Strike the Blood - Volume 7 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE 

FAIRY’S COFFIN 

1 

The island of Gozo floated in more or less the center of the Mediterranean Sea. 

As a part of the European Commonwealth of Malta, it was primarily a tourist attraction. Its bountiful, diverse coastline made for a beautiful sight, and the contrast between its gray cliffs and the blue sea charmed many visitors. 

However, Gozo was also known as an island of ruins. 

Every corner of the isle’s interior was littered with subterranean tombs, ring cairns, and giant stone buildings, said to be mankind’s oldest, predating the Neolithic Age. Even in modern times, many of their mysteries remained unsolved, including whether human hands or powerful deities had created them. 

And so— 

A lone man stood at the dig site of one such ruin of import, a nameless subterranean tomb, and yelled with abandon: 

“Whoooooaaa—! This is delicious!” 

He was a fairly good-looking, tall Japanese man. He had sunburnt skin and an impetuous face. His hair was a mess, as if he’d cut it himself with a knife, and his unkempt beard stood out. His red-dyed leather trench coat and fedora made him look less like a surveyor of ruins and more like a member of an old-time mafia. More than anything, he resembled a washed-up private investigator. 

He was middle-aged, around forty years old, perhaps— 

The man gripped a bottle of Bajtra, an alcoholic drink produced in Malta made from cactus fruits. He sat deeply in his camping chair, legs spread out, drinking it with his midday meal. 

He brought some smoked sausage to his lips as he said, “Isn’t this nice? Blue skies, white clouds, tasty food and wine… Really makes a man feel alive.” 

The coarse sausage, also native to Malta, gave off a particular fragrance. He tore into his food before taking another sip from the bottle. Almost as an afterthought, he made a deep, chagrined sigh. 

“Now if I just had even one hot babe with me it’d really be perfect, but…” 

A white woman appearing to be in her twenties replied coldly to the man’s complaint. “—What are you trying to say, Doc?” 

Even though she was dressed as if she were on a safari, the woman gave off an air of competence, punctuality, and class. Her symmetrical face had barely any makeup, and her beautiful hair was cropped short. She had the appearance of a first-rate researcher. 

He noticed her annoyance as she approached and, making the expression of a mongrel being scolded by his owner, chuckled carelessly as he showed her the wide-open swimsuit model magazine he had been reading. 

“Ah… Well you see, Miss Caruana, the weather’s so fine. Shouldn’t you learn from the other girls here and wear clothing a little less…restrictive? I think it’d raise the morale of the digging team.” 

Liana Caruana, senior adviser to the Fourth Gozo Ruins Joint Examination Team, brusquely snatched the magazine from the man’s hands. 

“I regret to inform you such services are not part of my professional duties.” 

The man she had called “Doc” slumped his shoulders and shook his head in exasperation, somehow looking sympathetic as he shifted his gaze toward Liana’s bust. 

“Well, aren’t you a stick-in-the-mud? We’ve come all the way to the Mediterranean, so why not act the part? When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I mean, no need to worry about it. Back in my homeland, we have a saying: Small tits are precious things. Just ’cause your breasts are tiny doesn’t mean they aren’t in high dema—” 

Liana shielded her breasts with both hands, glaring icily at the man with an icy look on her face. 

“—Pursuing a sexual harassment lawsuit is troublesome in a variety of ways, so I would rather you not add that to my workload. And for that matter, why don’t you work a little more seriously with that diligence Japanese are famous for? Plus, you appear to have the preconceived notion that the people living in Latin countries are a hedonistic, laid-back lot. Do not forget that this island has been a crucial component of Mediterranean culture and commerce since ancient times.” 

The man called Doc drank the last drop in his bottle and strained a smile. 

“I haven’t forgotten. History tells us that it was the world’s oldest Demon Sanctuary, part of the Atlantic Imperial Federation, and the front line of a brutal war from when the Dominion of the Second Primogenitor, Fallgazer, invaded. But, well, it’s got nothing to do with my job. It’s not like we can do anything until we’ve lined up all the staff we need.” 

“That is…certainly true, but…” 

The man spoke in an easygoing tone as he reached for another sausage. 

“So let’s take it easy. It ain’t like anything good’ll come from getting worked up and groping around without a clue—” 

The next moment, they heard an explosion behind them so powerful they could feel it in their chests. 

A giant pillar of flame soared into the air as the ground shook. The dust cloud blocked the sky, shrouding it in gray. 

The explosion’s center was located in the rear of the rocky area where the pair was sitting, putting it near the ruins’ entrance. The use of explosives at a dig site wasn’t rare, but the blast was far too large. A section of the ruins was blown into the air, with rubble hammering down to the earth like hail. They could hear the cries of confused workers trying to get away and sounds akin to gunfire. Clearly, the scene was not consistent with a controlled detonation. Some kind of unexpected trouble was afoot. 

“Ah…yeah. Kinda like that…,” the man said languidly as he watched the smoke encircle the ruin. 

“Th-this is no time to relax! What in the world is—?!” 

“Ah… Hey, Miss Caruana…” 

Faster than the man could tell her not to, Liana dashed to the rocky area and climbed down. Even as the winds kicked up from the blast hit her face, she recklessly ran toward the heart of the explosion. 

The man clicked his tongue slightly and, left with no other choice, clutched his beloved rifle case as he followed her. 

The dust cloud lingered over the area as they heard the repeated bellow of gunfire. 

Because excavation work at the ruin had been suspended, few workers were around, and they were already limited to several members of the academic research group sent by the North Sea Empire and combat personnel from the Private Military Corporation taking care of guarding the ruin. The combatants were fighting an ominous, wriggling shadow inside the cloud. It did not seem to be a proper living creature, nor did it seem to be a man-made construct. Furthermore, it was frighteningly huge. Perhaps this was what a state-of-the-art main battle tank would look like if it could walk upright like a person… 

A bearded, well-built guard ran out of the dust cloud toward them. 

“Gaho! Give us a hand, Gaho! Doc!!” 

He was the private military contractor, Dimos Carrozzo, head of the guards protecting the ruin investigation team. He was an imposing man over a hundred and ninety centimeters tall. The sight of a large man carrying an automatic weapon and an ammunition belt created an impression of a huge boar outfitted with modern armaments. But now his body was wounded all over, with his face warped with panic. 

The Japanese man called Doc spoke to Carrozzo in a lighthearted tone that seemed very out of place. “Heya, Carrozzo. What’s the fuss? I told you not to go into the third strata, didn’t I?” 

Carrozzo, realizing the man was right there, dropped to his knees as if all strength had deserted him. 

“Sorry, Gaho… The investigation team from Daktram University broke the agreement and went in on their own…!” 

“Sheesh. Well, I figured it was something like that…,” he muttered dismissively. “Also, correction. My name isn’t Gaho.” 

With the cloud of smoke finally beginning to thin, the enemy’s true face emerged. It was a monstrously shaped idol over four meters in height, clad in a metal shell like a suit of armor—a humanoid weapon. Its giant, featureless head resembled a sperm whale, solemn and overwhelming. Perhaps it had been modeled after a Cetus, a monster in the Mediterranean Sea depicted in Greek mythology. 

“Doc, what is that…?!” Liana’s expression tightened. 

The man nodded in apparent joy. “Ah, that’s a type of gargoyle. I heard the Third Investigation Team wiped them all out, but to think there was still somethin’ this big left behind. Gets the juices flowing, huh?” 

Liana clutched her head, distraught as she watched the man admire it like it wasn’t his problem. “How can you be so casual about…?!” 

The idol had emerged from under the ruin. Apparently, it was a type of automated defense system for dispatching those trespassing in a tomb, and it had awakened when the investigation team members recklessly entered the ruin. The idol had then busted its way through thick limestone walls, forcing its way to the surface. 

The guards desperately fought it, but mere automatic weapons were no use against the idol’s armor. Not only was it likely built from strong metal, no doubt sorcery had further strengthened it. 

Conversely, the pale, bluish-white beams from the idol sliced through the guards’ armored vehicles, setting them aflame one after another. 

Liana bit her lip in horror. 

“Ugh…!” 

She touched the bracelet on her left wrist and seemed about to rush toward the idol all by herself when her companion grabbed her collar and held her back by force. 

“Don’t be in such a hurry, Miss Caruana. It’d take a vampire primogenitor to take down a monster like that through brute force. If we don’t think this through, we’ll just be adding to the damage.” 

“B-but…!” 

Liana grimaced as she glared at the man. Right beside them, Carrozzo was desperately engaging the idol. But neither bullets nor direct hits from hand grenades were able to even scratch the armor. 

Carrozzo yelled, “Can’t you do something, Gaho?! At this rate, we’re all done for!” 

The man sighed in annoyance as he put a hand to the rim of his fedora. “I told you already, it’s not Gaho…” Then he took a picture of the standing idol with his cell phone, murmuring with an oddly buoyant tone, “It’s a lot like the Nalakuvera from Mehelgal Number Nine… Not so much a trap against diggers than a tomb protector…a guardian to make sure whatever’s inside doesn’t wake up. Looks like we hit the jackpot.” 

As the man continued his calm observations, Carrozzo glared at him. “Gaho!” 

The man laughed at the huge, impatient guard. 

“Don’t worry, Carrozzo. He’s the guardian of the ruin. He won’t attack people if they’re outside the area. As long as the investigation team doesn’t put up a useless fight, it’ll just…” 

Before he could finish his sentence, smoke and flames enveloped the idol. A rocket had struck it squarely. Reinforcements from the private military had come running from the base camp and used a portable rocket launcher. 

The idol had taken a direct hit from a high-explosive anti-tank warhead, yet even then it stood unscathed. It immediately commenced its counterattack against the guards that had fired upon it. 

The idol’s bluish-white beams were actually from a high-powered laser cannon, able to melt down a large boulder in an instant. The flames engulfed the examination team’s base camp. The armed guards weren’t the only target of the counterattack: The idol began indiscriminately attacking equipment used for exploring the ruins, tents in the base camp, and even the team members themselves as they ran about in confusion. It was only a matter of time until the base camp was completely annihilated. 

The man put a hand over his eyes in dismay. 

