Strike the Blood - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO 

MY DEAR CHILDHOOD FRIEND 

1 

Itogami Island’s central airport was completely jammed with travelers. 

On this day, the Friday of the last week of October, they were heading to festivities the night before the Hollow Eve Festival itself. There were numerous events scheduled to begin in the evening, resulting in the first real flood of tourists from off the island. 

The road connecting the airport to the monorail station was heavily congested, completely taken over by people dragging their luggage along. Kojou and the others wedged themselves through the crowd, somehow finally arriving at the airport terminal. 

Kojou raggedly exhaled as he looked up at the time on the electronic billboard. 

“Looks like we made it in time…?” 

The time was already past a quarter after nine in the morning. However, there was still no sight of the person he was meeting. From the looks of it, he might have been in the crowd around luggage pickup; maybe quarantine and customs inspection was taking a while. 

Nagisa was fuming in anger. 

“Well, it’s your fault! You took so long getting ready that we had to work up a sweat, too. And I picked up such awesome clothes! Why’d you have to sleep in on a day like this? I can’t believe it, it’s just unreal.” 

It figured—however heavily her shoulders heaved, her word output did not diminish in any way. 

“Sorry already! Thanks to the fuss last night I was wide awake and couldn’t sleep!” 

“You were worked up from remembering Kanon visiting your room, weren’t you? It’s so embarrassing!” 

“U…gh…!” 

Kojou was at a loss for words as Nagisa hit the mark. Kojou didn’t have the nerves of steel it would’ve taken to sleep soundly after getting stimulated so much that his urge to drink blood had kicked in. 

Kanon bowed her head, feeling responsible for some reason. “I’m so sorry, Akatsuki. It’s my fault.” 

Today, she was wearing a plain and simple gray cotton dress. But the plain outfit only served to emphasize Kanon’s extravagant silver hair even more, bathing her in attention from the people at the airport. 

“Nah, don’t worry about it, not your fault, Kanase.” 

It was Yukina who spoke with a tone that had a conflicted twinge to it, giving voice to Kanon’s feelings. “…But I wonder if we really should have come, too? I hope it’s not a bother…” Yukina was wearing a one-piece polo outfit with knee-high socks. Of course, the guitar case was over her back, as always. For that reason, she looked like a member of some kind of band. 

Actually, most of Yukina’s personal clothes had been picked out and sent over by Sayaka. Kojou couldn’t help but imagine Sayaka getting chills while picking them out, but he wasn’t surprised her choices suited Yukina very nicely. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine. This is your first Hollow Eve Festival, too, Yukina. It’s more fun if you come around with all of us. It doesn’t take any more time to show one person around than it does three. Right, Kojou?” 

Nagisa wrapped her arms around her friends’ shoulders without restraint as she spoke in a cheerful tone. 

Kojou made a generous shrug of his shoulders. 

“I’ve got no complaints about you keeping Nagisa company. Yuuma said it was fine, too.” 

Nagisa added a “yeah,” nodding without hesitation. 

“Yuuma was happy we’re bringing friends along. Yuu’s been nice to girls since waaaay back.” 

“Yeah.” 

Kojou made a light sigh as he kept pace with Nagisa’s comments. 

Kanon was Nagisa’s friend to begin with. There was nothing for Kojou to find wrong with their hanging out anyway. Besides, if he’d let Yukina be, she’d tail him for sure, saying it was part of her watcher duties. In that case, it was more relaxing to have her where he could see her. No, Kojou had another reason for sighing. 

“…So, what are you two doing here?” 

Kojou whirled his head toward a boy and girl watching him from the shadow of a pillar. One was a schoolgirl with an extravagant hairstyle; the other was a young, short-haired man with headphones hanging around his neck. Both had very showy carnival masks over their faces. Maybe they’d meant those to be disguises; at any rate, they stood out so much that it had the opposite effect. 

Realizing her identity had been exposed, Asagi reluctantly took off her mask. 

“…You have done well to see through our perfect disguises.” 

Kojou was too flabbergasted to even think about laughing. “You call those perfect? They’re way too obvious. Where’d you get that mask, anyway?” 

Yaze proudly puffed out his chest as he stroked the lifelike peacock feathers of his mask. “Oh, just one of those places selling stuff for the costume parade.” 

“So what, you’re bored stiff so you came over here?” 

“Geez, what’s wrong with that? We just wanted to get a look at your friend’s face. We’re heading home after that.” 

“Yeah,” added Asagi. “We wanna see what your childhood friend looks like, Kojou. Just think of it like we’re just passing through.” 

“I could’ve just introduced you,” Kojou replied. “You didn’t have to hide and watch like that.” 

Kojou recalled that both Yaze and Asagi had been present when the rendezvous had come up in conversation. Perhaps they were both displaying an unexpected amount of consideration, thinking that they didn’t want to intrude on his reunion with his old friend. He shook his head in exasperation at how they must’ve thought he’d cruelly brush them off. Then— 

Without warning, someone called out to Kojou from above their heads in a very loud voice. 

“…Kojou!” 

It was a rich alto voice that carried across the packed terminal with impressive clarity. 

As the voice hit him, Kojou reflexively looked up to see a human silhouette descending upon him. Someone had slid down the stair rail and leaped right in front of Kojou’s eyes. 

It was a girl with a very excitable air about her. 

Her hair was in a short bob with the ends curled up. She wore a sports brand hoodie over her torso. Her long, curvy legs extended beyond her short pants. Her slender calves and rugged basketball shoes made for an oddly cute pair. 

“Whoa?!” exclaimed Kojou. 

Kojou somehow managed to catch the girl, right in front of Asagi and the others’ shocked eyes. As a result, the two were in a tight embrace as Kojou gave the girl a dumbfounded look. 

“Y-Yuuma?!” 

“Heya. Long time no see, Kojou.” 

The girl called Yuuma narrowed her eyes as she made a mischievous smile. Her smiling face was off-the-charts adorable in a very boyish way. Kojou put her down with an annoyed look. 

“…You almost made my heart stop there. You’re just totally reckless, you know that?” 

The girl laughed eloquently, looking around the area. She seemed to finally notice that her antics had drawn the attention of the entire lobby upon them. She stuck her tongue out a bit as if slightly put off, looking at Kojou. Kojou was about to let out a very deep sigh when Nagisa stepped between them, as if to keep him from doing so. 

“Yuu!” 

“Nagisa, you’ve grown so beautiful. I didn’t recognize you.” 

“Oh, there you go again…! I sent you a picture practically yesterday.” 

“No, no. The real thing puts the picture to shame.” 

You’d think that line was sweet enough to make your teeth rot, but it was oddly persuasive when coming out of a girl’s mouth. 

Asagi gazed dumbfounded at the Akatsuki siblings’ conversation with the mystery girl as Yukina, standing beside her, grabbed her shoulders and strongly shook her. 

“What’s this? What’s going on here?!” 

For once, Yukina sounded completely baffled. “D-don’t ask me, I have no idea…” 

The watcher of the Fourth Primogenitor had no idea whatsoever how the meeting with the boy he’d apparently been friends with back in elementary school had morphed into an intimate conversation with a beautiful girl. 

Finally regaining her senses, Asagi forced her way to Kojou and asked, “Hey, Kojou. What’s the meaning of this?” 

Kojou seemed at a loss as he looked at his friend, who looked much more bloodthirsty since he’d last checked. “Of what?” 

“Who is this person?” 

Yukina circled around Kojou’s back as she asked. Strangely, she and Asagi seemed like comrades in arms. Kojou, the pincer movement having cut off all avenues of escape, uncomfortably shrugged his shoulders. 

“My childhood friend. Duh.” 

Yukina and Asagi interjected at nearly the same time. 

“This is a girl, though?” 

“And a really good-looking one?!” 

Kojou looked even more bewildered. 

“…What are you guys worked up for? You saw the picture back at my place last night.” 

“Oh yeah, you never actually said you were meeting up with a guy,” Yaze calmly pointed out. 

“Muu,” went Asagi and Yukina, biting their lips in silence. 

Now that he mentioned it, sure, when Kojou said he was meeting an old friend, they naturally thought he meant a guy, but neither sibling had ever actually said so. Indeed, thinking back to the picture they’d seen, the person seemed too pretty to be an actual boy. 

Plus, the vestiges of the person in the picture were evident on the face of the mystery girl Nagisa was happily speaking with. So, they were indeed one and the same. QED. 

“—So they’re friends from your school, Kojou?” 

The mystery girl approached Asagi and the others, who had not recovered from the shell shock of which she was the cause, and made a very warm smile at them. She wasn’t much taller than Asagi, but her tight frame without a single bit of excess flesh created a near-perfect body shape, which seemed blatantly unfair. 

Plus, she had that radiant, smiling face. If she wanted, she could probably make anyone young or old, of either gender, swoon for her. 

