Strike the Blood - Volume 22 - Chapter Ep

OUTRO

The girls sat on the edge of the steps of the seaside hill path on the commute to school.

One was a small girl with her long black hair tied up. Another was a vampire with mysterious golden hair that changed color like a rainbow depending on the angle you looked at it.

Their hair and eye color showed them to be different species, yet their gestures and the atmosphere around them seemed very similar. For some reason, when you saw them side by side, they looked like blood sisters.

Both were holding ice cream cups bought from a stall nearby.

The black-haired girl was eating chocolate. The golden-haired girl held a cup with triple ice cream: strawberry, caramel, and ganache.

The black-haired girl gently gazed at the golden-haired girl stuffing herself with ice cream as she inquired.

“Tasty, Avrora?”

The golden-haired girl seemed a little worked up, ice cream marring the edges of her mouth as she replied with a nod.

“Like the ambrosia of paradise…!”

“Is that so? I’m glad.”

Wiping the face of her happily smiling friend with a handkerchief, the black-haired girl narrowed her eyes with equal amusement.

Then Nagisa Akatsuki’s gaze abruptly fell to Avrora’s left wrist.

Glimmering in the light of day was a black, metallic wristband—a brand-new demon registration bracelet. This recognized the golden-haired vampire as a registered demon of the Demon Sanctuary.

With this island, she’d finally gained a place to call home—

A homeland where she could live with all her friends.

A week had passed since Shahryar Ren’s invasion of Nod.

Thanks to the exceptional healing ability of the supposedly unaging, undying Devas, Shahryar Ren had just barely clung to life. He’d been handed over to Holy Grounds Treaty Organization custody and would stand trial along with his younger sister, Ladli, and other terrorist coconspirators.

The sorcerous manufacturing conglomerate MAR had been dissolved, with each individual division announced as a brand-new, freestanding corporation. Anticipating great effects from wiping out a giant multinational concern, competing corporations had begun a bidding war, making competition over the technology and human resources freshly put into circulation, so the situation remained in flux.

On the other hand, the leaders among the Devas known as the Seventeen Clans issued a joint statement of regret the string of incidents their brother Shahryar Ren had caused, along with announcing vast reparations to be paid for the people sacrificed in these events and the undertaking of repairs to the damaged cities.

After this, the Devas restored the damaged Keystone Gate, the harbor area, and other Itogami Island critical infrastructure to their former states in a single night, displaying to the world that the Devas still wielded unfathomable power—but that is another story.

“So…in the end, the Demon Sanctuaries of the world have accepted the Beast Vassal Warhead icon girls?”

The western sun shone into the classroom after school. Kojou lazily leaned back in his chair as he posed the question.

“Yeah. Technically they’re still with Itogami City-State; we’re just calling it indefinite foreign studies. I mean it’s not like even we can accept over six thousand vampires by ourselves.”

Yaze, sitting opposite Kojou, smiled with a rather weary expression.

It had been seven days since the Nod Incident instigated by Shahryar Ren. Yaze, crushed by overwork from his duties as a corporate chairman, had only been able to pop into school that day.

“I believe that is very reasonable. Surely many nations would be uncomfortable with such a sudden increase in Itogami Island’s demon population.”

Yukina, having come all the way to Kojou’s classroom to meet him, spoke in her usual overly serious tone.

The icon girls recovered from the Beast Vassal Warhead silos in Nod numbered six thousand four hundred and fifty.

Primogenitor-class Beast Vassals dwelled in the blood of each and every one of them. Shahryar Ren had proven that the girls were powerful strategic weapons in an unstable, freshly awakened state.

Even the Demon Sanctuary of Itogami Island would earn international ire if it monopolized all of those girls. In the first place, there weren’t anywhere near enough foster parents and schools to accept all the girls.

All the same, the “lessons” in virtual reality employed by Itogami Island’s main computer were indispensable for the girls’ safe management. The girls’ “foreign studies” were the logical compromise.

“Well, if they’re treated like foreign exchange students, that means they won’t be treated like guinea pigs at least.”

Kojou murmured offhandedly, seemingly to assuage his own worries.

“To a certain extent, at least.”

Sitting beside Kojou, Asagi spoke bluntly as she operated her smartphone with one hand.

“The three Primogenitors seem pretty concerned about that part, too. I don’t think many people will try to lay a hand on the girls knowing the potential of the Beast Vassals inside them, though.”

“Sure hope so…”

Yaze put his cheek against his palm and let out a concerned sigh.