“Hoo boy… Well, this isn’t good.” 

The Cetus-modeled idol apparently registered the entire examination team as an enemy force. There was little doubt—it would not stop until every human being in the area had been destroyed. 

Liana hastily urged him. “Doc…!” 

“Yeah, yeah. I’d have preferred to recover it undamaged for study, but it looks like we’re long past that.” 

The man gently deflected her words as he put down the rifle bag he was carrying. The weapon he removed from it was a 1.8-meter-long sniper rifle weighing about thirty kilograms, give or take. Its firepower was so massive that the term cannon seemed more fitting for it than rifle. 

Liana stared blankly at the ridiculously large gun, forgetting even to blink. “A…an anti-materiel rifle?!” 

“With a twenty-millimeter-diameter barrel. Weighs a ton, but I made the right call to put up with lugging it.” 

Speaking like a child boasting about his favorite toy, the man set the rifle on top of a bipod. 

The idol slowly turned his way, perhaps sensing its enemy’s intentions. Even so, the man did not rush. He smoothly loaded a round and carefully took aim. 

The icon, now completely turned to face him, opened the laser cannon port on its head and began to open fire— 

When suddenly, the man pulled the trigger, launching a bullet accompanied by a loud boom. His target was that very laser port—the sole gap in the idol’s armor. 

No matter how great its caliber, a mere rifle bullet couldn’t possibly destroy an idol that had shrugged off a square hit from an anti-tank rocket. The anti-materiel rifle’s advantage lay in the precision of the bullet track for sniping. 

The shell plunged through the gap in the armor, no more than several centimeters wide, almost like it was being sucked in and fatally ravaged the delicate mechanisms in the idol’s interior. With the firing port destroyed, the high-powered laser cannon’s energy had lost its outlet and exploded in a bluish-white bolt of lightning. 

Liana clenched both fists and shouted in delight. 

“You did it…!” 

It was the first real damage inflicted on the idol after it had fended off so many attacks. However, the man’s expression did not change. 

“No, not yet…” 

Gazing at the damaged golem with intense interest, he calmly unloaded his spent bullet casing. 

The idol had stopped moving immediately after the explosion but promptly returned to operation, marching straight toward the man with the gun. Apparently, the laser cannon explosion had not inflicted fatal damage. The armor-clad giant seemed intent on trampling the man underfoot. Furthermore, the area around the “destroyed” laser cannon was wriggling around like a living creature as it began to repair itself. 

Liana shouted, “…It’s regenerating?!” 

“Well, that figures. Quirks aside, it’s a legacy of the Devas. It won’t buy the farm from that.” 

“Just as I expected,” muttered the man, a satisfied smile on his face. It was Liana who was shaken. 

“D-Doc—!” 

Carrozzo, now out of bullets, seemed almost ready to cry as he shouted to the man, “What’ll we do, Gaho?! How the hell do we bring that thing down?!” 

No doubt he really wanted to run away, but his duty as a guard would not permit such cowardice. At the very least, they needed to buy some time so the people in the camp could flee. 

In contrast, the man’s expression was cheerful, as if he was enjoying the crisis. 

“Don’t worry. Now I have a pretty good idea of its locomotion ritual pattern. These kinds of gargoyles all have a common weakness—and my next bullet’s special order.” 

The man took a fresh cartridge out of his leather trench coat. It was a golden bullet tipped with a gemstone. There was a strange pattern etched on the casing. 

“Even if it is a legacy from an ancient civilization,” he continued, “there’s pretty much no internal engine that lets something keep moving over thousands of years, which is why a lot of gargoyles draw magical energy from the ruins themselves. So if you send excess magical energy flowing through that circuit—” 

The man loaded the next round into the rifle and prepared to fire again. He aimed at the idol’s chest and calmly pulled the trigger. With an accompanying boom, the golden bullet smashed against the giant’s torso. 

Of course, an anti-materiel rifle bullet did not have the force to penetrate the idol’s armor. The bullet instantly smashed apart into countless tiny fragments, simultaneously releasing an enormous surge of magical energy that crystalized into a large magical circle. 

Liana, realizing the true nature of the bullet the man had fired, looked back at him in shock. 

“A spell bullet…?!” 

Spell bullets were special projectiles with cartridges made of precious metals that sealed enormous amounts of magical energy within. Very few of these even existed, and the guns that could fire them, fewer still. They were so expensive that their use was considered exclusive to a fraction of royalty; however, each round held enormous power. 

“Where on earth did you get something like that?!” Liana asked. 

The man made a charming, laid-back smile as he rose to his feet. 

“I told you, special order.” 

The match had been decided. The idol with the body of a man and the head of a whale, imprisoned by the magic circle, shot beams all around it as it crumbled. The enormous magical energy released by the spell bullet had overloaded the magical ritual animating the idol, causing it to destroy itself. 

Carrozzo tossed his weapon aside as he rose to his feet, laughing heartily as he went to hug the man. 

“Ha-ha… You did it… I knew you could do it, Gaho…!” 

The man’s face scowled in annoyance as he gruffly kicked Carrozzo aside. Carrozzo, born on the Iberian Peninsula, had difficulty pronouncing Japanese names. The man seemed quite fed up as he rose, carrying the rifle with him as the barrel sizzled. 

“I told you already… Don’t make me repeat myself, Carrozzo. My name isn’t pronounced Gaho. It’s Gajou.” 

Liana was a step removed from the two men as she listened to their conversation. She murmured inside her own mouth, as if to ensure no one overheard her, gazing longingly at the man’s dust-covered back as she spoke— 

“Gajou… Gajou Akatsuki…” 

2 

When Kojou Akatsuki landed at the airport in the Roman Autonomous Region on the Italian peninsula, it was spring already, just past the middle of March. He had to switch planes there to continue on to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta. 

There was only one more passenger with him: Nagisa Akatsuki, his little sister. Their mother had been traveling with them at first but had split off when they stopped at Hong Kong. 

Kojou had just graduated from primary school, and Nagisa was a year younger. Normally, the two wouldn’t be traveling on their own outside the country at those ages, but circumstances in the Akatsuki family were somewhat peculiar. 

Their mother, employed by the international conglomerate MAR, spent nearly half the year working overseas. Their father was staying in Malta for a ruin excavation and exploration scheduled to begin in March. 

And that was how Kojou and Nagisa, stuck between two globe-trotting parents, already had several experiences with overseas trips. Their father had insisted they come this time, too, so they had made the long trek over from Japan. 

Nagisa Akatsuki, eleven years old, exited into the airport’s reception lobby, raising her voice in admiration as she surveyed the sights. 

“Whoa…! Look, Kojou. A foreign country! Foreign people everywhere! All the signs are in other languages! Wow, it sure has been a while!” 

The two picked up their luggage as Kojou murmured in a voice that had yet to deepen, “Well, it’s a different country… And hey, we’re the foreigners here.” 

Nagisa was oddly wound up, probably from being trapped inside the fuselage of a plane for so long. Even without that, her long black hair, which reached all the way down to her hips, made her stand out. Kojou was embarrassed because he felt like everyone was staring at them. 

Nagisa chirped, “What is it, Kojou? Not feeling well? Ah, food cart sighted!! That looks delicious! Biscotti! Biscotti, please!! Four! Quattro!!” 

Nagisa clutched the coins she’d only just exchanged and rushed off to a food cart in the lobby. The employee had replied in a helpful manner, “Two should be plenty,” but Nagisa insisted on four and began haggling over the price in broken Italian. 

“…So the usual,” Kojou remarked. 

After Nagisa finished her purchase, she posed for a picture with another passenger who had requested a photo with her while Kojou was looking the other way. She adjusted very quickly. 

Staring at her as she finally returned, Kojou sighed at length. “You sure look happy.” 

Nagisa tilted her head a bit as she peered at Kojou’s face. “Well, you sure don’t, Kojou. Isn’t it a waste not to have fun when we haven’t been overseas in forever? Wanna eat some biscotti? I’ll give you half.” 

Kojou answered with a yawn. 

“Nah, I’ll pass. Geez, you ate on the plane, and now you’re eating again?” 

The time difference between Japan and Rome was seven hours. His body was sluggish from jet lag. Now that they’d reached Malta, it’d be another hour and a half until the next flight. 

“Dammit,” Kojou grumbled. “It’s Dad’s fault for sending us cheap airline tickets. There’s too many layovers. And anyway, this may be an overseas trip, but we’re actually going to help Dad with his work, right?” 

Nagisa’s tone dropped a little. “…Yeah. Sorry to drag you along, Kojou.” 

Their trip was a chance to see their father, but properly speaking, he’d only asked for Nagisa. Kojou was just her chaperone. 

“Hey, it’s not like you need to apologize. So what should we do now?” 

“Hmm, Gajou said his friend would come and pick us up. He said to wait near the airline counter… Oh, right, he gave me a map.” 

Nagisa began fishing things out of her coat pocket. Kojou was holding the luggage and casually watching her when someone suddenly bumped into his shoulder rather roughly. The man, a foreigner with a small build, had a conflicted look as he spoke. 

“Scusi—” 

Kojou couldn’t understand what he meant, but apparently the man was apologizing. He looked about thirty years old, give or take, and was dressed in plain clothes that made him blend in with the crowd. 

“Ah, sorry… Err…mi dispiace?” Kojou replied, using half-remembered Italian. 

The foreigner gave Kojou a satisfied, toothy grin. “Huh…? Di niente. Buon viaggio, stronzo—” 

“Ah, thanks, thanks. Grazie, grazie.” 

Kojou watched the smiling fellow wave and depart. Suddenly Nagisa gasped, raising her face and pointing at the man. 

“Kojou, my bag—!” 

“Huh…?” 

The foreigner, realizing Nagisa had begun to raise an alarm, suddenly broke into a sprint. He was carrying Nagisa’s bag, which Kojou had been holding under his arm after she gave it to him. The instant their shoulders had bumped, the man had stolen it, along with its contents: the airline ticket, passport, bank card, and other precious things. 

“Bastard—!” 