But perhaps because it was old news to him, her smiling face didn’t even make Kojou bat an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, these girls here are Nagisa’s classmates,” Kojou explained. 

Kanon and Yukina introduced themselves in that order. After that, Kojou pointed at Asagi and Yaze. 

“—And these two are just passing through.” 

“Who’s just passing through?!” Asagi angrily replied on pure reflex. 

Kojou scowled with a look of dismay. “You’re the one who told me to think of you like that!” 

Watching the exchange between Asagi and Kojou with amusement, the girl made a textbook formal bow. 

“Ha-ha-ha, thank you for taking such good care of Kojou for me. Yuuma Tokoyogi. A pleasure to meet you.” 

2 

Kojou and the others ditched the lethal crowds at the monorail and took a bus to Keystone Gate. 

It was the biggest building in Itogami City and the facility used to administer the entire island, but at the same time, it was the site of the island’s No. 1 collection of top-brand stores, making it stellar for killing time. 

It also came with a library for visitors to the Demon Sanctuary and souvenir shops, so it was common sense for natives giving tourists a tour of Itogami Island to start there. 

After giving the library a once-over, Kojou’s party entered a small cafeteria Yaze had recommended. The interior seemed a little retro, but the place had a pretty nice feel to it. 

Since there weren’t any tables for four available, the three middle school students and high schoolers split up and sat separately. High schoolers Asagi and Yaze formed one group and Kojou and Yuuma formed another. Kojou and Yuuma had gone to pick up the meals, automatically relegating Asagi and Yaze to remain in their seats, looking out for everyone’s things. 

Yaze made a sarcastic smile as he watched Asagi exercise bad manners, sipping on her glass of ginger ale through a straw. 

“…You don’t look all that enthused.” 

Yaze tossed Asagi a sarcastic smile as he watched her ignore good manners as she blew bubbles into her glass of ginger ale. 

“You look like you’re having plenty of fun.” 

Yaze nodded a firm Yeah! “Not exactly as nice as my senior year girl, but this Yuuma chick’s not bad looking, especially those legs and hips. She looks slender, but her chest is actually pretty nice.” 

Yaze had his arms crossed as he made an earnest comparison. 

Asagi still couldn’t quite believe it, but this guy actually did have a girlfriend. Furthermore, she was two years his senior, a third-year high school girl. She was considered a bit eccentric but was a cute girl who wore glasses. 

Thanks to his real-world exploits, Yaze ended up giving Asagi high-handed advice from time to time, something that irritated her to no end. 

“I see what’s got your goat here,” Yaze continued. “Who’d have thought Kojou had a jewel like this hidden away somewhere? Well, it looks like that moron Kojou has no idea what kind of advantage he has here.” 

Asagi casually poured on the scorn, not denying the fact it had her goat. 

“That moron’s head stopped developing back in elementary school.” 

Sometime during all this, the Yuuma in question was coming back carrying a tray covered in food. It was a straightforward order with hot dogs, onion rings, and the like. 

“Here you go. I tried to order something appropriate, but this should be all right?” 

Faced with that invigorating, smiling face, Asagi blushed in spite of herself. 

“Ah, er…thank you.” 

Truth be told, she was the type Asagi had a hard time with even without Kojou being involved, but it was difficult to hate Yuuma when she was giving you that friendly, smiling face. 

Looking down at Asagi’s feet, resting lazily under the table, Yuuma made a pleasant smile mixed with a rise of her brows. 

“Those sandals.” 

“Huh?” 

“Engel limited edition colors, right? From that magazine collaboration thingy.” 

“That’s right… You really know your stuff.” 

“They’re cute. They look really good on you.” 

“Th-thank you.” 

Asagi couldn’t help but smile broadly. She’d had a secret love of the sandals she was wearing that day and finally got a pair as a reward after applying with fifty handwritten postcards. It wasn’t something she’d brag to other people about, but of course she was glad that someone out there recognized their value. 

Yaze seemed to enjoy cutting in as his sharp eyes picked up Asagi’s broad grin. 

“What are you blushing for, Asagi?” 

Asagi raised her eyebrows. 

“Sh-shut up. It’s got nothing to do with you.” 

“Hmm, are they really that big a deal?” 

Noticing Kojou staring at the bare tops of her feet, Asagi rudely kicked him away. 

“Don’t look, you!” 

Yuuma giggled as she watched the interaction between the three of them. “This is good stuff.” Her words, coming as she brought soup to her lips, brought a merry “Nice!” out of Yaze. 

“You’ve got pretty good taste to appreciate this place, Tokoyogi. This is a place known only to a select few, even on Itogami Island. This is just between us, but I hear they use Demon Sanctuary research feedback for the special ingredients. 

“In other words, rumor has it they use demon food testers with taste buds more sensitive than humans to pick out their stuff.” 

Yuuma spoke with visible admiration as she scooped up some soup and offered it in front of Yaze. 

“This’s really something. How about you try some, too, Yaze?” 

It was a classic say aaahh pose. For a moment, Yaze stopped out of apparent shock; then he thrust his face forward, his cheeks red all the while. His motion was made awkward by his uncharacteristic nervousness. 

For some reason, Yaze’s compliment was actually polite. “Th-this is delicious.” 

Yuuma made a happy-looking nod. “Isn’t it? I’m so glad.” 

“…What are you blushing for?” Asagi asked with an amazed look as she watched Yaze flustered by Yuuma’s jubilance. 

Yaze clutched his head in visible anguish. 

“I-I’m not. It’s a misunderstanding. My heart’s already set on another wo— Yikes?!” 

Yaze let out a short yelp as his cell phone rang right then with perfect timing. Judging from the twitch of his face, one might think it was a call from the girlfriend in question. 

In contrast to Yaze being thoroughly shaken, Yuuma’s behavior was calm and collected. To her, this sort of thing was just normal communication between friends. Kojou, for his part, calmly continued eating, quite familiar with Yuuma’s personality. 

I see , Asagi thought, accepting something in a roundabout way. No doubt this combined with Kojou’s quite dense personality had shaped his view of how girls expressed goodwill. It was even possible he’d dismiss her having kissed him as normal communication, too. 

Having said that, she felt having had a girl like Yuuma around him since he was little meant he couldn’t help it. Glancing sideways, Asagi made a hearty sigh as Yuuma continued merrily eating like some sort of oblivious gigolo. 

“…It’s just not fair.” 

“What are you talking about?” Kojou asked. 

“Nothing at all. Just that a friend like that’s wasted on you, Kojou.” 

“That so…?” Kojou’s lips twisted as he replied, looking a tad wounded. 

“I’ll have you know she’s had some pretty big blunders too. I mean back during our fifth-grade camping trip—” 

Yuuma threatened Kojou with a very calm look on her face. 

“You sure about that, Kojou? If you divulge that information, I’ll tell them that story about you, you know.” 

Kojou swiftly submitted. “I’m very sorry, please forgive me.” 

Asagi resumed blowing bubbles into the bottom of her glass as she watched Kojou and Yuuma engaged in a comedy routine. 

She hated to admit it, but there was no doubt Yuuma was a very charming girl. Hard as that was, there was no atmosphere of intimacy between her and Kojou at all. At the very least, Kojou treated her completely the same as any guy friend. 

It wasn’t so much that Kojou was dense as he was treating her like any old friend. When Asagi thought about it more, it was a lot like her relationship with Motoki Yaze. 

Something tugged at her nonetheless. It was vague, based on intuition. 

It was the same as the ill feeling she had when seeing bugs’ guts on a serious program. Nothing constituted concrete evidence, but Asagi absolutely did not ignore her malaise, for experience had taught her that it was linked to grievous danger. I see , Asagi realized. I just don’t like this Yuuma Tokoyogi girl. 

Asagi was still indulging in such insecure thoughts when Yaze came back from taking the cell call outside the shop. 

“You’re serious… Understood. I’ll be back shortly.” 

Saying those last words with an unusually grave look on his face, Yaze brusquely hung up the call. 

“Yaze? What’s wrong?” Asagi inquired. 

“Ahh, sorry. Something’s come up. I’ve gotta be on my way.” 

Yaze immediately returned to his usual carefree tone, but the crease between his eyebrows did not vanish. Whatever was happening was apparently no minor emergency. 

“What? Your girlfriend yanking your chain?” 

“Something like that. See ya!” 

Yaze rushed out of the store, his favorite headphones in tow. Kojou had French fries in his mouth when he did a double take while watching him go. 

“Hey, you! Pay for what you ate, will ya?!” Kojou bellowed. 

“Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!” 

“Don’t mwa-ha-ha me!!” 

The other guests in the restaurant were flabbergasted as they saw Yaze leave, loud laughter trailing behind him. 

