Strike the Blood - Volume 6 - Chapter Pr

INTRO 

Kojou Akatsuki, his entire body bathed in pure white light, raised his voice in anguish. 

“G…ahh…” 

It felt like the dazzling sunbeams pouring in the open window were going to burn him alive. As Kojou lay there, the morning sun was a blazing orange, its powerful ultraviolet rays shining merrily upon his cheek. 

Even with the end of autumn fast approaching, the sun seemed little different when viewed from a tropical city. 

This was the Demon Sanctuary of Itogami City, a man-made island floating some three hundred and thirty kilometers south of Tokyo—a city where midsummer never really ended. 

“So hot… Gonna burn to a crisp…” Kojou groaned from his bed, blinking blearily. 

What he saw through his teary, misty vision was the familiar sight of his bedroom and a small silhouette standing before him. It was a middle school girl, wearing a gray duffle coat over her uniform. Her long hair was tied up in a short, stern style, but the image she projected was one of liveliness, and her big eyes were the main feature on her highly expressive face. 

As Kojou awakened, Nagisa Akatsuki, his younger sister, peered down at him cheerfully. “Morning, Kojou! Awake yet?” 

She was always a boisterous girl, but today she seemed to have an extra helping of amusement on her face. With a practiced hand, she opened the curtains of the room one by one, causing Kojou to pull the blanket over his face. 

But it was to no avail. With a sigh of dismay, Kojou gingerly sat up and combed down his sleep-rumpled hair. “Yeah, anyone would after all that sunlight in their face…” 

It was sometime past six AM, given the light. To Kojou, who was emphatically not a morning person, this sunny greeting was how the dead of night felt to most people. He was forced awake, and the gears in his muddled, sleepy head felt too rusted to move. 

Nagisa grinned at this display awkwardly, quite clearly exasperated. “Oh, you big baby. This time of year, even a vampire could take the morning sun and not even twitch.” 

“Apparently that’s not exactly the case…” 

“Hmm?” 

“Er, nothing.” Kojou averted his eyes from his sister’s stare of suspicion, his resentful glower shifting toward the windows. 

The big blue sky spread out beyond the window, white sunlight twinkling as it reflected off the windswept sea. To be blunt, it was a hard sight for a nocturnal vampire to take—even if you were the World’s Mightiest Vampire. 

“So did something happen? It’s early enough you could’ve just let me sleep, right?” 

Kojou checked the clock a second time as he spoke. It was way too soon to be heading to school. At a minimum, he ought to have had fifteen more minutes to sleep, maybe even thirty if he sprinted to the train station. Regardless, he sounded displeased to have been robbed of this precious sleeping time. 

However, his sister smiled wryly in response, her cheeks reddening slightly. “Well, just a bit. It’s been a while, so I wanted to show you something right away…” 

Nagisa began twirling around. “Show me…what?” Kojou asked, perplexed. 

The expression on Nagisa’s face stiffened and froze over. “Wait… You don’t know what I’m talking about?” 

As heartless eyes glared down upon him, Kojou shrugged his shoulders. “Nope.” 

Nagisa’s cheeks puffed up in a visible sulk, and she spread her arms wide like a cobra spreading its hood. 

“Ta-daa!” she reiterated. 

“…Huh?” 

As Kojou tilted his head, his sister rammed his shoulder with her own. She didn’t exactly have enough mass to leave a dent, but the fasteners of the duffle coat definitely hurt as they dug in. 

“Ta-da-daa! Ta-da, ta-daaaa!” 

“Wh-what the heck are you doing?” 

“Um… A fashion show? Kinda?” 

“I…ah…don’t think that sound’s from a fashion show…” 

Kojou sighed in exasperation as he fended off his sister’s newest attack. But as he did so, something tugged on his mind, and he suddenly raised his eyebrows. Wait, fashion show…? 