That second, Kojou’s mind went white, seething with rage. The instant he realized what had happened, his body broke into a full sprint. He pursued the purse snatcher with ferocious speed well beyond a typical child’s capacity. However, the opponent was running no less desperately. Though Kojou gradually closed the distance, catching up with him was no simple task. If the thief managed to get outside the airport, it would be nearly impossible for Kojou, ignorant of the lay of the land, to catch him. 

I’m not gonna make it—! Kojou despaired, but at that very moment, a lone traveler calmly walked in front of the thief. It was an East Asian girl shorter than both Kojou and Nagisa. Clothed in a frilly, extravagant dress, she resembled a beautiful doll. 

“—Per Dio!!” 

The bag snatcher had apparently opted to knock the girl aside rather than try to avoid her. He barreled straight toward her without any drop in speed. The next moment, the parasol in the girl’s hand lightly lashed out. 

Perhaps the action surprised the thief, because he lost his footing as if he’d tripped on an invisible step and tumbled forward with great force. Even then, he immediately rose in an attempt to flee again, but Kojou caught up to him first. 

Kojou cut off the bag snatcher’s path of retreat. “—I’m taking back Nagisa’s purse.” 

“Figlio di puttana…!” 

The irritated thief clicked his tongue and pulled out a knife, twirling it around in an effort to intimidate Kojou, who lowered his stance, silently staring at the man as he remembered his time playing defense in elementary school basketball. 

Of course, Kojou was unarmed and at a disadvantage in size. But oddly, he felt no fear. Observing things calmly, he could see tons of openings in the man’s movements. He fell for Kojou’s clumsy feints so easily that it was funny. 

The man, apparently at the end of his wits, lunged toward Kojou with his foot forward. That instant, Kojou slipped into the man’s flank, swiping back the stolen bag as if he were stealing a basketball. 

Kojou showed him the reclaimed luggage, his lips curling up ferociously. 

“Sorry, old man. I’ve got the ball.” 

The man gaped at the reclaimed bag, groaned, and hurled some kind of foul insult as he took off running. Watching him from behind, Kojou went limp, thoroughly exhausted. 

Kojou was still drained when the girl in the extravagant dress spoke to him. 

“Hmm, hmm. Not bad at all, brat.” 

Based on her appearance, she looked younger than Kojou, but her tone of voice and demeanor were haughty and aloof. Yet it seemed to fit her oddly well. 

“Same to you. Bailed me out there. Hey, what did you do to him, anyway?” 

“Don’t pry. I helped out on a whim, and that is all.” 

The girl in the dress laughed gracefully. Kojou unconsciously let out a fairly strained chuckle. Her attitude was bigger than she was, but however oddly menacing it was, she was a hard girl to hate. 

Nagisa, out of breath, finally caught up with her brother. 

“Kojou!” 

Seeing for herself that he was safe, her eyebrows furled in a pouty look. 

“Sheesh, don’t be reckless like that. What would happen if you got hurt in a place like this?!” 

“It’s all right. Someone helped me out, too.” 

“Eh? Who?” 

When Nagisa asked him that in confusion, eyes wide, Kojou shifted his gaze. 

“What do you mean, wh—Er?” 

The girl in the dress who he was sure had been there only moments before was nowhere to be seen. It was as if she’d simply melted into thin air without a trace— 

“Well, that’s weird. There was this Japanese girl in weird clothes here just a second ago… I think she was, like, your age.” 

Nagisa stared at him as he fumbled for an explanation. She sighed, exasperated. 

“…Well, as long as you’re all right…” 

Somehow, they’d managed to get their luggage back, but the thief had created quite a stir in the airport. This time, it definitely wasn’t Kojou’s imagination that everyone was watching. 

Maybe we should hoof it before we get into more trouble, Kojou considered, when a woman he didn’t recognize pushed through curious onlookers, calling to them as she approached. She was a young Caucasian woman dressed in a navy blue suit. She wore minimal makeup, but she was very attractive and gave off the impression of a capable secretary for a corporate president. 

“—Pardon me, but would you be Nagisa Akatsuki?” 

“Yes, I am… Ah, and you are?” Nagisa was a little thrown off as she replied. 

The woman replied in fluent Japanese, “I am Liana Caruana. Professor Gajou Akatsuki asked me to come pick you up.” 

“Eh?! Then you’re Gajou’s…er, my father’s friend, then…?” 

“Yes. I have been assigned to the Fourth Gozo Ruins Joint Examination Team as senior adviser,” she answered in a serious tone. 

Being the senior adviser at such a young age implied she was as capable as she looked…and she was beautiful, too. 

Kojou and Nagisa exchanged glances, murmuring with some resignation. 

“Guess this is why Mom was in a bad mood when Dad called.” 

“Even with those looks, Gajou’s oddly popular with the ladies, huh…” 

Liana expressed some concern. “Um… Is something wrong?” 

Nagisa smoothed things over with a vague smile and courteously bowed her head. “No, nothing at all. Ah-ha-ha-ha. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

3 

When Kojou and the others arrived on the island of Gozo, a lightly armored, military four-wheel-drive vehicle awaited them. Liana took the wheel, cutting through Città Victoria in the center toward the opposite side of the island. 

Gozo’s natural bounty made it a magnet for tourists, but the island was also a registered World Heritage Site due to the ancient ruins. A particularly famous ruin among them was a giant stone temple known as the Temple of G?gantija. 

Liana explained away, with Kojou offering perfunctory responses. 

“That temple is one of the world’s oldest, constructed in the Neolithic Age some fifty-five hundred years ago. According to local legend, the temple was constructed by a female giant called Sansuna. The name G?gantija means Tower of the Giants.” 

“Giant…huh?” 

Liana certainly had an encyclopedic knowledge of ruins befitting the adviser of an examination team. However, Kojou, not being an expert in the field, couldn’t understand more than half of what the young woman was saying. 

She continued: 

“The beings called giants were said to have ruled the world prior to the emergence of mankind, a mythological theme that can be found in every land. Greek mythology has the Titans, Norse mythology has the Jötunn, Chinese mythology has the Pangu, the Old Testament has the Nephilim… It is written that these were descendants of Adam and Eve that towered above humans.” 

Nagisa, sitting in the back, watched Liana through the rearview mirror. “So you, Gajou, and the others are studying the legend of these giants?” 

The question put a somewhat bewildered look on Liana’s face. 

“Don’t tell me the two of you haven’t heard anything about it from Doc?” 

With little enthusiasm, Kojou and Nagisa nodded and said in unison, “Not a thing.” 

Liana bit her lip a little. “Is that…so…? Then why did Doc…?” she murmured, mostly for her own benefit. 

Nagisa, deciding it was best to change the subject, called out to Liana in a cheery voice. “Ah, by the way, Liana, that bracelet… Is that a…?” 

Liana lifted up her left hand. 

“Bracelet? You mean this registration bracelet?” 

The band around her arm was about twice as thick as a watch. It was a demon registration bracelet—specially made in Demon Sanctuaries to guarantee the safety and prove the identity of a demon, and a transmitter for monitoring that demon. 

“I thought so!! So you’re a demon, Liana?” Nagisa countered. 

Seeing her surprise, Liana appeared somewhat forlorn. 

“Y-yes. I am a vampire born in the Warlord’s Empire. I am also here to protect the examination team, you see.” 

Even though the Holy Ground Treaty had been in effect for over four decades, a considerable number of humans still feared and loathed demonkind. Liana must have been concerned about how Nagisa would react now that she knew the woman’s true nature. 

But Nagisa’s eyes twinkled as if to blow those concerns away. 

“Wow, that’s awesome! This is the first time I’ve spoken to someone from the Warlord’s Empire. Oh, right, this island’s a Demon Sanctuary, too. I’m surprised Gajou has such a pretty vampire friend… How long have you known each other? The sunlight’s really strong on this island. Are you all right?” 

“Er, ah… Umm, that’s…” 

Kojou reluctantly intervened before Nagisa’s rapid-fire interrogation went any further. 

“…Let’s leave it at that, Nagisa. You’re scaring Liana here.” 

Liana was still in shock as Kojou strained a grin and bowed his head. 

“Sorry. She talks a lot.” 

Liana sighed but smiled pleasantly. 

“…You are quite an eccentric pair, as I would expect from Doc’s children.” 

It probably wasn’t just Kojou’s imagination that she looked…happy. He replied, “Not sure I get all of this, but there’s no way that’s a compliment, right?” 

Liana broke out in giggles. 

“Hee-hee, forgive me.” 

Even though her first impression was very proper, her smiling, unguarded face was simply adorable. 

Kojou looked back as the stone wall of a ruin receding into the distance and asked, “Is that all right? We passed right by it.” 

“It’s fine, since the Temple of G?gantija isn’t the ruin we’re studying.” 

“So it’s some other ruin, then?” 

“Yes. Last year, an underground tomb was discovered at a hill about two kilometers from here. It has no formal name. We call it the Fairy’s Coffin.” 

“Underground tomb? A grave?” 

“Yes. I think it’s a ruin from just before or after The Cleansing.” 

“The Cleansing…? That’s what Dad’s doing research on, isn’t it…?” Kojou didn’t express much confidence. 

For some reason, Liana’s cheeks reddened as she nodded. “Yes, it is. There are traces of a great genocide and large-scale destruction left in every corner of the world…all said to be the Great Calamity wrought by the Fourth Primogenitor.” 

“Huh…” 

Kojou and Nagisa’s father, the man named Gajou Akatsuki, was an archeologist, but not the studious type who sat in an office, calmly poring over ancient documents. He worked in the field, slipping into every war-torn country on Earth to plunder antiquities unguarded amid the confusion, little better than a looter after a blaze. 

The theme of Gajou’s research was an event known as The Cleansing. It was recorded in the bibles of the Western Church and was apparently a large incident over the course of history. 

“But that’s just a legend, right?” Kojou said. “I heard no one’s actually found any solid proof that it actually happened…” 

For some reason, Liana looked morose as she muttered, “Yes. It would be nice if it was just a legend, but…” 

Kojou thought her demeanor was a little suspicious, but before he could follow up with a question, the car left the main road, entering a rough, boulder-strewn stretch. Apparently, the ruin was just ahead. 

Liana desperately clutched the steering wheel as she said, “I see it now. This is the examination team base camp.” 