Asagi murmured, “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” as her eyes met Yuuma’s, who was sitting opposite her. Seeing the girl send an invigorating, charming smile back at her, Asagi repeated the same line once more in her own heart. Oh for goodness’ sake. 

The next moment, Asagi tilted her head as she felt the smartphone in her pouch vibrate. 

“Ah…?” 

This was the smartphone Asagi used as her personal work tool. She’d obtained it through the black market with all kinds of illegal modifications included; no one should have had that cell phone’s number. 

“Sorry, I have to take this.” 

Asagi made a frivolous wave to Kojou and Yuuma as she stood up. No “human” should have known the phone’s number. In other words, the caller wasn’t human at all. 

Pressing the ACCEPT button, Asagi heard a composite, artificial voice flow out of the smartphone. 

“—Miss? Sorry to interrupt you on your day off.” 

“What is it, Mogwai? If it’s business, can it wait till later?” 

Asagi grilled the AI, her partner, with obvious displeasure. Mogwai was the Ghost of Itogami Island—the avatar of the five supercomputers that held all of Itogami Island’s urban functionality in its paws. 

It boasted operational abilities on par with the world’s finest, but it was equally quirky and hard to handle, leading to a poor reputation—but for some reason, Asagi had grown fond of it. 

The AI purposefully using a low-fidelity audio transmission meant that the call had a nontrivial level of scrambling in the background. 

Mogwai laid things out as if to back up Asagi’s assumptions. 

“Sorry, we don’t have the time to spare. It’s an emergency. A Class III Defense Condition has been instituted.” 

“Huh? What the heck is this sort of large-scale terrorism?!” Asagi asked back in astonishment. She’d expected there was some kind of trouble happening, but she never expected Class III. The Demon Sanctuary had seven defense conditions, and this was third from the top. It indicated that there was grievous damage to Itogami City’s urban functionality, with a risk of serious loss of human life. 

There’d only been one Class III invoked since Asagi had begun working part-time for the Management Corporation—when the Lotharingian Armed Apostle had assaulted Keystone Gate. 

At the time, the Island Guard had over a hundred wounded guardsmen. In other words, Itogami Island now faced a peril of equal stature. 

“So anyway, the Management Corpration’s sent you an emergency work order. Please and thank you, miss.” 

Mogwai’s arbitrary request came without any proper explanation of the circumstances. That only made the gravity of the issue more apparent. Even if she was a genius-level hacker, she was still just a student working part-time, yet they were putting this rather excessive weight on her shoulders. She couldn’t just ignore it and walk away. 

“Sheesh…all right already. Just hold on, I’m on my way. What’s the big deal, geez.” 

Conveying her acceptance in a frail tone of voice, Asagi hung up the call. It seemed some kind of lethal situation had quietly developed while her back had been turned. 

3 

They transferred to the twelfth story aboveground by elevator and headed to a viewing tower above even that. 

It was smack in the middle of Itogami Island, the viewing hall of Keystone Gate’s top section— 

It was the highest place on the island, possessing a perfect, unobstructed view. 

Nagisa made a high-pitched shout of admiration as she rushed out onto the glass floor without the slightest timidity. 

“Whoa, the view is incredible!” 

It was a donut-shaped room about ten meters in diameter. The walls and floor were all made out of glass, allowing one to look over virtually the entirety of Itogami City from within. Another selling point of the place was that the entire floor gently rotated, so you could take in a 360-degree view just by standing still. 

“It’s my first time in the viewing hall. I’ve always wanted to come up here. It’s a lot higher than I thought. Whoa, a souvenir medal dispenser! Key holders, too!” 

In complete contrast to his little sister’s childlike high spirits, Kojou’s expression was full of gloom from having paid everyone’s entrance fee. “So expensive… Who’d’ve guessed a little elevator ride could get you ripped off for so much?” 

Even if it was the tallest place on the whole island, the fee for just going to the roof—a thousand yen per head—was hard on a high schooler’s wallet just to play tourist. But the hall was even more packed than he’d expected. It really was a must-see stop on any tour of Itogami Island. 

Yukina walked onto the floor very gently as if testing its strength. Kojou wanted to laugh as he watched her carefully avoid the glass panels and walk on top of the metal pillars. 

“It’s a little scary. It’s like you’re floating in space.” 

Kojou spoke when he noticed her hand absolutely refused to pull away from the rail. 

“Oh, that’s right, you’re bad with airplanes and stuff, Himeragi.” 

To Yukina, who found all types of machines to be awkward, an airplane must have seemed to be a mysterious mass of steel that flew through the air. She probably had a similar feeling where the rotating viewing hall was concerned. 

But because of her pride as a watcher, she didn’t seem to want to let Kojou know she was afraid. 

“That is incorrect. I am just concerned about the strength of the glass with so many people standing on it. It does not mean I am frightened whatsoever.” 

“Right, right.” Kojou let Yukina’s bluffing roll past him like water off a duck as he offered her his hand. “Here.” 

Yukina was at a bit of a loss. 

“Th-thank you very much,” she said, taking Kojou’s hand. She seemed to be a bit calmer as they walked alongside Kanon, with both their eyes glittering as they began looking through the binoculars that lined the walls. 

Kojou felt like a teacher chaperoning elementary schoolers as he watched the girls when Yuuma got close to him and jabbed an elbow into his ribs. 

“Pretty girl you got there. She your girlfriend, Kojou?” 

“Hah?” 

With a suspicious look, Kojou glanced back at the wide grin coming over Yuuma as he shook his head. No, no, no… 

“I told you, that’s Nagisa’s classmate.” 

“You look like you get along really well…” 

“R-right… She just happens to live in the apartment beside us. Total coincidence.” 

Of course, Kojou couldn’t tell her the truth—that he was a vampire and she was always keeping an eye on him—so he spun a tense excuse. Yuuma made a strained smile, not in doubt of him but finding added meaning in his words. 

“Hmm. Coincidence, huh?” 

“What?” 

“Nothing, I was just thinking that you haven’t changed any.” 

“That ain’t so.” 

Kojou sighed at his own expense as Yuuma’s casual words made him really feel the sarcastic whims of destiny. 

It’d been four years since he last met her. Things had been extremely stormy during that time. First there was Nagisa’s incident where she was on death’s door, their parents divorced, and Kojou himself had obtained the absurd physical characteristics of the Fourth Primogenitor. He thought of the opportunity to reunite with an old friend like this as a miraculous piece of good fortune. 

“I’m relieved you haven’t changed any yourself, Yuuma.” 

Kojou said it in a fervent tone, but this time it was Yuuma’s turn to slump her shoulders in letdown. 

“…Well that hurts. I’ve been trying to act a lot more feminine.” 

Hearing Yuuma murmur in a voice almost too soft to hear, Kojou had a mystified look on him as he glanced back. 

“Huh?” 

“It’s nothing. Anyway, what an awesome view. So this is the city you live in, Kojou.” 

Yuuma spoke as she pressed her forehead to the glass window like a little girl. 

Below her eyes, she could see the tightly packed quarters of Itogami City. Beyond, the deep blue sea continued all the way to the horizon. It was a first for Kojou’s eyes, too. The island looked all alone in the world. 

Kojou mumbled while squinting from the dazzling rays reflecting off the water’s surface. 

“It’s a small island any way you slice it, huh?” 

Yuuma shook her head, making her hair swish and flutter. 

“It’s interesting, though. It’s like the whole island’s one big theme park. It really is a Demon Sanctuary.” 

“It’s usually a lot plainer than this. This is ’cause it’s right before a festival.” 

“Right before a festival…truly it is.” 

Yuuma made a little mumble and smiled pleasantly. An airplane circling around the city’s airspace to announce the events for that night’s festivities was passing at that exact moment. The festival was finally set to begin in earnest. 

Kojou absentmindedly gazed at the teenage girl–idol group depicted on the plane’s fuselage when the cell phone in his parka’s pocket began to ring. 

Kojou moved away from Yuuma and took the phone out of his pocket; his eyebrows scowled when he saw the name displayed on the LCD. The caller seemed vaguely like an ill omen. 

“…Kirasaka, huh? Rare for you to call at a time like this. I’m kinda in the middle of something right now…” 

Kojou’s face grimaced as he said so to her. Sayaka Kirasaka was an Attack Mage from the Lion King Agency, just like Yukina. Kojou had met her in the middle of a large-scale terrorist incident in Itogami City just the month before. 

For some reason, she’d been calling Kojou quite often since then. Since Yukina didn’t have a cell phone, she seemed to be calling so that she could ask how Yukina was doing and nothing specifically to do with him. Sayaka was Yukina’s former roommate and fawned over the girl like some overprotective big sister even now. 

Kojou meant to dismiss it by saying she was just calling about Yukina again, but unexpectedly, the voice he heard through the phone’s speaker was not Sayaka’s at all. 

“Tee-hee-hee. It is I.” 