After all, there had been no lack of groups willing to tangle with Itogami Island despite knowing it had the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire. If anything, troublesome people with the Fourth Primogenitor in their sights were countless, with Dimitrie Vattler at the top of the list.

With that in mind, Kojou felt like a future where he’d get involved in disputes over the six thousand four hundred and fifty icons scattered around the world would be inevitable, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

“Come to think of it, Vattler was headed to that Else place, wasn’t he?”

Trying to brush such ill omens aside, Yaze forced a change in subject.

“Yeah. That old dragon dude Kreyd hired him to guide the way.”

Kojou spoke in a nonchalant tone. Vattler’s reason for making his way to Nod was the corridor with Else at the other end—his objective being to investigate that planet lying outside the solar system.

With demonic energy on par with the Fourth Primogenitor, able to summon Beast Vassals in Nod, Vattler could open a gate even without the Fourth Primogenitor. Vattler wanted to reach Else, and the lonely dragon survivor wanted to return to his homeland—miraculously, their mutual interests coincided.

“Given who he is, that was his objective all along. It’s an entire world where the other team has home field advantage.”

Asagi let out a faintly weary sigh.

To Vattler, a widely acclaimed combat maniac, the forces of Else that had driven back even the Devas were the mightiest of foes he could hope to encounter.

That wasn’t to say Vattler’s eccentric activities were all fruitless so far as mankind was concerned.

If Kreyd and Dumblegraff’s words were true, the forces of Else under dragon control had long plotted an invasion of Earth.

The fact that made Kojou’s and the others’ heads hurt more than anything was that Itogami Island becoming a window to Nod inevitably put them on the front line of any dragon invasion.

“…Hey, maybe in a little while, Mr. Vattler will take over Else and come back to this world at the head of its armies.”

Heh, heh, laughed Asagi mischievously as she alluded to one possibility.

Kojou grimaced, looking repulsed from the bottom of his heart.

“Cut that out. That ain’t funny. He’d really do it, too, you know.”

“Then we’d better shore up our Dominion’s military power to prepare for the upcoming battles, shouldn’t we?”

A poignant smile cossed Yaze’s face as he looked at Kojou.

“Whaddaya mean, increase our military power…?”

Kojou prompted back with a completely serious look. Yaze gazed at Yukina and Asagi with deep interest.

“Hey, if you wanna increase your Dominion’s combat strength, the quickest way is to make second-generation vampires. Depending on the pair, the kids between a primogenitor and Blood Servants can have power equal to or better than a primogenitor’s.”

“Kids of a primogenitor and a Blood Servant…huh? Haaah?!”

Kojou’s voice went shrill when he realized the significance of Yaze’s words.

Asagi and Yukina glared scornfully at Yaze with blatant disgust brimming in their eyes.

“…Motoki, you creep.”

“I suppose he is… Upperclassman Yaze, I believe such statements are socially impermissible.”

“Hey, I’m just speaking the objective truth?!”

Yaze sullenly rebutted, thrown off by Asagi and Yukina’s unexpectedly harsh reactions.

A chilly exhale trickled out from Asagi.

“This is why you got dumped by your what’s-her-name.”

“She didn’t dump me! She just went back to the mainland to recuperate from her injuries!”

Yaze shot back with a beet red face. Sadly, the sheer desperation of his efforts made his words lose all credibility.

“Incidentally, Aiba. Do you know anything more about that information manipulation?”

Yukina posed that question to Asagi, ignoring Yaze’s continued attempts at explanation.

The information manipulation Yukina had on her mind was a global-scale anomaly occurring right after Kojou’s return from Nod. The rumored real name and anything else about the boy who had become the winner of the Electoral War, who then resolved Shahryar Ren’s invasion of Nod, had completely vanished from people’s memories and all physical records.

“Honestly, not one darn thing.”

Asagi shook her head, seemingly unable to accept that fact.

The spread of information about Kojou Akatsuki had long exceeded the bounds of what could be managed with hacking and information management. Asagi and the others had steeled themselves for the Fourth Primogenitor’s identity to have spread around the entire world.

Yet when they opened the lid and peered inside, they could not find a single ordinary person who remembered the Fourth Primogenitor’s identity. It was the same for Shizuri and Yume’s participation in the Electoral War. The remaining rumors about the mysterious vampire known as the Fourth Primogenitor were vague, and the only information on the boy named Kojou Akatsuki was his high school data.

The rampage against the Order of the End and the destruction of MAR’s invasion forces had all been chalked up to the work of this Fourth Primogenitor of unknown provenance, and all records had been adjusted to conform with this belief. Someone had rewritten all the information on Kojou and company behind their backs.