The car was shaking violently as it moved over a large section of uneven rock. It was so bad that careless dialogue could lead to a bitten tongue. 

Finally, they arrived at the base camp, a collection of tents and prefabricated huts. Several heavy excavation machines were sitting idle, with little in sight that could be called proper surveying gear. Instead, what stood out were the armed Private Military Corporation guards and their heavily outfitted armored cars. It looked more like the forward base of a guerilla unit than the site of a ruin excavation. 

Nagisa and Kojou mouthed off on their own as they exited the car. 

“Wow, lots of guards here. Maybe there’s buried treasure?” 

“If there was, I’m pretty sure Dad would’ve swiped it first and run off…” 

Out of the blue, a man came close and embraced their shoulders from behind. 

“—Who’s swiping what?” 

He was middle-aged, wearing a fedora and a leather jacket, with the scent of alcohol and explosives hovering over him. 

Reunited with her father after so long, Nagisa looked up cheerfully. “Gajou!” 

Gajou casually picked up his daughter and hoisted her onto his shoulder like she was a little child. 

“Ohh, Nagisa! Here I was thinking an angel had arrived, and it turns out to be my own daughter! Ha-ha, it’s good to have you here. Have you become even more beautiful since the last time I laid eyes on you?” 

Nagisa, atop his shoulder, objected as her cheeks reddened. “Wait a—Gajou, you’re embarrassing me!” 

Gajou continued smiling heartily with his sunbaked face. 

“You must be tired from the long trip. Nothing bad happened to you?” 

“Nah, because I had Kojou with me.” 

“Mm…Kojou?” 

That moment, Gajou seemed to finally remember that he actually had a son. With a thoroughly mystified look, he asked in a rather blunt tone, “Hey, runt. What are you doing here?” 

“I’m her chaperone, chap-er-one! As if we could let Nagisa go on a trip by herself!” 

With Nagisa’s small frame still resting on his shoulder, Gajou put a hand to his chin and mulled something over. 

“…I don’t think you’re gonna be any use while you’re here, but…oh well. Don’t get in the way of my work, runt.” 

Kojou curled his lips in resentment. “You sure treat Nagisa differently than me. Shitty dad you are.” 

Certainly he was annoyed, but he was also used to the man’s foul tongue. When you looked at it as banter between two equal men, it didn’t seem all that bad. 

Gajou redirected the conversation. “Anyway, how ’bout something to eat? The cooking on this island’s pretty good stuff. The special sausages and local beer go together real well.” 

Kojou felt a sudden headache coming on from Gajou’s typical nonsense. 

“I’m totally a minor here, you know!” 

But Nagisa, usually the first to complain at a time like this, wasn’t even listening to them speak. 

“Nagisa…?” her brother asked. 

Noticing the shift in her behavior, Gajou murmured gravely, “She noticed, huh…?” 

The girl was silently gazing at the base of the rocks. It was a stonework entrance for a passageway that called to mind a shrine. 

It was by no means a magnificent ruin. The reddish-brown volcanic rock sat in a pathetic state, eroded by wind and rain, and it hadn’t been adorned in any way. Wreckage from destroyed vehicles was strewn around the area. Perhaps there had been some kind of accident during excavation. 

But more than that, an eerie presence hovered over the place. There was an oppressive feeling, a kind of majesty within telling others not to approach lightly. 

“That’s…a ruin?” Kojou inquired. 

“Yeah. A relic of The Cleansing—the twelfth Fairy’s Coffin.” 

“Fairy’s…Coffin…” 

Kojou pondered how that poetic echo in his mouth clashed with the plainness of the ruin. 

Nagisa continued silently examining the structure from afar, as if captivated by something within… 

4 

Before daybreak the next morning, Kojou and Nagisa slipped out of the base camp, heading toward the nearby forest. 

On Malta, which was surrounded by the sea on all sides, fresh water was a precious commodity. However, the island of Gozo was comparatively rich in water due to its natural springs. 

Nagisa immersed her body in one such small spring. This bath was to clear her mind and rid herself of all impurities. 

Malta’s Mediterranean Sea climate was said to be temperately warm, but even so, it was decently cold that morning. The only thing she was wearing was a thin white undershirt. The water-drenched fabric clung to her flesh, making the petite girl’s body look even smaller. 

Nagisa shouted to Kojou, who was waiting in the shadow of a rocky area. 

“Keep a good lookout so no one comes, Kojou!” 

“You got it,” Kojou replied with a desultory wave. He didn’t think there were any perverts ready to peek on a kid in the bath out in wasteland well removed from human habitation, but he couldn’t just let her go alone, so he tagged along. 

But Nagisa looked in the direction of her thoughtful brother and said, “Don’t you peek, either, Kojou!” 

“As if I would!” 

“Wha—?! I told you, don’t look this way!” 

Nagisa, who had just finished bathing and was in the middle of changing clothes, yelped. She threw something at him. A wet bath towel blocked his vision, followed up by a leather boot that hit him solidly, provoking a loud groan. 

“Kojou, your nose is bleeding! You’re gross!” 

He ferociously objected to the unspeakable slander. 

“That’s because you hit me with your boot!!” 

Meanwhile, Nagisa finished changing into a shrine maiden’s outfit, complete with a white robe and a red pleated skirt. Her long black hair was tied with a string made of twisted paper. 

“Sorry for the wait! All right, let’s go. This is what I came here for, so I’ve got to do my best!” 

Kojou was still holding his nose when he said with a muffled voice, “No need to overdo it. It’s not like you have to help Dad with his work.” 

Nagisa glanced up at him with a teasing smile. “Yeah, but I’m interested in these ruins, too.” 

The girl in shrine maiden garb walked with a spring in her step, the heels of her wooden footwear clicking against the ground. She continued, “I feel a sad presence filling the ruins, you see.” 

“A sad presence…?” 

“Like there’s…someone who’s lonely and crying by herself.” 

“Well…if there’s a coffin, it means that someone’s been buried here…” 

Kojou followed behind Nagisa as they returned to the base camp. 

A burly man with a heavy beard stood at the camp entrance. He looked tough, but he didn’t act intimidating. A friendly smile came over his thick lips as he spoke in somewhat awkward Japanese. 

“So you’re the kids Gaho said he was calling in from Japan, huh?” 

The unfamiliar name made Kojou do a small double take. 

“…Gaho?” 

“My name’s Dimas Carrozzo. Gaho’s helped me out on the job a whole bunch of times. Right now I’m head of the staff on-site. Pleased to meet you.” 

The man offered his right hand. Kojou, figuring that the man was speaking about Gajou, accepted the handshake. 

“Same here. I’m sure Dad’s caused you lots of trouble.” 

“Ha-ha. Incidentally, what’re those clothes the little lady’s wearing? I’ve never seen a dress like that.” 

“It’s a Japanese shrine maiden outfit. She doesn’t actually need to wear it, but it puts her in the right frame of mind, I guess.” 

Nagisa smiled happily, blushing heavily, as Carrozzo gazed at her in admiration. 

“Shrine maiden outfit? So Gaho’s daughter is a shaman, then…?” 

“Well, it’s not like she got formal training. She just helps out Grandma at her family’s temple once in a while. Inheriting Mom’s Hyper Adapter blood helps out a little, I think.” 

As Kojou complimented her, Nagisa adopted a determined pose that seemed to say, I’ll do my best! 

Carrozzo went “Mm-hmm,” nodding in apparent acceptance. “I see. That’s good to hear. After all, ultrasonic probes and scrying magic won’t work on these ruins, so we were pretty stuck, to tell the truth. We’re counting on you.” 

Nagisa was an extremely rare variety of Hyper Adapter, inheriting both the qualities of a spirit maiden from her grandmother on her father’s side, and her own mother’s Hyper Adapter power. That was why Gajou requested she come all the way from Japan. 

Several times before, Nagisa’s psychometry had accurately pinpointed the location of buried ruins and had decoded “indecipherable” ancient writing. Those exploits had made universities and scholars the world over beg her for volunteer help. 

This was actually the first time Gajou was using Nagisa’s power for his own work. That made Kojou feel uneasy somehow. If rumors could be trusted, Gajou had been opposed to having Nagisa come over until the last moment. But the sponsors of the examination team for these ruins strongly insisted on contacting her, with Gajou reluctantly consenting. In other words, there was something more important, and more dangerous, about this ruin than anything before. He’d vaguely figured as much from glancing at the airtight security all around base camp. 

Carrozzo, in charge of that very security, asked Kojou in a nonchalant tone, “So are you spirit sensitive, too?” 

“Nah, not at all. I’m just a chaperone.” 

“That so? Well, everyone has their place in the world. Do a good job protecting your sister, then.” 

Kojou shrugged his shoulders as if to say, Will do. He turned his attention to look at the automatic weapon Carrozzo held. 

“That’s quite some gear you got there. Guess keeping law and order is pretty rough in a Demon Sanctuary.” 

“Not at all. Management’s on the ball out here, so the sorcerous crime rate is way under what it is in other countries.” Carrozzo smiled cheerfully in an attempt to ease Kojou’s and Nagisa’s concerns and continued, “But as for what’s inside this ruin here… I don’t know the details, but apparently it’s something pretty valuable, enough that the Warlord’s Empire sent that noble girl over.” 

“…Noble? Wait, you mean Liana’s some kind of big shot?” Kojou said in surprise. 

A noble of the Warlord’s Empire would make her a pureblood descendant of the First Primogenitor, the Lost Warlord, complete with her own fiefdom and personal military force. And without exception, they were served by powerful Beast Vassals, summoned creatures rivaling state-of-the-art fighter aircraft and heavy tanks. That would make Liana Caruana the mightiest protection this ruin had. 

Carrozzo laughed. “Oh yeah. When I got drunk and gave her a pat on the butt, I almost got myself killed. The woman has no sense of humor.” 

Kojou gaped up at him. “You sure like to live dangerously, old man.” 

Certainly, Liana was an alluring beauty, but she was also a powerful vampire with might rivaling an army unit, and yet he’d sexually harassed her. That wasn’t so much bravery as it was stupidity. 