“Huh?” Kojou raised his voice, caught completely by surprise. “That voice… La Folia, huh? That phone has Sayaka’s number though?” 

“I saw this number in Sayaka’s address book under ‘Favorites,’ so I thought I’d give it a try… Ah, what are you trying to do, Sayaka?” 

“—I-is this Kojou Akatsuki?” 

It sounded like the phone had been snatched away as the call switched to Sayaka’s heavily flustered voice. 

“Now don’t misunderstand me here, this phone has an unfortunate feature requiring saved numbers to be put under ‘Favorites.’ That’s all it is!!” 

“Sounds like an annoying feature, yeah.” 

Kojou grimaced as he mumbled back. This was Sayaka talking, an expert in curses and assassination, so it didn’t sound like a joke. 

“So what are you calling for, anyway? Wasn’t Her Highness going back to her own country?” 

“That was the plan, but the circumstances have changed. She couldn’t get on the plane.” 

“Did you get lost or something?” 

Kojou was beside himself as he asked. Her Highness was La Folia Rihavein, crown princess of the kingdom of Aldegia. Last he could recall, Sayaka had been assigned to protect her during her unofficial visit. 

He’d heard the Japanese government had arranged a special charter for the princess and that she was scheduled to fly home early that morning. 

However, Kojou didn’t think the two remaining together even now was the result of the princess’s whims or some mistake of Sayaka’s. 

Sayaka’s halting reply was in a somber tone of voice. 

“I can’t…say that’s far off the mark, but…I’ll just lay out the facts. When we thought we were boarding the charter plane, we were at the sub-float that’s under construction.” 

Kojou just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Things often went off the rails when he was talking with Sayaka, but it was particularly bad this time around. “…Sorry, I don’t get what you’re saying at all. Wait, you mean the sub-float that the Nalakuvera trashed not long ago? That’s like, the opposite side of the island.” 

Sayaka shouted back, plainly irked. “Well, we don’t know what happened, either! Anyway, that’s the situation.” 

Kojou felt like he vaguely understood. “…So what can I do?” 

He knew they were wrapped up in some kind of trouble, but he didn’t think he’d be of any help to either of them. Sayaka, an Attack Mage, possessed abnormal combat capability of course, but so did the princess with the Völundr System that came with her spell gun. Your average demon or criminal had no hope against them. Even if Kojou ran over to protect them, he’d only be getting in their way. 

However, a somewhat unexpected name rolled off the princess’s lips. 

“I want to ask you about Kanon.” 

Kanon Kanase was the daughter of the former and retired king of Aldegia. Kojou recalled that, legally speaking, she was La Folia’s aunt, but in reality she was more like her little sister. 

Kojou looked at Kanon, timidly gaping wide-eyed down at the ground, as he spoke. 

“Well, Kanase’s here right now.” 

“Whaaat?” went Sayaka in an angry, shrill voice. 

“What is she doing with you ? Don’t tell me this time you’re putting your hands on her…?!” 

“I am not!! Relax, Himeragi’s here, too.” 

“What is that, pride?! Is that pride I’m hearing?! Not that I’m jealous at all here!!” Sayaka was worked up and ranting rather incoherently when the princess pulled the phone away and resumed. 

“I cannot get in touch with the Aldegian knights I had called in to protect Kanon. I believe this incident has no relation to her, but could you please be careful?” 

That he had no problem with. Kojou gave his answer in a firm voice to reassure the princess. “Got it. I look after Kanase and everything’s fine, right?” 

La Folia giggled in what sounded like a joking tone of voice. “Please do. If you require a reward, you can drink a little of her you-know-what.” 

“He can do no such thing!” Sayaka exclaimed. 

Sayaka’s shriek was the last thing he heard before the call disconnected. 

Feeling tired for no good reason, Kojou put his phone away only to notice Yukina had been standing beside him since who-knew-when. 

“That was Sayaka just now?” Yukina asked with a somewhat conflicted expression on her. For some reason, she didn’t seem all that enthused about the fact Sayaka was in touch with Kojou and not her. 

Kojou had no idea why she wasn’t enthused, though. Surely she was well aware that Sayaka hated his guts. At best, she thought of him as someone to worry over. 

“I don’t really get what’s going on, but she and La Folia are in some kind of trouble. They were getting on a plane when they wound up on the sub-float from a little back before they knew it and stuff.” 

“…What does that mean?” 

“Who knows. Didn’t seem like anyone was attacking them, though.” 

It went without saying that the situation was abnormal, but both of them acted with considerable confidence. Letting them be didn’t seem like any kind of problem. 

Yukina seemed to come to a similar conclusion as she nodded, her behavior calm. 

“I believe those two will be all right, barring something exceptional.” 

“Yeah. They were more worried about making sure Kanon was watched over than themselves.” 

Hearing the details of the princess’s request seemed to give Yukina a good grasp of the circumstances. “I see,” she said, nodding with a very serious look as she watched Kanon over by the glass wall. 

“Well, we can rest easy after handing Kanase back to Natsuki, right?” Kojou mused. 

“I suppose so. We’ll be with her during the day, after all… We need simply escort her back to Ms. Minamiya’s residence in the evening.” 

“That works.” 

They’d settled on a policy for protecting Kanon without any need for prolonged discussion. It was not at all an exaggeration to say that there was no safer place on Itogami Island than the home of Natsuki Minamiya, a superb Attack Mage. All Kojou and Yukina had to do was bring Kanon to Natsuki and their duty was done. 

Kojou realized it was best to call Natsuki first, but just as he began fishing his cell phone back out, he noticed a mild disturbance from the area near the elevator. The surrounding throng made it look like a famous person was making their way through; he could hear the shutters of cameras left and right as well. 

“What’s all that?” 

“Who knows?” 

Kojou and Yukina both tilted their heads a bit as they observed the tumult. Though nominally on their guard, the atmosphere did not suggest danger in any way, but… 

“Ah, there you are! Kojou, come over here, quick!” 

Nagisa appeared first, wedging herself through the curious onlookers and calling Kojou over, in a hurry for some reason. Behind Nagisa followed a young girl in a maid outfit looking very much out of place. She had indigo-colored hair and pale blue eyes; her visage looked inorganic, like a doll’s. Noticing Kojou’s and Yukina’s presence, the homunculus girl murmured with a tone low on inflection, “Confirmed. Eyes on target.” 

Dumbfounded, Kojou called out the girl’s name. 

“A-Astarte?” 

It was a homunculus in a maid outfit. To the tourists who’d come from far-flung places, there weren’t many symbols of the Demon Sanctuary easier to grasp than this. It was natural their attention poured onto her. 

Yuuma, who didn’t know the circumstances, had a look of surprise as she asked Kojou the question that naturally came to mind. 

“Is this what Demon Sanctuary maids are like, Kojou? That’s really something. To think you know a homunculus maid…” 

“Er, it’s not that being a maid is the girl’s day job but, um…” Kojou feebly attempted to defend Astarte’s honor. Her wearing an outfit like that was purely on the whim of Natsuki, her guardian for the time being…though she didn’t really seem to mind… 

“What are you doing in a place like this, Astarte? Did Natsuki ask you to do something?” Kojou asked, reflexively on guard. He wondered if his violent homeroom teacher had sent a request for him to help with yet another dangerous job. 

He didn’t find it unusual that Astarte knew right where to find Kojou and the others. Due to special circumstances, Kojou was supplying her with magical energy to preserve her life force. Apparently, Astarte could tell where Kojou was by tracing that magical energy channel back to him. It was entirely possible Natsuki would make use of Astarte’s nature and volunteer her to Kojou for messenger duty. 

However, Astarte’s reply was decidedly not what he expected. 

“Situational report: Regularly scheduled communication with the instructor has ceased as of nine o’clock AM of this morning.” 

“…Communication’s ceased?” Kojou asked. 

“Are you saying Ms. Minamiya has gone missing?” Yukina followed up. 

Both Kojou and Yukina had considerable doubt on their faces. Astarte casually nodded. 

“Affirmative. Transmitter and spell scroll signals have been lost.” 

Unease spread through the center of Kojou’s chest bit by bit. 

“Serious…?” 

Even if she said Natsuki Minamiya was missing, it didn’t feel real. She was a bit too old to run away from home, and someone who lived as wantonly as Natsuki did surely wouldn’t go hide from the world. That said, he thought few people on the planet were capable of kidnapping her. Neither Kojou nor Yukina could beat her in a straight-up fight; he doubted even that combat maniac Dimitrie Vattler could pull that off— 

But if Natsuki really was missing, it meant there was a menace arising on Itogami Island of a level that even she was not immune to. 

Astarte spoke in a businesslike voice to the visibly rattled Kojou and Yukina. 

“The instructor previously gave me directives in case of a circumstance such as this.” 

“Directives?” Kojou wondered aloud. 

“Kanon Kanase has been set as my primary target for protection.” 