“Come to think of it, what’s with that coat? Why are you wearing…” 

He was going to ask, something that looks so stuffy, but Kojou swallowed his words with a vengeance, for he had noticed the sparkling, expectant eyes with which his little sister was looking at him. 

“Does it look good? Does it?” Nagisa’s body squirmed as she awaited his answer. 

A bit taken aback by her forcefulness, Kojou nodded awkwardly. “Y-yeah. It’s pretty cute on you and all.” 

Nagisa put a hand on her chest as she sighed with relief, a smug smile coming over her lips. 

“Is that so? Tee-hee-hee. This is the mail-order one that finally arrived yesterday. I’ve wanted to try it since way back. The pattern on the lining is really cute, too. Having a long hem is important, as well—the way it just barely hides the school uniform skirt, it’s like wearing only tights! But it’s cheaper than I thought. It’s a secondary line of West Langobard, and that’s a big brand. Asagi told me all about it!” 

“Really…” 

Not that Kojou really got everything Nagisa was saying, but he pretended that he did. Her tendency to drown people in words was one of his little sister’s few faults. 

Kojou waited for a pause in Nagisa’s rapid-fire delivery and then bluntly asked, “Why a coat like that, though? The season’s not exactly over yet…” 

With Itogami Island’s combination of heat and humidity, you rarely needed a coat even in the middle of “winter.” In fact, Nagisa was already sweating outright from wearing the coat in the house. 

However, it was Nagisa who looked surprised. “What are you talking about? It’s November already. It’s cold on the mainland. It’ll be winter anytime now.” 

“Well, on the mainland, sure…” 

“Geez… You’re hopeless, Kojou. Did you forget about last year?” As Nagisa spoke, she sighed, completely beside herself. 

“Last year…?” Kojou put a hand on his forehead as he tried to grasp a few vague memories. Last year, Kojou was in his third year of middle school, the same as Nagisa was now. It was before he bore the nonsensical title of “the Fourth Primogenitor.” As for events taking place at the time— 

“Wait, you mean the middle school class trip?” 

“Well, more like field trip than class trip…” Nagisa poked her tongue out, disappointed. 

The Saikai Academy Middle School’s class trip provided the students in the Demon Sanctuary, who were isolated from the wider world, an opportunity to study and observe regular society in its natural state. The destinations were not famous tourist attractions, but rather high-rises and factories and the like. There was virtually no “free” time to be had. 

Even so, it meant traveling and spending nights together with classmates, so by no means did middle schoolers find it a chore. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve been back to the mainland, maybe since elementary school? It wasn’t fair you got to go when your club had matches.” 

Kojou scowled a bit as he replied. “Not that it was anything pleasant, but yeah…” 

After all, by ship it took eleven long hours to get to the mainland from Itogami Island. Of course, a small athletics club with a meager budget picked second-class ships with the cheapest rooms money could buy. It took half a day to get to where the basketball game was being played, and then they went straight back to the harbor as soon as the match had concluded. After taking a rocking boat all the way back to the island, they had the privilege of going to school the next day without a single wink of sleep. It wasn’t a lifestyle he could recommend to others. He recalled the middle school field trip as paradise by comparison. 

Seeing the smile on Kojou’s face as he reminisced, Nagisa said with a small measure of pride, “Well, I’ll pick up a souvenir for you.” 

“Yeah, you do that. Well, if that’s all…” 

Then get goin’, thought Kojou, dismissing the girl with a wave of his hand as he flopped back onto the bed. He crawled under the bedsheet to hide. 

“Hey, don’t go back to sleep!” 

Nagisa hastily grabbed Kojou and dragged him back to the light. As Kojou desperately tried to escape from her assault, a tiny corner of his headspace lazily thought of an entirely different middle school girl: the one titled “the Watcher of the Fourth Primogenitor,” who stuck to him like glue. 

Of course, she wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on him if she was outside of Itogami Island on a cultural exchange excursion, so just what was Himeragi planning to do—? 