Carrozzo continued, “Well, we’ve got the perimeter of the ruins locked down tight, and if anything happens, the army’ll come running. Any looters hunting for treasure won’t get close. Relax. As long as you’re in the camp, no one’s setting one finger on either of you.” 

With that firm declaration, Carrozzo gave Kojou a hard pat on the back. The force of it elicited a smile and a nod from Kojou, as well as a cough. 

“Gotcha. We’re counting on you.” 

“Yep, you leave it to me—” 

The young Japanese siblings walked toward the entrance to the ruin. No doubt Gajou and the others were inside, waiting for them to arrive. 

Thanks to Nagisa’s ability, the excavation work was about to advance by leaps and bounds. If they could recover what was inside the “coffin,” their work at the ruins would be finished. 

Carrozzo stretched his stiff body and scanned the base camp. 

“Well, then… Now that I’m all pumped up, I better get back to my post, too.” 

It was just past four in the morning, shortly before daybreak—the time when spiritualists’ senses were at their sharpest and, since time immemorial, the ideal moment for a surprise attack. The real job for Carrozzo and his men was just starting. 

To begin with, Liana Caruana had deployed a powerful barrier around the base camp. Not even a powerful demon could come near…or rather, the more powerful a demon was, the more difficult it would be to approach the camp. Thanks to that protection, Carrozzo and his men could breathe a little easier and focus their energies on guarding against human adversaries, he thought as he watched the Akatsuki siblings go. 

Abruptly, he stopped walking, sensing that something was off. Some kind of straight object resembling the branch of a tree was poking out of the ground, still wet from rain the day before. Carrozzo sucked in his breath when he realized it was actually a shriveled human arm. 

“What…is that? A corpse…?” 

It was a comparatively recent human corpse buried inside the base camp site. Carrozzo squatted down to discover what he could about the body. At that moment— 

“—!!” 

What Carrozzo thought was a completely shriveled corpse arm attacked him with incredible vigor. 

His throat ripped out, the burly guard perished, unable to even raise a shout. 

5 

In contrast to the plain vanilla exterior, the stone chamber inside the tunnel had glossy, beautifully polished walls. On the way in, it was hard to miss the rubble from repeated bedrock demolition and vestiges of the giant monster clawing its way out, but the interior was largely unscathed. 

It was a mysterious room that suggested it had been constructed sometime long before, only to be completed within the last several years. Small wonder it was baffling the explorers. 

Kojou genuinely appreciated his first look at the inside of a ruin. 

“It’s really a pretty place. I was thinking an underground tomb would be a little darker and scarier, but…” 

The stone chamber’s interior was moderately bright, letting him see the layout without even needing a flashlight. Apparently, the rock walls were made out of something that collected and emitted sunlight. 

Gajou, entering last as if he was Nagisa’s bodyguard, explained in an uncharacteristically serious tone, “Seems like this was built more as a temple than an actual tomb.” 

“Some ancient god sleepin’ here or something?” 

“God, you say?” Gajou made a delighted chuckle in his throat and continued, “Nothing that holy. I suppose if you’re gonna compare it to gods, a fallen god’s not far off.” 

“Doc…!” Liana scolded Gajou. 

But Gajou laughed without restraint and shook his head. 

“No point hiding it now. It’s not like I’m trying to scare you here. It just happens to be the truth.” 

Kojou glared at his father. “What do you mean?” 

“Where should I begin?” Gajou said, scowling ever so slightly. “Have you heard of the Fourth Primogenitor?” 

“The Kaleid Blood thing, the phantom primogenitor served by twelve Beast Vassals, was it…?” 

Of course Kojou knew the name. It was an urban legend famous enough that pretty much everyone had to have heard it once. He’s probably pullin’ my leg, Kojou thought, annoyed. 

“That’s right,” Gajou replied. “He has no blood brethren, standing alone as the World’s Mightiest Vampire. It’s said he’s appeared at turning points in history several times, bringing genocide and devastation to the world in his wake.” 

“But there’s no actual proof of that, is there? Even elementary schoolers wouldn’t believe occult stuff like that nowadays.” 

Gajou pointed to the far side of the stonework room before he answered. 

“There is proof, and it’s right before your eyes.” 

There stood a thick, stonework door. Kojou couldn’t see any seams or hinges, nor could he figure out how someone was supposed to open it. Trying to blow up the door might bring the whole stone room crashing down, burying everyone alive. It was probably a trap constructed with incredibly high-end technology. 

He figured Nagisa had been called in to help them figure out how to open the thing. 

Unwittingly lowering his voice, Kojou asked, “So what, the Fourth Primogenitor’s asleep inside that thing?” 

Gajou cackled without a care in the world. “That’d be real funny, wouldn’t it?” 

Kojou did a double take and shouted at his father, “What the heck?! You can’t go digging up valuable ancient ruins with a ridiculous theory like that!” 

“It’s not ridiculous at all!” Liana yelled, pain clear in her voice. 

“L-Liana…?” 

Kojou looked back at her, dumbfounded. The echo of Liana’s cry reverberated faintly inside the huge stonework chamber. Liana, perhaps embarrassed when she regained hold of herself, said, “I’m sorry” in a small, apologetic voice, hanging her head in silence. 

Gajou seemed to be sticking up for Liana as he spoke in a careless tone. “Well, we adults have our reasons. You kids don’t need to sweat the little stuff… This here’s the third strata of the underground tomb, the Room of Reminiscence. There should be one more room to go, but it’s locked up so tight we can’t figure out how to get in. That’s why we brought Nagisa over, so…” 

Gajou’s words trailed off as his gaze shifted to the side of the girl’s face. That was when Kojou realized it. The normally ever-chatty Nagisa hadn’t spoken a single word since they’d arrived— 

Kojou haltingly called out to his little sister. “Nagisa…?” 

However, she didn’t turn toward him. Her irises were open wide as she simply stared expressionlessly at the stonework door. 

Kojou suddenly realized that the pale glow from the ruin’s walls had increased. The stone became as transparent as crystal; inside it, something like an electric current was forming giant magical symbols. 

Nagisa’s lips uttered words in a foreign language Kojou didn’t know. It was as if she was using those words to communicate with the thoughts that people had left behind in the ruin— 

Naturally, the people who’d built the structure knew how to open the stone door. Nagisa was attempting to communicate with their departed spirits to decipher the seal. However, Nagisa had already lost her own consciousness from accepting into herself a being that was simply too powerful. 

At the moment, she had no volition of her own. She had become one of the magical circuits making up the control system for the ruin. 

Surprised, Liana began to ask, “Doc! What’s…?” 

Gajou’s expression contained only the faintest trace of nervousness. “Looks like the ruin’s getting a reboot. Considering the gargoyle, I had a pretty good idea that the magical power source was still running, but it’s a bigger show than I expected.” 

Nagisa remained in a trance. She took a step forward, as if expecting something to happen, and on cue, the light radiating from the stone door grew brighter. 

Then, without warning, the door vanished without a trace. Not a single pebble remained. 

Most likely, the door had been transferred to another dimension via a spatial control spell. Kojou couldn’t even fathom the level of sorcerous technology required for such a feat. 

Liana was beside herself, murmuring as she gazed at Nagisa, still in a hypnotic state. 

“It can’t be… A seal that not even the Warlord’s Empire sorcerous engineers could decipher, in but a single moment…” 

Gajou shivered violently as a fierce cold blew in from the passage, making even their breath visible. 

“Whoa… This thing’s givin’ me the chills!” 

The sudden, frigid air caused a dense fog to begin forming within the ruins. Nagisa stepped into the corridor, seemingly melting into the mist. 

Kojou hurried to try to stop her. 

“Nagisa?!” 

Gajou’s voice interceded. “Wait, Kojou! Don’t get close to her!” 

“But Nagisa’s…!” 

“Leave it to her. At the very least, she’s channeling successfully. It’s more dangerous to shake her out of it.” 

“Ugh…!” 

Kojou stayed in place and bit his lip. He hated to admit it, but his father was right. All he could do at that moment was desperately follow Nagisa so he didn’t lose sight of her. 

When he came out the other side of the clouded passageway, the final chamber lay ahead. 

It was a room with high, nearly cylindrical walls. The altar at the chamber’s center resembled a giant block of ice, like a glacier from the farthest reaches of the world. In that icy coffin slept a petite figure—a girl about Nagisa’s size. 

Her skin was so pale you could almost see right through it. Her youthful facial features were inhumanly symmetrical, and her faintly pigmented blond hair seemed to reflect light so that it glittered like a rainbow. 

Kojou looked up at the girl. “That’s the Fairy’s Coffin…? Is…she dead?” he murmured. 

Certainly, the girl sleeping in the ice coffin formed the picture of a fairy trapped in a piece of clear amber. Somehow, the beautiful being felt ominous. 

Even if she was the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire, he wouldn’t think she could be alive in that condition. However, everyone in the stone chamber had already realized—it was this very girl in the coffin who was the source of the magical energy coursing through the ruins. And it was she who had called Nagisa. 

“We’ve finally found you… The twelfth Kaleid Blood…!” Liana muttered to herself. 

Kojou didn’t understand what she meant. But somehow, he felt like that sterile title didn’t fit the ephemeral girl sleeping in the coffin. 

Countless sharp icicles covered her resting place, fending off all who would approach. They resembled a wall of thorns meant to protect the dormant girl. 

Kojou unwittingly said out loud the words that came to mind. 

“It’s like she’s a sleeping princess…” 

Yes, the girl trapped alone in the coffin of ice seemed less a vampire than a tragic princess out of a fairy tale. 

Apparently, Kojou wasn’t the only one to think that. Liana glanced sideways at Kojou’s face as a pure smile welled up from inside her, like a white flower taking bloom. 

“Sleeping princess… Then, Avrora Florestina…daughter of King Florestin?” 

Gajou offered uncharacteristic words of praise. 

“That’s great. It sounds a hell of a lot more poetic than just naming her after a number.” 

Kojou felt acutely embarrassed at his father’s lack of concern. “This isn’t the time to be so laid-back! At this rate, Nagisa’s gonna get frozen with her!” 

“Ah…yeah…” 

Gajou didn’t exactly refute his son. 

A cold mist shrouded Nagisa, who stood in front of the coffin. At the rate things were going, she would be pulled into the ice, the same coffin that kept Avrora trapped. 