“Th-that so…?” 

It seemed Natsuki really did take her duty as Kanon’s guardian seriously. 

“—Wait, are you saying Natsuki knew she’d be gone in advance?” Kojou asked. 

“Unclear. Unable to reply due to insufficient data.” 

“…Figures. Sorry.” 

Kojou apologized when he realized how Astarte felt. She didn’t show her emotions, but Astarte had to be just as uneasy about Natsuki’s disappearance as he was. Astarte stared at Kojou without a word. Perhaps he only imagined that he saw her eyes waver just a little. 

Kojou spoke to himself, looking like he’d swallowed a bitter pill. 

“I kinda…got a bad feeling about this…” 

There was the abnormality Sayaka and La Folia had experienced; now Natsuki was missing. Putting Yaze aside, Asagi getting a sudden call from the Gigafloat Management Corporation tugged at him now. 

He had a vague premonition that something was happening where Kojou and the others couldn’t see. 

The saving grace was that no one was in any concrete danger as things stood. 

Yukina had a serious look of concern as she spoke. 

“I concur.” 

Yuuma had an opaque expression as she glanced at the grave faces of Kojou and Yukina. 

4 

After making a light tour around the island, Kojou and the others returned to his apartment before sunset. They were taking a pass on night-before-the-festival events and heading to bed early that night. This was partly out of concern regarding Natsuki’s disappearance, but at any rate, the Hollow Eve Festival only kicked up for real the next day. 

Nagisa tapered her lips with a slightly desolate look as she sliced and diced cabbage in the kitchen. 

“What a shame. Too bad Yukina and the others couldn’t have supper with us, too.” 

As a result of their strategy session, Kanon and Astarte would be staying in Yukina’s apartment overnight. 

Yukina, whose Sword Shaman nature made her a specialist in hit-and-away tactics, couldn’t call herself ideal for guard duty, but there was no mistaking that her combat ability was far above the norm nonetheless. With Astarte providing assistance, protecting Kanon probably wouldn’t be that difficult even against rather powerful enemies. 

The word was that the extra knights dispatched from the Aldegian homeland would arrive the next day; they could only hope that Natsuki would casually pop back into the picture before that time. 

Kojou desperately pushed their excuse as he laid down on the living room sofa watching a Hollow Eve Festival TV special. 

“They’re probably being considerate for us. We wouldn’t be able to have a relaxed conversation with Yuuma with a big crowd.” 

In spite of Nagisa’s acute phobia of demons, she apparently wasn’t all that concerned about Astarte, a homunculus. No doubt she also remembered how Astarte had risked her own life to protect Nagisa from terrorists. 

However, with Natsuki gone missing and the possibility existing of someone going after Kanon, it was best to keep her as separate from unrelated people like Nagisa and Yuuma as possible—even if, in this case, “separate” meant Yukina’s residence, the next apartment over from Kojou and Nagisa’s. 

Nagisa seemed to accept Kojou’s words as she gave her apron a flick and looked back. 

“Riiight. You must be pretty worn out, too, Yuuma, with the long trip and all. Sorry I dragged you all over the place.” 

Yuuma made an energetic, pleasant smile as she sat cross-legged on top of the sofa. 

“Nah, I had lots of fun. It was great being with friends of yours, too.” 

Nagisa puffed her chest out in a small measure of pride. 

“They’re all cute, aren’t they? Ah, well not Yaze, but anyway, who do you like best?” 

Even Yuuma had to make a strained smile at how Nagisa asked it like it was a normal question. 

“You know, I am a girl and all. But let’s see. Himeragi, maybe? She tugs at me a little.” 

“Mhmm,” went Nagisa, nodding in agreement with her arms folded. 

“Himeragi’s cute, huh? She has her mess ups once in a while, but that’s cute, too.” 

For a moment, a look came over Yuuma like she was staring off into space. 

“…Plus, Kojou gives off the same scent as she does from time to time.” 

Nagisa glared at Kojou while clutching a kitchen knife. 

“Huh?! What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Apparently she’d decided that when Yuuma said “the same scent,” she meant it in a physical sense. Of course Kojou, knowing of no such thing, could only gape. Sure, he might have picked up some of her scent right after being pressed against Yukina in a packed monorail car, but that’d been the previous morning. 

Yuuma hastily amended her explanation. 

“No, I mean, the fact they go off and whisper stuff just between them from time to time. I was thinking they get along real well.” 

“Ahh,” went Nagisa, lowering the kitchen knife as she made a lively smile. 

“I’ve been wondering about that since a while back myself. Yeah, the two of us are gonna interrogate Kojou tonight and get to the bottom of it!” 

Yuuma seemed oddly eager as she nodded. 

“Sounds good. That’ll make it worth having come all this way.” 

“Gimme a break,” said Kojou, covering his eyes as he turned his face to the ceiling. 

“And Kojou,” lectured Nagisa, “if you’re not going to help with supper, get in the bath. I promised Yuuma we’d have ours together after.” 

“Got it—” 

With Nagisa speaking to him like she was driving off a nuisance, Kojou languidly rose up from the couch, heading to the dressing room with his change of clothes. Kojou was thinking to himself that anything more than a shower was too much trouble. 

Although he felt like it wasn’t the time to be leisurely taking a bath with mysterious anomalies occurring so close to home, there really wasn’t anything Kojou, a mere high school student as far as the world was concerned, could do here. Natsuki could have wrung some info out of the Island Guard, but her having gone missing took away that option. 

He felt really bad for Yuuma after she’d come all that way, but if circumstances hadn’t changed by the next day, it could prove better to stop being a festival tour guide and go search for Natsuki himself. 

As Kojou thought about such things, he blithely took off his clothes and opened the bathroom door. 

The door to the bathroom with snow-white steam floating in midair— 

For a while, Kojou simply froze, unable to comprehend the sight spread before his eyes. 

“Er…ah?” 

There were already guests in the bath. 

One was a homunculus girl with but the slightest hint of redness in her cheeks from the temperature, her slender, nude body floating in the water of the bathtub. And in front of the wash area’s shower, a silver-haired girl was lathering up her shampoo. 

Noticing that Kojou had entered the bathroom, both girls turned their heads toward him as one. 

“Akatsuki…?” 

“Intrusion of the Fourth Primogenitor confirmed.” 

Kojou looked all around in incomprehension. 

“Kanase…and Astarte? Why…?!” 

The situation was too bizarre for him to register surprise. 

The layout of the bath was largely the same as in Kojou’s apartment. However, the tub and faucet locations were mirror images. 

Many apartment buildings used identical designs for neighboring apartments. Kojou didn’t know the brands of the shampoo and body soap sitting on the table. However, they smelled the same as Yukina’s hair. 

Piecing together the available information, Kojou was reasonably certain that this was the bathroom of Yukina’s apartment. He could therefore accept why Kanon and Astarte were here in the bath. 

In other words, Kojou had apparently blundered into the washroom of Yukina’s next-door apartment. That’s nuts , thought Kojou. It was totally insane. 

Even covered in shampoo, Kanon bowed her head in a polite and proper bow as she spoke. 

“I’m sorry, we were in the bath first.” 

The whiteness of her skin was very apparent even with suds all around her, as if you could see right through them. 

Kojou replied in a calm tone as well. 

“R-right…take your time…” 

It hurt how Astarte was looking at him with an expressionless gaze. 

Kojou turned to his right and exited the lavatory, closing the door behind him. 

That instant, cold sweat gushed over his entire body with great force, drenching him. 

“…What was that just now?! What’s going on?!” 

He looked around once more, seeing only the sights of the very familiar Akatsuki residence’s changing room. Kojou’s toothbrush was right on the washroom table right where he’d left it. 

Just to be sure, he went out of the dressing room, but this was indeed Kojou and Nagisa’s apartment; Nagisa was in the kitchen preparing supper, and Yuuma was helping. 

It was the exact same apartment in every way. The only things different were the expressions Nagisa and Yuuma wore. 

Nagisa’s face was beet red up to her ears while her cheek twitched. 

“Kojou…what…are you doing?” 

“Huh?” 

Yuuma had a pained smile as she covered her eyes with a palm. 

“That’s…ah, a bit of a problem. It’s still evening, and I’m not emotionally prepared for…” 

Seeing their reactions, Kojou remembered the fact he wasn’t wearing a single piece of clothing. 

“Eh?! Ah…!!” 

Here he was, calling out oddities and leaping out buck naked in front of his middle school–age little sister and his childhood friend, a teenage girl he hadn’t seen for four years. That was Kojou’s current situation. It was assuredly close to per— Well, no, it was perverted. 

Kojou yelled out as he returned to the dressing room. 

“U-uwaaaaaaaaa!” 

The echoes of Nagisa’s shriek and the breaking of the dishes she threw filled the air behind him. 