Island North District Six— 

The facility had been constructed in a research district deep underground, cut off from sunlight year-round. 

It was a small, gray, grimy building. Its windows had steel plates bolted over them; the entrance had barbed wire leading up to it. Even at a glance, it didn’t seem anything like a mere abandoned building. 

However, those humans attuned to magic would surely notice the presence of multilayered wards spread around the property. They were powerful aversion wards, so much so that normal human beings wouldn’t even be able to approach. 

The building was the private property of the Gigafloat Management Corporation—the organization that administered the Demon Sanctuary. It was a safe house for concealing and protecting demons who went unregistered for certain reasons and criminals who had reached deals with law enforcement. 

As a de facto prison, it had strict internal security. Armed security guards patrolled the facility 24-7, keeping everyone but restricted personnel out. 

The silence of this safe house was broken by a furious, thunder-like roar of gunfire. 

In spite of the guards’ volley of submachine gun fire, the building shook uncomfortably as a hole was gouged into the interior wall. The gunfire continued for but a single moment longer, and afterward, in its wake, came the echo of Phobos and Deimos, the Greek gods of fear. 

Finally, as silence returned to the building’s corridor, all that remained were the footsteps of a single man. 

His shoes did not make the same sounds as the guards’. In fact, as he walked, the corridor’s bulkhead, locked by a magic spell, was being violently ripped asunder. Slowly, the intruder who had wiped out the guards approached the center of the facility. 

Until finally, the last bulkhead was destroyed, and the intruder revealed. 

He was a lithe young man. He wore a pure white coat with a red shirt, and both his tie and hat sported a red-and-white checkered pattern, and in his left hand, he carried a silver cane with a skull engraved onto the handle. Overall, he had the air of a shady stage magician. 

Said magician touched the tipped brim of his hat as he looked around. The deepest part of the isolated facility had been turned into a surprisingly futuristic laboratory. It was a sorcerous engineering research office, equipped with the latest diagnostic tools. 

Standing in the office were several automatons acting as assistants, and a man. The man was grim-faced and middle-aged, with a solemnity that resembled a clergyman. 

Gazing without reaction at the ripped bulkhead, the man spoke in a composed tone: “…That was an overly violent way to knock on my door, was it not?” 

Faced with such biting sarcasm, the young man gave a self-deprecating smile. “I suppose so. Well, it was a pretty rough welcome.” 

Speaking as if he were doing parlor tricks, the young man suddenly opened his right hand. His palm held a small clump of metal; it fell to the floor with a high-pitched clang. 

He had dropped silver electrum alloy anti-demon bullets, probably some forty or fifty shots’ worth. The young man had calmly made his way over despite the guards having shot that many straight at him. 

The young sorcerer gave off a carefree smile as he continued. “Kensei Kanase, I presume? Former palace sorcerous engineer of Aldegia, the sorcery manufacturing powerhouse? I remember your thesis on spiritual matter conversion. What a revolutionary concept. You took a real risk just by publishing the thing, didn’t you?” 

Kensei Kanase’s eyebrows failed to even twitch. “I take it you didn’t come here just to talk shop?” 

“I suppose that’s true.” The young man narrowed his eyes coldly. “It’s certainly not money I want.” 

“What happened to the guards who ‘welcomed’ you?” 

“Oh, I didn’t kill them,” the young man declared, airily waving at the corridor behind him. “Though I’m not sure you can call them alive, either…” 

Five guards were standing in the hallway, unconscious. None had obvious external injuries or even any signs of blood loss. However, they were immobile with their guns still drawn, as if they’d been frozen in place. The skin exposed by the gaps in their uniforms had a dull, metallic sheen; they were indistinguishable from gray statues. 

“What a laugh. As if a bunch of goons like that was going to stop the likes of me? To be honest, it was a lot harder ripping through the wards on those bulkheads.” 