Or, perhaps Avrora herself would suck Nagisa’s spiritual energy dry in order to return to life— 

Yet Gajou, fully aware of these concerns, made no move to rescue Nagisa. To the contrary, he said, “Miss Caruana, do you mind if I leave this in your hands?” 

This time, Kojou’s mouth hung open as he watched his father suddenly turn his back on Nagisa. 

“Dad—?!” 

His body moved before he realized it. He leaped, his small clenched fist aimed at his father’s face. 

But it was not Gajou who stopped him. Before Kojou could smack him in the face, the entire ruin shuddered. It was as if a giant hammer had smashed down, with a shock wave shaking the earth, causing Kojou to lose his balance and fall over. 

“…An earthquake?!” he exclaimed. 

The whole stone chamber cracked ferociously, and scattered pieces of rubble rained down on them. The shaking did not continue for long. A powerful wind blew in its place—a blast with the scent of explosives. 

Perhaps that shock wave pulled Nagisa out of her trance. Without a sound, her petite figure in its shrine maiden outfit crumpled to the floor. 

Liana wore a grave expression as she looked behind her. 

“Doc, just now…!” 

Gajou took up the rifle he had been carrying over his back, flipping the safety off. It was a bullpup-style automatic weapon for military use. 

“Yeah… Looks like we’re running into a bit of trouble.” 

The oppressive aura from Kojou’s father told the boy loud and clear that something had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. 

“Sorry, Kojou. Take care of Nagisa. I’ll be back soon.” 

“Dad!!” 

Left behind, Kojou stared dumbfounded at Gajou’s back. 

He remembered the imposing atmosphere at the base camp guarded by Carrozzo and the others. They’d known from the start that someone was after the ruin. Kojou was the only one who hadn’t. And Gajou had called Nagisa over to such a place, fully aware there would be danger— 

Kojou forcefully pounded the floor with his fist. 

“Shit! What the hell is that man thinking?!” 

Liana looked down, wincing, as she squatted beside Kojou. 

“…I apologize for dragging you into all this. However, please don’t blame Doc. This has been harder for him than anyone else.” 

With Liana close to him, Kojou asked her, “What the hell’s with this ruin? It’s not just an underground tomb, is it? Twelfth Kaleid Blood, what is that—?!” 

Liana quietly released a deadly aura, seemingly to cut Kojou off and brush aside his concerns. 

“Let’s save that conversation for later. Kojou, please get back.” 

“Eh?” 

Liana glared toward the ruin’s entrance as she removed the bracelet on her left wrist. Her eyes glowed crimson as fangs poked out between her lips. 

Kojou remembered her true nature. Liana was a noble from the Warlord’s Empire, an Old Guard vampire. 

“—Enemies have arrived.” 

Before Liana even finished speaking, an avalanche of human silhouettes poured into the stone chamber. 

The sight left Kojou at a loss for words. He knew them, the faces of the “enemy” soldiers that had blown open the entrance to the ruin, forcing their way in— 

They wore flak jackets and were armed with automatic weapons; they were the very Private Military Corporation guards that had been protecting the camp. 

6 

Flames engulfed the examination team base camp. The rows of vehicles and heavy machinery were wrecked, and even structures and tents well removed from the ruins had been meticulously torched. 

Gajou, heading outside the underground tomb, ground his teeth audibly. 

“Man… Really making a mess out here…” 

He didn’t know who the enemy was. There were simply too many possibilities. It wasn’t just humans who were opposed to the revival of the Fourth Primogenitor, but plenty of demons were, too—even inside the Warlord’s Empire. 

“Did they break Miss Caruana’s barrier? The only ones able to do that ought to be vampires of the same class as the Caruana family… Wait…” 

That’s odd, Gajou thought, raising an eyebrow. 

Liana Caruana had three Beast Vassals in her care. The barrier protecting the base camp was no doubt one of them, altered into a different form. There was no way the host, Liana, would be unaware of an attack powerful enough to break it. 

Also, the low number of casualties nagged at his thoughts. For all the damage that had occurred, he saw virtually no corpses aboveground. It was possible that the examination team’s scholars might have been able to evacuate someplace, but he didn’t think the private military guards would collectively abandon their posts. 

In the first place, he couldn’t see any enemy soldiers— 

Gajou kept his guard firmly up as he headed out of the ruin. He was greeted by the unexpected sight of a burly, bearded guardsman. 

“Gajou! Thank goodness you’re safe.” 

Gajou glared at Carrozzo, who’d emerged from the shadow of some boulders. “Carrozzo… What happened here?!” 

Carrozzo seemed to be injured. The combat outfit he wore was marred with black streaks of blood. 

“Sorry, they got us by surprise. They breached the barrier, and you can see the state the camp’s in. We managed to drive the enemy off somehow, but we took heavy casualties. Can you lend us a hand, Gajou?” 

Gajou listened to his friend’s untrustworthy report, gazing at him with a hint of sadness. Then he lifted the barrel of his rifle, aiming it squarely at Carrozzo’s chest. 

Carrozzo’s eyes opened wide in shock. 

“Gajou…?!” 

But Gajou paid him no heed and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit its target in the right side of the guard’s chest, sending fresh blood and pieces of flesh scattering. The gun in the man’s hand dropped to the ground. 

Carrozzo’s dying eyes glared at Gajou. 

“What…are you doing, Gajou Akatsuki…?!” 

Gajou pulled the rim of his fedora over his eyes, suppressing his anger as he growled. “Quit the third-rate acting job, you terrorist bastard. There’s no way the real Carrozzo would be pronouncing my name right… Besides, you’ve got the stink of death all over you.” 

“Ugh…” 

Carrozzo—or rather, the living dead that was once Carrozzo—made a short grunt as if thrown off his game. 

With his rifle, Gajou proceeded to unload shot after shot toward the ground, taking out new corpses as they crawled out of the earth one after another. Gajou dispatched the unending wave of emerging zombies. 

“Necromancy… I see,” he muttered. “I thought it was odd the barrier would be broken, but you buried corpses all around the ruin before we even got here. Then you animated them and attacked the camp from the inside—” 

Dead bodies had no body warmth, no heartbeats, and projected no bloodlust. Even the best detection gear would never expose buried corpses. Thanks to their proximity to the powerful magical energy coursing through the underground tomb, the sorcerers that had come to the excavation site hadn’t sensed the presence of corpses, either. 

The enemy had capably laid its trap. Even if Liana’s barrier couldn’t be broken from the outside, it could not fend off an enemy that had lain in wait on the inside from the very beginning. 

“A terrorist group that uses necromancy… I’ve heard of that MO. You’re the Black Death Emperor Front!” 

The sorcerer controlling Carrozzo shouted with the guard’s voice. “Gajou Akatsuki, the Death Returnee…you have done well to see through my plan…but you are too late!” 

His yell signaled new zombies to surface from the ground all around them. Their thick hides made it clear these were not human corpses. Their stout flesh was enough to repel the bullets of Gajou’s rifle. 

“Beast men living dead—?!” 

Overwhelmed, Gajou took the hint and retreated. A beast man’s physical strength and agility were fearsome even after zombification. 

The Black Death Emperor Front was the name of a terrorist organization born in the Warlord’s Empire. They were beast-man supremacists rebelling against vampiric rule over the Dominions. They were also militants dedicated to destroying the Holy Ground Treaty, established so humans and demons could coexist peacefully. They took their name from their leader, the Black Death Emperor, a beast man as well as an astute necromancer spreading terror to every corner of the globe. The enemy far exceeded even his worst expectations. 

“You bunch of morons… You know what’s in this ruin, and you’re attacking anyway?!” 

The man controlling Carrozzo brushed off Gajou’s question. 

“We know not. Nor do we care. However, we do know that the filthy vampire primogenitors have taken a keen interest in this ruin, enough to send the heiress of the Caruana family to keep an eye on it! That gives us more than enough reason to burn this place to ash!” 

“Tch…!” 

Gajou’s expression twisted in impatience. As he thought, the ruin was their target. But he couldn’t let them get past him into the ruin—not with Kojou and Nagisa inside. 

The necromancer laughed in Carrozzo’s voice. 

“Do not be concerned. The treasure resting in this ruin shall serve us well. We shall extract all there is to know about the ruin from the brain of your corpse—” 

“Hey, it’s not like a rotting soup-for-brains like you can understand what’s in my head!” 

Gajou’s rifle ran out of ammo right around when he’d finally managed to take the zombies out of commission. Its duty done, he cast the rifle aside and pulled out a new weapon from the back of his jacket—a sawed-off shotgun. 

“Sorry, Carrozzo…I couldn’t save you!” 

“Hmph… As if a pea shooter like that could bring this body down—” 

The burly, zombified form ferociously charged at Gajou. A direct tackle would no doubt take him down with one blow. But he made no move to evade. Instead, he trained the shotgun’s barrel at his old friend and blasted him in the face. 

A buckshot cartridge fired from a shotgun could hit a wide area at the cost of penetration. Now that Carrozzo was a living dead, there should have been no way such a round would stop him. 

And yet Carrozzo released a terrible scream and rolled onto the ground. 

Freed from the sorcerer’s control, he had reverted to a mere corpse, lying motionless with his eyes closed. 

In his place, a figure wobbled out from behind a nearby clump of boulders. It was the necromancer who had controlled Carrozzo. He groaned in anguish and shot Gajou with a hateful stare. 

Gajou loaded a new shell as he said in a somber voice, “An anti-demon, silver-palladium fléchette round. It even works on your astral body.” 

The bullet had been infused with ritual energy. The tiny fléchettes filling the cartridge had delivered damage not only to Carrozzo’s zombified body, but directly to the sorcerer controlling it, too. 

“Damn you…damn you! A lowly human maiming my flesh like this—?!” the man wailed, wiping off the fresh blood flowing from his brow. 

Every muscle in his body bulged as he shifted forms to morph into an enormous figure—a huge beast man with a pitch-black mane. 

Gajou’s face froze in astonishment. 

“A beast man using necromancy…?!” 