5 

Meanwhile, Asagi Aiba was still inside Keystone Gate. She was on the twelfth level below surface level. 

This was the Gigafloat Management Corporation’s security department. 

It was an office built with a domed roof reminiscent of the cockpit of a passenger jet aircraft filled with innumerable active monitors, keyboards, trackballs, and other input devices, but the keyboards were layered vertically like those of a pipe organ. It was a room that gave you the eerie, oppressive sense of being buried in machinery, but to Asagi, it was as comfortable as her very own home. 

Displayed on the monitor in front of her was a color-coded 3-D display of the city and, off to the edges, numbers and formulas, their meaning unclear. They were analyses resulting from Asagi’s diagnostic program. 

Eating jelly in place of a more normal nighttime snack, Asagi was looking all of that over when she made a bitter face as the chat window she was using to communicate with the AI showed an unidentified user butting in. 

The voice making itself welcome over the com audio was a throaty, electronically synthesized male voice. 

“Well—! If it isn’t Mogwai’s lady and mistress!” 

He was one of the freelance programmers in Asagi’s circle of acquaintances; apparently he, too, had been invited to work part-time by the Gigafloat Management Corporation. His lowbrow speaking style rubbed her the wrong way, but he specialized at intercepting intruders—and he was very, very good at it. Put another way, he was like a bodyguard hired by private industry. 

“Ugh, there he is again, that totally over-the-top guy,” said Asagi, unintentionally airing her real opinion out loud. 

But the other party made no sign of noticing as he made a hearty laugh. 

“Ha-ha-ha. So the Gigafloat Management Corporation got even the ‘Cyber Empress’ to come running. Oh, this is lovely.” 

“—So you got called to duty, too, Charioteer?” 

“Indeed. This uproar is quite a pleasant occasion. Surely you don’t believe that tosh about this chaos being caused by a simple virus or GPS malfunction?” 

“Not really,” said Asagi, not disputing his reasoning at all. There was no point hiding anything from a hacker on her own level. “I really wonder what in the world it is, though.” 

“Mmm. Traffic lights all aflutter, car navigation system errors, instrument landing system inconveniences, a large number of missing children…there’s no doubt something is interfering with the internal Gigafloat network systems,” Charioteer murmured in an unexpectedly dead-serious tone of voice. As she expected, his info was dead-on. 

The Gigafloat Management Corporation gathered detailed information from every corner of Itogami Island and used it to maintain the island’s environment. This, of course, included water and electrical utilities, but also included controlling the mundane communication networks critical to private enterprise. 

On an artificial island small in size with a heavily concentrated population, with most of its foodstuffs imported from off the island, any disruption to its communications network would have an instant effect on the lives of the island’s residents. 

That was why the Gigafloat Management Corporation managed a wide variety of information from sources such as monorail freight, road traffic, and even pedestrian footpaths and traffic lights, doing its utmost to maintain a harmonious transit system. 

But since a half day or so earlier, that information network was experiencing numerous impediments. 

Traffic lights and car navigation routes were leading to completely different places than their destinations; automated guidance systems for aircraft were losing the location of the island; and people continued to get lost, even in their own corporate office buildings. 

The cause of the large-scale network obstruction was not yet known. 

“The silver lining is that a lot of businesses are closed for the festival. If not for that, there’d probably be losses of one or two billion yen,” said Charioteer. 

“…Probably. And a lot of the people who are lost are tourists who don’t know any better.” 

“Mmm.” Seeing that Asagi agreed with him, Charioteer spoke in an emboldened voice. “But it is quite fortuitous to have met you here. To be frank, it was getting to be too much with just me on the case. Have you considered some kind of cyber attack that’s breached the Demon Sanctuary firewall?” 

Slumping back, slothfully burying her body into the back of her seat, Asagi spoke in languid tones. “About that… I wonder if this really is a cyber attack at all.” 

Charioteer made a low mm sound. “It is quite odd. There are strange readings coming from various circuits and location information systems all across the island…” 

“But no one found anything wrong with the sensors or connection lines, or signs of viral contamination for that matter.” 

As Asagi finished speaking, she switched her monitor display to the next diagnostic image. 

From all the data displayed therein, that the Gigafloat Management Corporation’s network was currently operating normally was now a proven fact. 

“So, how about this?” Asagi continued. “Nothing is obstructing the network. All of the readings displayed by the system are correct. So, the problem is on the city side of things.” 

“Are you saying there’s a spatial distortion happening all around Itogami Island…?” 

Charioteer fell into silence. Naturally, he’d suspected that such large-scale simultaneous disruptions had been caused by bugs in the programs themselves or cyber attacks from the outside. However, not even his abilities had located any trace of an intruder. 

But if the obstructions were occurring in real space rather than the information network…would not the current anomalies be the natural, logical result given a normally operating network? 

“Don’t tell me it’s not possible. This is a Demon Sanctuary we’re talking about here.” 

Charioteer laughed loudly upon hearing Asagi’s words of sarcasm. “That might well be the case. But spatial control rituals are a high-difficulty field of magic. Only very well-trained, high-quality magic users can do it, like big-time witches. You wouldn’t think that something affecting the entire island could be wielded by human hands.” 

“…I’m not sure what advantage bending space like this would bring someone, anyway.” 

Asagi tapered her lips in displeasure. She wasn’t going to wait for someone to prove her hypothesis to not be bothered by that loose end. Charioteer, too, made an anguished-sounding voice. 

“Indeed. If all you wanted to do was damage Itogami City’s economy, it’d save a lot of time and trouble to just plant a bomb.” 

Mogwai intruded into the conversation. “No… Hold on, miss. There should be a record of a similar spatial distortion having occurred some ten years ago in the Island Guard’s archives. It’s classified as top secret.” 

“A sealed record from ten years ago…?” 

Asagi went fishing in the archives according to her support AI’s advice. She hacked her way in, of course. It was a lot faster than asking for permission. 

“What, the Black Bible Incident…?! The Witch of Notalia, then?!” Charioteer bellowed as he accessed the files the same way she had. Asagi was still a primary schooler when the so-called Black Bible Incident had shaken the entire Demon Sanctuary to the core some ten years prior, but she still remembered it. 

“Hey, Mogwai…” 

“Yeah?” 

“Lately, have there been any signs of criminal organizations infiltrating Itogami Island?” Asagi posed the question to her partner in a quiet voice. Mogwai’s reply was quick. 

“…Oh yeah, LCO operatives broke through the outer defenses. I’m pretty sure the Island Guard types are still after ’em?” 

“Oh-ho…the Library, they’re quite a handful, too.” Charioteer spoke with a tone of excitement. The Library of Criminal Organizations, abbreviated LCO, also known as the Library… It was the name of a criminal organization known worldwide. It was said they, too, had played a pivotal role in the Black Bible Incident. 

“I see… So that’s how it is…” Even Asagi could not hide her nervousness when her worst premonition turned out to be on target. Operatives of LCO had invaded; anomalies were occurring all over Itogami Island. The chances that the two issues were unrelated struck her as slim. 

And the next day would be the opening of the Hollow Eve Festival. There’d be a large number of tourists from off the island; it was the time when the Demon Sanctuary’s security was most brittle. 

“Mogwai, contact the Gigafloat Management Corporation. There’s probably something big coming down the pipe tomorrow.” 

Her words would prove truer than she could ever imagine. 

6 

Kojou was in a full kneeling bow on the cold, hard floor. The entrance was the same as the Akatsuki residence, but this room was far emptier with few furnishings. It was the living room of Yukina’s apartment. 

Sitting across the prostrate Kojou and looking down at him was Yukina, sitting on her knees in proper Japanese style. 

Beside her were Kanon and Astarte, their hair still wet from bathing. 

Yukina reviewed the situation in a strangely calm voice. 

“So, I’m not sure I have this all quite right but…my understanding is that you came to confess to having peeped on Kanase and Astarte in the bath?” 

Kojou looked up in great haste. “I didn’t! I mean, I did, but that’s not the biggest problem here at all!” 

It was quite true he’d entered the bathroom while Kanon and Astarte were in the bath, but there was surely something more important than that to talk about. Namely, that the Akatsuki residence’s dressing room was connected to the washroom of the Himeragi residence next door. It may have seemed a small thing compared to the problem of Natsuki’s disappearance, but this was certainly an anomaly. 

“But you did look, didn’t you?” Yukina stared straight at Kojou as she asked him. 

For some reason, the all-too-quiet tone of her voice made Kojou sense impending doom as he fiercely shook his head. 

“A-Astarte was under the water, and Kanase had shampoo suds all over her body so I didn’t see a—” 

“But you did look, didn’t you?” 

Kojou once again touched his forehead to the floor. 

“…I’m very sorry.” 

“You truly are hopeless…” Yukina remarked as she sighed at length. 

For her part, being apologized to made Kanon’s face go bright red. 

