release thee from thy bonds…!”

Avrora, her body continuing to collapse, continued murmuring as if in prayer.

She was gripping in her hands the silver-colored ring Kojou had left behind. The ring was giving off a deep red glow as it absorbed the blood flowing from Avrora.

“Fourth Primogenitor, Kojou Akatsuki! I permit thee! Inherit all Beast Vassals dwelling within mine flesh—!”

Wringing out the final wisps of power remaining in her, the golden-haired vampire girl screamed.

The ring her fingers were grasping shattered. A golden mist flooded up from within.

In the blink of an eye, this mist increased in mass, changing into the form of a boy—a vampire boy wearing an expression that somehow seemed lethargic.

“Oooooooooooooooooo…!!”

Revived in the exact same shape as when he had dissipated, he embraced Avrora, on the verge of crumbling away completely.

The silver-colored ring that should have been shattered was restored within Kojou’s hand.

Kojou placed this ring on Avrora’s finger. Avrora herself probably hadn’t realized it: Sealed within the pact rings for the purpose of creating Blood Servants were fragments of Kojou’s blood and rib bones—in other words, Kojou’s cellular makeup.

Absorbing Avrora’s blood, Kojou had been revived from a mere handful of cells.

“Absurd…Kojou Akatsuki has returned to life…!”

A dazed Shahryar Ren drew in his breath.

A vampire had been resurrected from being completely turned to ash. Even Ren couldn’t maintain his calm at such an unexpected circumstance.

The commander’s loss of nerve caught fire among his subordinates. The MAR forces with a supposedly overwhelming military advantage were riddled with pangs of fear.

“Daaaaah—!”

Glenda, overjoyed to see Kojou’s resurrection, changed into her enormous dragon form. The air around her swayed, and from this swaying emerged a great mass of flying demon beasts. These swarmed around the steel-colored dragon as if to protect her, attacking the MAR troops as one.

“Houda?! Why are the environmental maintenance demon beasts attacking us…?!”

Ren’s face contorted in shock.

The houda were artificial demon beasts created via genetic manipulation and programmed to maintain the space colony. These traits, similar to the hive-making instincts in bees, caused them to keep up and maintain Nod, the place where they were born.

Yet Glenda, the artificial dragon, had been granted the ability to summon these houda at will.

Houda had only moderate combat capability individually, but there were simply too many of them. The soldiers on the receiving end of an assault by hundreds of houda were driven into a vortex of pure chaos.

“Kill it! Kill the silver dragon!”

Baring his fangs at the dragon acting as the catalyst, Ren summoned his Spartoi.

Houda attacks were ineffective against the Spartoi and their resilient exoskeletons. They raised their bladelike arms, charging toward Glenda, the summoner of the houda—

A flash of a lead-colored blade pulverized the Spartoi.

“Not bad at all. I will graciously overlook your drinking my blood without permission this once, Kojou Akatsuki!”

The black-haired girl wearing an old-fashioned sailor suit uniform smiled ferociously as she gripped her forked spear. Swinging it with the right arm that had definitely been broken in the fight with the Flame Dragon, she activated the resonant destruction ritual. The Spartoi’s exoskeletons shattered, unable to withstand the vibration.

”Glendaaaaaa!”

The dragon Kreyd breathed fire at the steel-colored dragon.

He burned away the horde of houda with one incandescent beam, but before it could score a direct hit on Glenda, it was impeded, as if striking some sort of invisible wall. A pseudo-spatial severing ritual had created a spatial rift bulwark.

Her silvery long sword poised, Yuiri stood before Kreyd to protect Glenda. Her right arm, the one cruelly burned black, was completely healed without so much as a single scar. It was her miraculous regenerative ability on par with a vampire primogenitor.

“Yuiri…your arm…!”

Shio asked this, sounding completely beside herself. Yuiri looked back with a vibrant smile on her face.

“Yeah. It’s all right now. Thank you, Shio. I’ll have to thank Kojou, too, huh.”

“…Then this would be our chance to get some payback.”

Speaking those words with a tearful voice, Shio shot a powerful gaze.

The copper Flame Dragon was circling overhead. Yuiri and Shio mounted Glenda’s back, taking to the skies of Nod to pursue him.

Amid the furious conflict between the MAR troops and the horde of houda, a place of pure white silence emerged upon the floating bridge within the sea of clouds.

Within the open area in front of the destroyed control tower, a blood-ridden Yukina Himeragi was lying down. Rent by an invisible slicing attack from Shahryar Ren, she was gravely wounded. It was unbelievable that she was still breathing.

Yukina lay there as Kojou quietly approached.

In his arms, Kojou carried Avrora, who still slept after losing consciousness.

“…Senpai…how is Miss Avrora?”

Yukina posed this question to Kojou in a frail voice. She’s on the brink of death, and there she is worrying about someone else, thought Kojou with a strained smile. It was very much like her.

“Don’t worry. She’s technically one of my Blood Servants now, y’see.”

Kojou spoke as he laid the sleeping Avrora on the ground.

With her hands crossed over her chest, the silver-colored ring on Avrora’s left hand was glowing. It was a pact ring for creating a Blood Servant—with that as a catalyst, Kojou was providing her with his own demonic energy.

Avrora, unable to endure summoning the Beast Vassals and on the verge of being completely broken, had become Kojou’s Blood Servant, reviving her from the brink of vanishing altogether. Also, thanks to Kojou’s overwrite, he’d obtained the twelve Beast Vassals dwelling within Avrora, the Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor—

“There you go, drinking another girl’s blood at the drop of a hat… You truly are an…”

Yukina spoke with a joking tone.

Kojou smiled without a hint of guilt as he peered into Yukina’s face.

“If you don’t mind, there’s one more girl whose blood I really wanna drink right now.”

With Kojou staring straight at her, Yukina bashfully averted her eyes. Kojou picked her up without waiting for a reply. Yukina let out a little cough mixed with blood.

“Please do not look at me so intently… My face is terrible at the moment…”

Yukina pleaded with him in a voice sounding like she was about to burst into tears. Her entire body was wounded. Her cheeks were filthy with dried blood and mud. Her skin was ominously pale with barely a hint of blood. There was not even a trace of her normal loveliness.

Kojou, though, shook his head.

“No way.”

“Why…?”

“I mean, Himeragi, you’re cute, you know?”

“Why are you…saying that at a time like this…”

Yukina glared resentfully at Kojou. He looked straight down at her face.

“I can only say it out loud when it is a time like this.”

Speaking quickly as if hiding a blush, he put strength into his embrace of Yukina. She smelled of fresh blood, but to him, the scent was utterly intoxicating.

“Senpai…you are a liar…”

Yukina squirmed, weakly resisting to what little extent she could.

“I am not. I’ve always thought it. You’re super-serious but don’t know much about the world, you’re not honest and always bluffing, but you’re always kind and helping others, and you’ve stuck with me all this time.”

Kojou brought his lips close, whispering into Yukina’s ear.

Strength drained from Yukina all over. She leaned her cold body into Kojou.

“Will you take responsibility?”

“…Responsibility?”

Kojou stopped moving, bewildered. Yukina sighed in exasperation.

“Stay with me forever. Never go to a place beyond my sight again… Never go away and leave me ever again…!”

Touching her hands to Kojou’s cheeks, Yukina stared straight into his eyes. Even though she was critically injured, having lost the strength to even stand, the powerful glint deep in her eyes was the same as the Yukina of old.