There were precious few stout-bodied beast men that had also learned the art of spells. Being an exception marked him as a member of a select few families that inherited such powerful demonic energy. Besides the Black Death Emperor himself, there existed only one other person in the Black Death Emperor Front with the power to pull it off— 

“Don’t tell me…you’re Golan Hazaroff, the Prince of Death?!” 

The dark beast man howled. 

“I praise you for knowing my name. I shall send you to the afterlife with honor, Gajou Akatsuki!” 

Gajou met his gaze and fired his shotgun. However, the beast man evaded the barrage with overwhelmingly swift reactions. With speed beyond what Gajou could track with the naked eye, the man rushed in and drove a powerful knee strike toward him. 

“Gah…?!” 

The blow bent and snapped the shotgun, and Gajou’s face twisted in agony. The dull sound of breaking bones echoed. Gajou spat out blood as he flew backward. 

The flames enveloping the burning base camp dyed the pre-dawn sky scarlet. 

7 

“Nn…!” 

The girl Kojou was carrying in his arms let out a small moan and stirred. 

With a flutter of her long eyelashes, she opened her eyes. They were still somewhat unfocused but seemed otherwise normal. She was out of the trance. 

“…Ko…jou…?” 

Kojou did his best to maintain a calm as he spoke. 

“Awake, Nagisa? Might feel like a waste, but you should probably close your eyes a little longer.” 

The state of the surrounding area unnerved her. The blond girl trapped in a giant block of ice, the countless icicles reminiscent of thorns, the subterranean stone chamber, the soldiers invading—and the beautiful female vampire that had protected Kojou and Nagisa from the horde of zombified guards. 

The vampiress’s perfectly coiffed hair was now disheveled, her entire body covered in blood splatter. She seemed to have sustained her own injuries as well. However, all the zombies assaulting the ruin lay fallen, corpses once more. 

She, an Old Guard, had laid waste to dozens of zombies single-handedly. If she had not been shielding Kojou and Nagisa, she would have probably emerged without a scratch. Her overwhelming combat capability brought no shame to the reputation of the Warlord’s Empire nobility. 

Nagisa weakly called out to her. “Liana…” 

When Liana noticed, she smiled, albeit conflictedly. 

“I am sorry. I had my hands rather full with them.” 

Two beasts were curled around the woman’s sides. Each was a huge, glowing wolf, one gold, one silver. They were probably between three and four meters long from head to tail. They were clearly not normal life forms, but rather, magical energy so dense they had taken physical form. 

“Beast Vassals…,” Nagisa said. 

“Yes. Beasts summoned from another world that reside in our vampiric blood…sentient masses of demonic energy. Please be at ease. No matter how many terrorists there may be, they will not touch the coffin or either of you as long as Skol and Hati are with me.” 

Kojou echoed a word. 

“Terrorists…?” 

He didn’t understand why a group of self-declared terrorists would assault a ruin in the middle of nowhere. 

Liana paused briefly, choosing her words carefully as she spoke. 

“This is likely the work of the Black Death Emperor Front—beast-man supremacists. They are international criminals claiming beast men are foremost among demons and agitating for the dissolution of the Holy Ground Treaty.” 

“Why is a group like that after this ruin?” Nagisa inquired. 

“They are likely aware that this ruin is connected to the Kaleid Blood. To beast-man supremacists, vampire primogenitors are their most hated of enemies.” 

Kojou gasped. “I see… So if Avrora really is the Fourth Primogenitor…” 

“Yes. To them, she is worth destroying, even at the cost of their own lives.” 

Liana sighed. Truthfully, she wanted to rush to Gajou’s side and protect him at that very moment. However, as the survey team’s ace in a fight, Liana could not leave. After all, the Fairy’s Coffin, the terrorists’ target, was right there with her and the siblings. 

“Avrora…?” Nagisa asked, perplexed. 

Kojou smiled a little, pointing at the block of ice behind them. 

“The name of the sleeping princess. Liana gave it to her.” 

“Oh…I see.” 

Nagisa softly squinted up at the girl trapped in ice. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing. I just…feel like she’s happy somehow—” 

“She? You mean Avrora…?” 

Kojou felt a slight unease as he studied Nagisa’s face. He’d thought the trance had lifted, but perhaps it hadn’t. Or maybe part of Nagisa and Avrora’s shared consciousness was still connected— 

As this hypothesis sent a great fear through Kojou, Nagisa’s entire body suddenly stiffened. Kojou crouched down with her as she fiercely trembled in apparent terror. 

“…Nagisa?” 

“Something’s…coming. What…is this…? No… I’m scared…! Kojou, run…!” 

“Hey, Nagisa?!” 

His little sister’s extreme reaction made him look all around the area. Then a boom, the sound of an explosion, accompanied the collapse of one of the walls of the stonework room. 

A huge beast man emerged, beating away the rubble pouring down upon him. This dog-headed, black-maned figure must have been nearly three meters tall. Thanks to his incredibly huge frame, he’d been unable to enter the ruin by coming through the passage. 

The dark beast man laughed derisively as he stared at the vampiress. 

“—So you were here, Liana Caruana, making a mere human fight me while you quivered like a wild rabbit in a hole in the ground. Just as I would expect of the famously timid daughter of Duke Caruana…taking after her cowardly father.” 

Liana’s cheeks flushed. “…Silence, foul beast! I shall permit no further belittling of my father!” 

Apparently, the beast man not only knew Liana’s identity but was using it to taunt her. Liana’s predictable response brought a satisfied smile to the beast man’s face. “Don’t make me laugh, little girl. What can you accomplish? Gajou Akatsuki was far more resilient than you.” 

The beast man’s implication that he had already disposed of Gajou completely robbed Liana of her composure. In a rage, she launched her own Beast Vassal at him. 

“—Skol, tear him to pieces!” 

A vampire’s Beast Vassal was a powerful mass of demonic energy. Surely not even the stout physique of a beast man could endure a head-on collision with the powerful servants. Anyone would have been certain of that—save for the beast man himself. 

“Do you really think such a Beast Vassal can stand against the Prince of Death?!” 

Liana’s charging servant turned into a beam of light, but the pitch-black foe blocked it with his right arm alone. He pinned it in place and moved to squash it completely. 

Liana stood rooted in place, dazed at the unbelievable sight. 

“Wha…?!” 

A beast man able to trade blows with a Beast Vassal unaided—surely such a thing was impossible? 

Before her shocked expression, the jet-black man transformed. Now he was not a beast man but a complete beast—one swollen to several times his previous size. His flesh brimmed with dense, powerful demonic energy equal to—no, superior to Liana’s Beast Vassal. 

As she realized what the man’s power truly was, she exclaimed, “It can’t be…divine bestialization?!” 

It was a special ability possessed only by a tiny handful of the uppermost ranks of beast men. Through use of vast demonic energy, they temporarily transformed their own flesh and blood into divine beasts, beings of myth and legend on par with angels and dragons. 

The beast man explained, “We are not like you vampires, relying on the power of summoned beasts. We are the descendants of the demon wolves that consumed the hearts of giants. It is beast men that are the pinnacle of demonkind! Know the power of the superior race of the surface!!” 

Liana recovered from her shock and commanded her other Beast Vassal to attack. 

“Enough babbling…! Tear him to pieces, Hati!” 

Driving back the transformed foe with two Beast Vassals at once was an attack that abandoned all attempt at defense. But— 

“Ka-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…! As expected of a Warlord’s Empire noble, even one fallen from grace. Stubborn girl! But victory is indeed mine!” 

“You sound like a sore loser!” 

Liana’s expression twisted as she unleashed nearly all the demonic energy she could afford. This gave her tunnel vision, slowing her reaction to danger. 

As if waiting for that very moment, several zombies flew out of the rubble in the stone room, bearing down upon the now-helpless Liana. The pitch-black beast man had purposely smashed through the wall during his entrance so that he could hide corpses under the rubble. 

“Living dead—?!” 

The beast man fiercely smiled, certain of victory. 

“Too late, Liana Caruana.” 

Vampires were said to be the mightiest of demons because they possessed trump cards of overwhelming power: their Beast Vassals. But physically, they were comparatively frail. That was especially true of Liana, a slender woman not blessed with a strong physique. Without the protection of her Beast Vassals, she had no way to withstand the hail of gunfire from the zombified guards. 

The zombies blindly fired bullets that pierced Liana’s chest and gouged her heart. Kojou could only watch in a daze. 

“Lia…na…?!” 

Even the young Kojou knew at a glance. An Old Guard vampire could not regenerate from such a deep wound. It was fatal. Liana could no longer be saved— 

Nagisa’s voice struggled out from her throat. “Ah…” 

Liana’s body swayed. Her eyes were filled with tears as her now-pale lips weakly formed the words, “I’m sorry, Doc… I…” 

Her words never reached Kojou’s and Nagisa’s ears, drowned out by the beast man’s roar. The transformed creature beat away the Beast Vassals that had lost their master. Unable to maintain physical form, the familiars’ vast demonic energy burst apart and scattered. The ruin began to collapse from the shock wave. 

And Liana, covered in blood, gently toppled forward. Nagisa screamed to the heavens. 

“No… Nooooooooooooooooooo—!” 

The dense demonic energy hovering in the ruin, the aftereffects of combat, and Liana’s thoughts at the moment of her demise flooded the young priestess’s heart. 

The jet-black beast man stared scornfully at the anguished Nagisa. But he immediately lost interest in her and raised his head higher. No doubt he had judged that the young human siblings were not worth the effort to kill. 

“The Fourth Primogenitor—?” 

He gazed at the block of ice behind Kojou and Nagisa, as well as the girl slumbering within. 

Liana’s rampaging Beast Vassals had half-wrecked the huge block of ice, leaving part of the girl’s lifeless body exposed to outside air. However, she showed no signs of awakening. There was no reason why the limp form trapped inside the ice should rise. 

“I have no interest in whether the ruin is genuine or not, but the fact Liana Caruana risked her life to protect it makes it worth smashing…,” he said. “Young siblings, curse your ill fortune for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” 

The zombies had raised their guns before the beast man even finished his words. No doubt they intended to smash Avrora’s body to pieces in one volley so she could never be revived again, and the beast man was well aware Kojou and Nagisa beside her would be collateral damage— 

“Ah…ahhh……,” Nagisa quietly cried. 