“I-it is nothing.” 

Kojou immediately refuted Kanon’s meek statement. “No, it’s, um, kind of a big deal actually…” 

This was, after all, a fully fledged princess; even setting that aside, Kanon had exceptionally good looks for a middle school student. Even if it was for but a single moment, the precious image of the momentary sight of her naked body was burned into the back of Kojou’s mind. 

Yukina seemed to see right through Kojou as he subconsciously recalled that image from his memory, impaling him with her chilly gaze. 

As if to drive him further into a corner, Astarte spoke in her usual unconcerned tone. 

“Apology confirmed. Furthermore, I recall witnessing the Fourth Primogenitor in a virtually identical circumstance.” 

Kojou quickly lost his nerve as she dragged that largely forgotten fact to the forefront. 

“That wasn’t my fault!! I didn’t make you come out of that tuning vat like that…!” 

Certainly, Kojou had encountered Astarte in a nearly nude state, but her body was being retuned by the Lotharingian Armed Apostle at the time; if anything, Kojou and Yukina had been her enemies. 

However, upon hearing Astarte’s statement Kanon’s cheeks turned even redder. 

“I have also been seen by Akatsuki before…so this much is all right, really…” 

Kojou desperately professed his innocence. 

“You were an angel at the time!! That was a complete act of God!” 

Yukina shook her head in exasperation as she watched Kojou protest. 

“At any rate, senpai, you tried to go into the washroom of your own residence and ended up in the washroom of mine, yes?” 

“Y-yeah… I didn’t think you caught that part.” 

Yukina refuted in an exceedingly serious tone. 

“No, I did. I do not believe Kanon or Astarte would tell lies…though a Peeping Tom is another story.” 

“Don’t call me a Peeping Tom!!” 

Yukina then pointed out the obvious. 

“Besides, there is also what Sayaka and the princess said.” 

Kojou felt ashamed of himself for letting that slip his mind. 

“Oh right… They went to get on an airplane and jumped to the sub-float, right?” 

Sayaka and La Folia had been tossed to a place far from the airport; Kojou had entered his neighbor’s bathroom. The locations and seriousness were completely different, but in both cases, instantaneous spatial shifts had been involved. 

Yukina carefully chose her words as she murmured. 

“Perhaps there is some kind of distortion occurring in the space surrounding Itogami Island.” 

Kojou audibly drew in his breath. 

Spatial control, using that for instantaneous movement—wasn’t that what Natsuki Minamiya, the Witch of the Void, specialized in—? 

“Spatial distortions…? Do you think this might have something to do with Natsuki disappearing?” 

“I do not know. However, I feel like the timing is too similar to be a mere coincidence.” 

“Seems like it.” Kojou nodded with a twist of his lips. “It’d be nice if we could get in touch with Natsuki, but where should we look for her?” 

Yukina spoke with a tone tinged with faint unease. “In this situation, carelessly walking around is dangerous. In any event, let’s wait and see for the moment. Please return to your own residence, senpai. There’s a chance Nagisa and Yuuma might become wrapped up in this. Also, there is no guarantee you will get back safely next time.” 

“I see. You have a point.” 

This time, Kojou had happened to go as far as the bathroom of Yukina’s next-door apartment, but next time might not be on such a small scale. If the next warp sent him to the stratosphere or the bottom of the sea, he might perish instantly, unable to return. 

Viewed from that perspective, Kojou’s experience earlier was an incredible stroke of good fortune. 

After all, he hadn’t been tossed out into a busy shopping district buck naked; the people at his destination were Kanon and Astarte, both acquaintances. 

Subconsciously recalling how they looked in the bath, Kojou blessed his good fortune with renewed fervor. 

As Kojou did so, Yukina shot him an emotionless glare even scarier than before. 

“Senpai…” 

Obeying his animal instincts, Kojou prostrated himself once again. 

“I’m really, really sorry…” 

7 

When Kojou returned to his own residence, it was Nagisa and Yuuma who awaited him, in the bath. 

That was not to say that Kojou was forcibly warped into their bathroom the instant he entered the doorway. It was simply that Nagisa’s and Yuuma’s voices from the bathroom were so loud that Kojou could hear them all the way from the living room. It was all kinds of girl talk about if they had boyfriends or not, what sort of guys they liked, ways to make your breasts bigger, and lurid rumors not meant for the ears of boys—all forbidden topics for discussion that Kojou knew nothing about. 

Yes, he was curious, but these really weren’t subjects he wanted to hear about from his own little sister’s mouth. In spite of that, he didn’t have it in him to announce, I can hear you , and so, with something of a heavy heart, Kojou grabbed a drink in a PET bottle and went out onto the veranda. 

Even Nagisa and Yuuma’s careless banter was not audible from outside the apartment. 

Leaning limply against the railing, Kojou poured the lukewarm sports drink down his throat. Then, he suddenly saw something that made his blood run cold. 

“…Eh?!” 

The hand holding the PET bottle shuddered. Kojou was looking at a park on a plateau on the other side of the street. The distance had to be almost a full kilometer away. 

If Kojou had not had vampiric vision kick in after sunset as it was then, and if the clothed man standing there did not stand out, he would surely never have noticed. 

“No…way. What’s he doing here…?!” 

Kojou put some shoes on and flew out of the apartment in great haste, running down the apartment complex’s stairs. He leaped over the exterior fence and plunged down the road, taking the shortest possible route toward the plateau. It was times like this that made Kojou curse his body for not being able to fly through the air in true vampiric fashion. 

Then Kojou, gasping for breath, arrived in the park that was his destination. 

The man was standing on the plateau just as before. He was coldly lording over the nighttime skyline as a faint surge of bloodlust rose all around him. 

“—Rudolf Eustach!” 

Kojou called out to the man by his name. He was a blond foreigner, a soldier with his hair cut very short. His left eye was covered up by a metallic, eyepatch-like monocle. 

He was over 190 centimeters tall, covered with a priest’s habit, and wore a metal suit of armor under that. It was an armored augmentation suit employed by heavy army infantry. 

You didn’t exactly confuse a guy like that with someone else. 

Two months prior, the Lotharingian Armed Apostle, Rudolf Eustach, Astarte’s master, had engaged Kojou and Yukina in a deadly duel, bringing Itogami Island to the very edge of destruction. 

“Why are you here?! Didn’t you go back to Lotharingia—?!” 

His tone was gentle, even as Kojou glared at him with a look of raw, shaking emotion. 

“To meet someone who knows my common name… Who might you be?” 

Kojou yelled indignantly. 

“Don’t play dumb with me! Itogami Island decided to return the holy relic already. You shouldn’t have any business here. Or did you come here to take Astarte back?” 

“If you have discerned my objective, this, I cannot ignore.” 

Eustach drew his weapon from the back of his habit. Kojou recognized the metal bardiche. It was a battle axe with a giant blade. 

His monocle flared red over and over as it scrutinized Kojou. Eustach’s vision was filled with a heads-up display from the analysis. 

“A vampire of unknown bloodline…? Mmm… If you are an abominable demon, you are here to interfere with my crusade. As an Armed Apostle, I have no reason to hesitate to execute thee!” 

“Don’t you remember who I am…?!” 

He and Eustach were talking past each other. That fact enveloped Kojou in despair. Kojou knew why he hated Itogami Island and had attempted to destroy it. That battle was over. Many had paid the price, but Itogami Island had escaped destruction by the skin of its teeth, and Eustach had returned to his own nation. 

“Stop it, old man. You and I don’t have any more reason to fight—” 

“Silence, demon!” Eustach roared. 

He unleashed his bardiche down at Kojou, his body accelerated by the augmentation suit. It was too fast to be dodged, but Kojou somehow managed to evade the attack anyway. He’d fought Eustach more than once before; he was well aware of the man’s might. 

“Stop, old man…!” 

Eustach easily pulverized the concrete bench Kojou had used as a shield. His destructive power was as nutty as usual. This was no opponent Kojou could defeat with his bare hands. 

At this rate, Kojou would be slain with ease before he could get through to the guy— 

“Shit, you damn hard-ass! C’mon over, Regulus…!” 

Out of other options, Kojou began to summon his Beast Vassal. 

These were beasts summoned from another world that dwelled in his own vampiric “blood.” When materialized, they were giant masses of demonic energy; they were the reason vampires were known and feared as the mightiest of demonkind. 

Only the unlimited negative life energy of a vampire could endure the extreme consumption of the host’s life force required to use a Beast Vassal. In turn, the destructive might of a Beast Vassal was overwhelming. 

That went even more for the Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire, with each said to unleash destruction equal to a natural disaster. Even a Lotharingian Armed Apostle had no way to oppose such might. 

But Eustach’s attacks did not cease even so— 

“—Too slow!” 