Gazing at the guards that had been transformed into living metal statues, Kensei Kanase murmured, “I see… An alchemist…” 

“A novice still in training, but yes. You can call me Kou—Kou Amatsuka.” 

“Kou Amatsuka…? One of Nina Adelard’s apprentices, then.” 

“You really are sharp on the uptake.” The young man calling himself Amatsuka curled up one corner of his lips in an appreciative sneer. “Then you know what I’m here for. Hand over my master’s heirloom. Now.” 

“Whatever do you mean?” Kensei Kanase replied coolly. 

The young man’s smiling lips twisted in rage. “Don’t play dumb,” he snapped. “I want the Spirit Blood core you sealed five years ago. It’s mine to begin with, and I want it back.” 

Kanase went unmoved. “I regret that I can do no such thing. As Adelard’s apprentice, surely you know the reason why.” 

“I’m not asking about what’s convenient for you!” Amatsuka shouted. Simultaneously, a malevolent flood of magical energy surged from his body, releasing a high-pitched whine. 

From a safe in the back of the room, a sealed magical device resonated in response. A ferocious smile came over the intruder. 

“Hah, found you.” 

“I said, I will not hand it over,” Kanase grumbled, drawing a tiny magical circle in the air with his fingertip. 

It was the Make Golem spell, breathing artificial life into a humanoid object and turning it into his faithful servant. A moment after the spell triggered, gunfire erupted from behind Amatsuka. 

It had come from the guards. With their flesh turned into metal, Kanase’s spell had reanimated them as his own. 

Amatsuka had no way to evade the surprise attack, even though the figures were still immobile. His white coat ripped into shreds from the bullets’ countless hits. 

Even so, the young man mocked them with a laugh. “And there’s Kensei Kanase for you. To think, you can still use a spell like this with your magic power sealed…” 

The old man’s expression tightened. The alchemist had pointed out an inconvenient fact: As a criminal in custody, Kensei Kanase’s magical power had been heavily restricted by the Gigafloat Management Corporation. He couldn’t use the vast majority of magical energy available to him as an engineer of sorcery. 

“What a pity. You can’t kill me with tricks like these.” 

“Nn…?!” 

Amatsuka raised his right hand high. A viscous, black metallic fluid flowed from the cuff of his sleeve. The fluid, extending to the length of a whip, instantly transformed into a sharp, polished blade and mowed down the golem statues. 

Then, having lost his servants, Kanase too was cut down. Slashed from his shoulder almost to his heart, the engineer gushed blood as he silently crumbled to the floor. 

“A foolish decision. If you’d just politely handed it over, I wouldn’t have had to hurt you…” Scowling at the fallen man, Amatsuka advanced into the heart of the lab. 

Now exposed to the light, his right arm, covered in a metallic fluid, gave off a wet-looking sheen. 

No—his arm was not covered in the liquid; his right arm was metal to begin with. The metallic black fluid, flowing with the consistency of quicksilver, was merely imitating a human hand. 

Realizing the nature of Amatsuka’s form, Kanase groaned in pain. “I see… Wiseman’s Blood… That’s what destroyed Adelard’s Abbey back then…” 

The alchemist did not reply. All he did was shoot a hateful smile. 

“Sorry… I’m taking back the half of my body Master stole from me.” 

Amatsuka sliced apart the thick metallic safe with ease, as if it were paper. 

Alchemists could freely construct and deconstruct anything made of metal. Even the hardest of alloys became as fragile as a tin can under their touch, no matter how slight the contact. 

Crouching down, Amatsuka removed a ball about fifty centimeters in diameter from the safe—a transparent scarlet gemstone. When he held it up to the light, a satisfied smile came over his face. 

When the young alchemist finally departed, it was to the sound of his cane rhythmically tapping the floor. 

When Kensei Kanase had heard the man’s steps grow distant, his frail lips formed a single word: 

“Kanon…” 

As he sank into the pool of blood, he spoke only his daughter’s name, begging for forgiveness.