“With Tanker’s help, I conducted a thorough examination of the logs, but all traces were completely wiped clean as if time itself had been rewound. The only thing that’s changed are the records about Kojou’s identity.”

“…The Lion King Agency’s investigation obtained the same result. Only information relating to Akatsuki-senpai and the Fourth Primogenitor have vanished from the memories of people around the world save for spiritualists and magic users of very high skill. It is as if a large-scale Blazing Banquet took place.”

“…The Blazing Banquet…huh.”

Asagi puffed up her cheeks as Yukina invoked the abominable term.

It meant memory loss occurring when the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals were summoned in an unstable state. If someone could produce a similar effect artificially and combine it with Asagi-level hacking skills, it wouldn’t be impossible to control people’s memories around the world, but this was utterly impossible in reality.

“With our current technology, even using Mogwai at full capacity, information manipulation on this level just isn’t possible. In ten…no, maybe twenty years of hardware advances, it might just barely be possible, though.”

Asagi murmured with frustration. She turned off her smartphone’s screen and rested the device on her desk.

“But why would someone use that level of tech just to hide my identity? I mean I’m really grateful not to be wrapped up in all kinds of trouble I don’t need… Maybe someone real nice is out there.”

Kojou let his honest impressions trickle out. It was only thanks to this mysterious information manipulation that Kojou was able to live as a normal high school student after getting the power of the Fourth Primogenitor.

“Technology…twenty years in the future…”

Yukina seemed to remember something as she quietly spoke those words to herself. Her eyes fell to the ring on her left hand, but she immediately shook her head, thinking better of it.

“Can’t be all that optimistic when we don’t know if it’s from friend or foe.”

For once, Kojou spoke seriously.

“I suppose not. Perhaps we truly must forge greater strength to prepare for all possibilities.”

Yukina stared at Kojou with a smile. I must become stronger as a watcher so that Kojou never vanishes again, she vowed in her heart.

Upon hearing Yukina speak, however, Asagi’s expression hardened.

“Greater strength…Himeragi, you’re…”

“Eh?”

Yukina was thrown off, but in contrast, Yaze moved his shoulder close to Kojou with a smug smile on his face.

“My, my, Himeragi’s such a forward thinker, isn’t she? Ain’t that great, Kojou? You have such a cutie-pie all fired up.”

“Oh, shaddap! What are you so happy about?!”

Yaze was patting Kojou on the back when Kojou brushed his hand away like a nuisance. When Yukina overheard this, her cheeks blushed hard as she finally noticed her own verbal slip.

“Ah! Ah…no, you are mistaken! Just now, I did not mean in the sense of second-generation vampires… I simply meant I must train har… Y-you are mistaken…!”

“Well, fine. If that’s how it is, then I don’t need to hold back, either… It’s not like Himeragi’s my only foe after all…”

“No, that is not what I meant…!”

“Man…just like usual, this island’s so…hot.”

Listening to Asagi and Yukina’s verbal scuffle, Yaze made a show of wiping the sweat off his forehead.

Kojou exhaled wearily as his gaze shifted to outside the window.

He gazed at the Demon Sanctuary landscape illuminated by the golden rays of the sun, languidly commenting to himself.

“…Gimme a break.”

The city of never-ending summer—

The city’s name was Itogami Island, a tiny island floating on the Pacific Ocean, an artificial island built with carbon fiber, resin, metal, and magic.

The golden-haired vampire girl sat in a nook off the coastal hill path, looking down at the city as the setting sun shone upon it.

It wasn’t all that large a city. Monorails ran through the gaps in the densely packed buildings as if threading the eyes of needles. Humans and demons filled the same train cars as if it was the most natural thing in the world—

She heard the calls of gulls over the sea breeze.

Somewhere off in the distance, a melodious bell announced the end of school.

Gazing with regret at the cup of ice cream she’d just finished eating, she felt the black-haired girl sitting behind her suddenly rise to her feet and wave her hand.

She hastily followed her friend’s gaze. A pretty girl with a black guitar case on her back was walking with an ordinary-looking boy.

“—Kojou!”

The golden-haired vampire girl’s voice bounced as she spoke the boy’s name.

Meeting her black-haired friend’s eyes, the two set off in a run, hand in hand. Noticing the pair racing over, the boy gave them a strained, blushy smile. An ever so slightly pouty expression came over the girl with the guitar case as she grasped the sleeve of his parka.

This was an ordinary day in the Demon Sanctuary of the Orient—

The everyday life of the vampire called the Fourth Primogenitor.