Eustach’s battle-axe was faster than Kojou’s Beast Vassal summons. Gazing dumbfounded at the giant blade lunging at him, Kojou resigned himself to death. 

Even with the power of the World’s Mightiest Vampire, Kojou himself was a combat amateur. The Lotharingian Armed Apostle simply was not an opponent he could defeat without Yukina’s aid. 

Yet the impact of the battle-axe did not assail the despairing Kojou. 

“…Old man…?” 

Kojou looked around the park in a daze, seeing nothing but the surface of the ground. 

There was no sign of the large Armed Apostle. He and the bardiche he had swung down had both vanished. 

There was no sign of anyone else in the park here at night, only Kojou and the unreliable light of a few lampposts. 

He thought he was hearing things, but it was actually the sound of firecrackers for the night before the Hollow Eve Festival’s opening far off in the distance. 

Save for the remains of the wrecked bench, all signs of Eustach had vanished. 

8 

Kojou dragged his tired body back to the apartment building. 

He still had no idea what had happened; he felt like he’d just had a bad dream. 

Properly speaking, encountering Eustach was something he should have reported to Yukina. But having tossed the thought around, Kojou decided to keep it quiet for a little while. After all, Astarte was right there in Yukina’s apartment. He didn’t want to make her worry without cause; after all, he still had no proof the Armed Apostle had really been there. 

Yuuma was the only one in the apartment to greet Kojou. 

“Welcome back, Kojou.” 

It’d been a while since she’d gotten out of the bath, with her hair now completely dry. When he glanced at the clock, it was close to midnight. He was late getting back because he’d blundered around the park looking for clues after Eustach vanished. 

“Sorry I’m so late… Huh?” 

As Kojou kicked off his shoes and returned to the living room, he looked around the apartment for any sign of his little sister. 

“Nagisa’s asleep already. Seems like she really wore herself out.” 

“…She’s such a grade schooler.” 

Kojou made an exasperated sigh as he checked and saw that the lights in Nagisa’s room were out. 

Unfamiliar clothes were scattered all around the living room. There was a Victorian dress; a pirate outfit; bunny girl and cat ears outfits; angel, vampire, and even jack-o’-lantern outfits— 

“What’s all this?” 

“We were trying them out.” Yuuma spoke, looking up at the bewildered Kojou in apparent amusement. “Apparently, it’s tradition for people attending the Hollow Eve Festival to wear a disguise.” 

“Cosplay outfits, huh…? That Nagisa, when did she get all these together?” 

Kojou was half beside himself as he murmured. 

His little sister loved events to begin with, but she wasn’t anywhere near this worked up the year before. No doubt she’d outdone herself this year because Yuuma was coming over to play. 

Looking more closely, half of the outfits were sized for boys. I’m soooo glad I was out , Kojou thought with a sigh of relief. If he’d still been in the apartment building, he’d have been getting fitted for outfits all that time. 

Kojou asked the question that was nagging at him a bit. 

“Are you gonna be wearing something, Yuuma?” 

At the moment, Yuuma was wearing a totally-not-sexy sweatshirt/sweatpants combo in place of pajamas. It was very Yuuma-ish on one level, but he did have a simple interest in what kind of outfit she’d picked. 

Yuuma stood up as she spoke. 

“Want a peek? I’ll have to change into it.” 

“Sure,” Kojou causally replied. “Sorry to make you work.” 

Yuuma moved a hand to her sweatpants as she spoke. 

“It’s fine. It’s not gonna take long anyway.” 

Then right before Kojou’s eyes, she suddenly strippped them off. The generous display of her white thighs drew in Kojou’s gaze. 

“Y-Yuuma…?! When you say change… Wait, here?!” 

Yuuma smiled teasingly as she shifted her hands to the chest of her sweatshirt. 

“What’s the big deal? We used to do this all the time.” 

She slowly tugged it down like she was trying to get a reaction out of Kojou. 

“That’s when we were kids!! Now you’re—” 

Yuuma burst into a small giggle as she stripped off her sweatshirt. 

“Now I’m what…?” 

The moment before Kojou was going to avert his eyes as quickly as he could, he noticed she was wearing something else in place of underwear. 

“Yuuma…that’s…” 

Yuuma smiled proudly as she gazed up at the still thoroughly rocked Kojou. 

“Yeah, it’s witch cosplay. I put it on underneath to surprise you. It was kind of a tight fit, though.” 

The outfit she was now dressed in was a black dress with a very short skirt and one big ribbon tied over her breasts. Together with the triangular hat and the fishnets she was wearing, she sure did look like a witch. 

Mindful of Kojou’s silence, Yuuma had a rare look of unease on her face as she asked, “Weird to see me wearing something like this, huh?” 

Kojou replied as his gaze wandered about. 

“No, I think it’s a good fit, but…” 

The skirt was extremely short and the shoulders were wide open. Plus, it really showed off all of her body lines. Certainly, you had to call it a good fit for Yuuma’s stylishness. But in addition, it was far too exposing. He felt like it wasn’t a getup he should be seeing her in late at night with just the two of them. 

For some reason, watching Kojou slip into suspect behavior apparently made Yuuma happy as she murmured, “That so. I’m so glad.” 

Then, she suddenly drew her face close, right before Kojou’s eyes. 

“Kojou.” 

“Huh?” 

Yuuma touched her own cheek. 

“You’re bleeding. On your cheek.” 

Kojou stroked his own face, mimicking her. 

“Whoa, you’re right… A piece of that bench must’ve cut me.” 

Feeling the unexpected slipperiness of blood, Kojou stared dumbfounded at his fingertips. Perhaps his current arousal had opened up a wound sustained during the battle with Eustach. 

“Hold on a sec. I’ll get a Band-Aid.” 

As Yuuma spoke, she fetched a portable first aid kit out of a pocket of the gym clothes she’d stripped off. At her invitation, Kojou sat down on the spot. Yuuma leaned over him from the front, resulting in them looking at each other at a very close, intimate distance. 

Kojou flapped his lips casually to break the tension. 

“This kinda brings me back.” 

Yuuma mixed a strained smile into her nod. 

“That’s because you got hurt a lot, Kojou. That got me into the habit of walking around with a first aid kit.” 

“Wasn’t that ’cause I was following you around doing reckless things with you?” 

Yuuma played dumb about that part as she reached out to touch Kojou’s cheek. 

“That so?” 

This isn’t good , thought Kojou with internal apprehension. The extremely exposing outfit together with Yuuma leaning forward like that made him unable to ignore her cleavage. She laughed at Kojou’s obvious nervousness. 

“Your cheeks are red, Kojou.” 

Kojou turned his face as he spoke in a faint voice. 

“That’s ’cause you’re too close.” 

Yuuma gently narrowed her eyes. 

“I’m glad.” 

“About what…?” 

“I thought you’d act exactly like you used to and wouldn’t be able to see me as a girl. I put a fair bit of work into it, you know.” 

Kojou felt quite surprised at Yuuma’s unexpected confession. 

“You sure caught me by surprise, though. You wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing that outfit way back.” 

Yuuma’s smile seemed to carry disappointment as she slumped her shoulders. Kojou didn’t understand the reason that’d deflate her. 

“Well, that’s not really true, but anyway…” 

“Well, you’re you, I mean.” Kojou couldn’t think of it any other way so he just said it. “I mean, you’ve been cute since way back, Yuuma.” 

For a moment, Yuuma was at a loss for words, looking at Kojou with her eyes wide open. A very lonely expression came over her. “That’s just like you, Kojou. So, for example, if I stopped being human anymore, would you be able to say the same thing?” 

Kojou answered Yuuma’s joking words with a decisive declaration. “Don’t worry about that, I know lots of people who aren’t normal folks. One more ain’t gonna surprise me.” 

In just the room next door was an apprentice Attack Mage from a special agency, a homunculus, and a former angel. More important than all of that, Kojou himself had become the monster known as the Fourth Primogenitor. He didn’t think Yuuma was gonna turn into anything stranger than that . 

Yuuma murmured in visible satisfaction as she moved her hands around Kojou as if to embrace him. 

“That so… This is a Demon Sanctuary after all… Now I know for sure. You really are the only one for me, Kojou.” 

Kojou was in shock at the sensation conveyed by his cheek. 

“…Yuuma?” 

Yuuma was licking Kojou’s wound. She was licking the blood of the vampire called the Fourth Primogenitor. 

Then, just like that, she pressed her own lips against Kojou’s. 

“Wha…?!” 

The space behind Yuuma swayed, wavering like a ripple. Something from the other side gently showed its face as if rising from the bottom of a deep lake. 

It was a giant blue malevolent silhouette— 

Yuuma’s voice gently echoed into Kojou’s ear. 

“Now, let the festivities begin, Kojou.” 

As if responding to that sweet echo’s invitation, Kojou’s consciousness gently fell into a haze, and then, deeper and deeper into the darkness…