Kojou embraced his suffering little sister as he desperately struggled against despair. Gajou wasn’t coming back. Liana was dead. There was no one left to protect them. The young Kojou had no way to take on the vile beast man and the zombies. 

Even so, he did not give up. He needed to protect Nagisa. Think, Kojou urged himself. 

Think, think, think. What can I do to save Nagisa? What can I—? 

Time would not wait for Kojou’s decision. 

“The legend of the Kaleid Blood ends here—blow her apart!” the beast man commanded. 

The zombies pulled their triggers. The gun barrels all spewed fire. 

8 

The inside of the dimly lit ruin was buried in thick mist, gun smoke, and ice fragments—the remains of the zombies’ volley. Surely, the lifeless body of the girl trapped in ice, showered in innumerable bullets, had been ripped to fine shreds. Even if the girl really was the Fourth Primogenitor, she could not rise again. 

Of course, the Prince of Death, Golan Hazaroff, didn’t believe the Fourth Primogenitor could really exist, but he didn’t care if it was a fake. The only thing that mattered was the story that the Prince of Death had destroyed the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire. The fact that Liana Caruana had protected her would only add to the rumor’s credibility. As a consequence, the name of the terrorist group The Black Death Emperor Front would gain even greater prestige. 

Though, the price paid for that had by no means been small— 

Wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, Hazaroff murmured, “So it is done…” 

He had burn marks from his side to his back thanks to the still-raw wound from his battle with Gajou Akatsuki. Though a mere human, he had caused Hazaroff no minor annoyance and even landed a spell bullet on him in the process. 

Undergoing divine bestialization while so gravely wounded had shaved a good amount off Hazaroff’s life span. The battle with Liana Caruana was far from an overwhelming victory on his part. Indeed, had he not resorted to employing the zombies, he would have been the one backed into a corner. But none of this changed the fact that Hazaroff had won. He felt exhilaration as never before, reveling in having defeated a powerful enemy in spite of his difficulties. 

But as if to pour cold water on Hazaroff’s satisfaction, a faint voice echoed from within the mist, the voice of an Eastern girl dressed in shamanic clothing. 

“Kojou! Kojou… Open your eyes, Kojou! Please, I’m begging you…!” 

She was clinging onto the body of the boy, apparently her older brother, desperately attempting to save him. 

No matter how she tried, the outcome would be evident to anyone. The teenager’s body had endured a battery of bullets and was completely soaked in blood. Countless shots had ripped through his chest. Even a vampire with high regenerative ability was likely beyond saving with such wounds, let alone a mere human. 

However, the little sister’s survival had surprised him. He’d been certain the volley had finished both off— 

Hazaroff looked down at the expired Eastern boy, exhaling in admiration. 

“I see… You protected your little sister. I praise your strong spirit, boy.” 

A split second before he was caught in the salvo, he’d likely thrust away his little sister with all his might into a corner of the stonework room away from the target area. Then he had acted as a decoy, drawing the living dead’s gunfire. 

“A reckless plan, but I accept that your conduct was brave. However, your body is but that of a frail human. Unfortunate…,” he said in a pitying tone. 

Then he transformed into a giant divine beast once more. 

It bothered him that the teenager’s body was more or less intact in spite of that great hail of bullets. If so, it was possible that the Fourth Primogenitor’s body was similarly intact. Even if the chance was small, prudence demanded he burn everything, just in case. 

Hazaroff laughed cruelly and announced to the shamanic girl, “—Fear not. This time I shall put you out of your misery!” 

The vast demonic energy inside the jet-black beast man condensed into a powerful, divine bestial breath of flame with which he intended to annihilate everything in the ruin. But just before he unleashed his attack, a faint misgiving arose in the back of his mind. 

Why had the teenage boy stood right in front of the coffin? 

He was sure the boy had known the living dead were aiming at the coffin. There was no need to expose himself to the gunfire like that, even to protect his little sister. 

Could he have tried to save the Fourth Primogenitor—? No, that couldn’t have been it. Protecting his little sister took everything he’d had. There was no place for anything else. No, he had tried to save his little sister, to the point of sacrificing himself. 

Why, then, had he willingly chosen death? 

Even if his little sister had survived the initial gunfire, there was no guarantee that he would let her go. It was natural for him to expect that someone might finish her off, just as Hazaroff was doing that very moment. 

If he really wanted to save his sister, he himself had to survive. Liana Caruana was no more. There was no one to protect her except the boy. 

But what if he knew that a being existed who could save his little sister? 

Hazaroff continued charging his demonic energy when he involuntarily blurted, “The Fourth Primogenitor…! Where are the Fourth Primogenitor’s remains…?!” 

Hazaroff commanded his living dead subordinates to search. The body of the Fourth Primogenitor, the girl who should have been trapped in the coffin, was nowhere to be seen. 

The Prince of Death’s voice quivered. “Boy… You could not have…?!” 

Back when Liana’s Beast Vassals had run amok, the ice coffin had cracked, and the girl’s remains had come into view. If she was the genuine Fourth Primogenitor, her flesh was immutable, said to be a curse from the gods themselves. It would be small wonder if one little nudge was enough to revive her. One little nudge— 

For instance, a human sacrifice offering her his own blood? 

“You planned this?! To have the gunfire pour your flesh and blood upon the Fourth Primogenitor?!” 

Then Hazaroff finally realized that the girl trapped inside the block of ice wasn’t gone. She was merely submerged—in a pool of blood under the tattered and torn body of the boy! 

He thought he heard the supposedly deceased boy call out someone’s name. 

“Av…ro…ra……” 

The next moment, an icy chill suddenly blew in, filling every corner of the ruin’s interior. 

Hazaroff’s face contorted in shock. 

“What is…thiiiiiiis…?!” 

The bloodstained girl rose up, visibly supporting the wounded boy’s body. She was a fairy-like girl dressed in nothing but a thin, plain cloth. 

Her hair glimmered like the rainbow and billowed like flames, and when she opened her eyes, they released a pale, blazing light. 

Bathed in the cold emanating from the girl, the living dead froze, shattering one by one. Even the transformed Hazaroff was cowed by the massive demonic energy. 

“It is no use. Even if you are the genuine Fourth Primogenitor, you have barely awakened. You are no foe of mine!” Hazaroff roared. 

He unleashed all the demonic energy he had in a fiery breath of the highest caliber—hellish, highly condensed demonic flames able to annihilate even vampiric Beast Vassals in a single blow. 

However, the fiery-eyed girl easily fended off that lethal black inferno. 

Behind her back, a giant shadow rose, translucent like a glacier. Its upper half resembled a human woman, while the lower half resembled a fish. Wings grew from her back, with the tips ending in razor-sharp, talon-like claws. She seemed like a mermaid of ice, or perhaps a siren— 

It was a summoned beast from a different world, wavering like a mirage… 

“A…Beast Vassal…?!” Hazaroff exclaimed. 

The servant the girl had called completely annihilated his black flaming breath. The remaining demonic energy then became a wild icy torrent, instantly freezing the divinely transformed Hazaroff. It froze him below absolute zero, a negative on the Kelvin scale, where matter could not maintain itself as matter— 

He moaned, “Im…possible… Such incredible power…cannot exi…” 

He could maintain his consciousness no longer. 

His flesh and blood completely faded away without a trace. As well as any sign he had ever existed. 

Inside the collapsing stonework room, Nagisa Akatsuki weakly murmured, “Kojou…” 

Then everything went white— 

9 

Under the dazzling rays of the sun, Gajou Akatsuki awoke. 

The horizon was cast in blue. Night had broken. 

Gajou’s body was covered in wounds. His beloved leather jacket had been ripped to tatters, dyed red and black from blood. Thanks to excessive blood loss, he was very cold. But he was alive. With so many of his comrades dead, Gajou—and Gajou alone—had survived. Again. 

As he lay upon the hard outcropping, he heard a voice from a girl with a small hint of a lisp. 

“—It seems you’ve come to.” 

Gajou let out a small groan as he tried to turn his head toward the voice. Even the slightest wiggling of his fingers sent fierce pain shooting through his entire body. Apparently, he was pretty beat-up. Even so, he forced himself to sit up so he could see the speaker. She was a small-statured Eastern girl wearing an elegant, frilly dress. She had a beautiful face, reminiscent of a doll’s, and long hair. For some reason, though it was early morning, she was holding a parasol over herself. Her face seemed less young and more like it only resembled a child’s, and the aura she gave off carried a strange gravitas and charisma. No doubt she was older than she looked. 

“It is best you do not move as of yet,” she said. “Your left arm is broken. Though, to face the Prince of Death and survive with just injuries… The luck of the Death Returnee, Gajou Akatsuki, is as strong as the rumors say.” 

Gajou clicked his tongue in dismay at the hateful title. It was an infamous name, granted because he had faced danger at numerous ruins, only to be the sole survivor—thus, the Death Returnee. He didn’t like being known by that epithet, but it couldn’t be helped; facts were facts. 

“That outfit… I see. You must be Natsuki Minamiya, the demon-slaying Witch of the Void.” 

Gajou had purposefully used her moniker in an attempt to return the verbal barb. However, the small girl in the dress merely hmphed and gave a small, scornful smile. Then she lowered her eyes with a hint of sadness. 

“I am pursuing remnants of the Black Death Emperor Front at the request of the Warlord’s Empire’s Master of Serpents. I’m sorry. If I’d arrived a little sooner, there would not have been so many casualties.” 

“Nah… This ruin was hidden by a magic barrier. Of course you couldn’t find it.” 

Gajou listlessly shook his head. Investigating the ruin of the Fairy’s Coffin was a top-secret project known only to precious few in the Warlord’s Empire and the Japanese government. The blame didn’t rest on Natsuki’s shoulders or anyone else’s. 

Natsuki casually stated, as if to console the dejected Gajou, “There are twenty-three survivors of the survey team—about half the staff aboveground were able to evacuate thanks to the time you bought holding off the Prince of Death.” 

Gajou shrugged his shoulders as he shifted his gaze to the former ruin. The collision of giant demonic energies had collapsed the underground tomb completely. 

It was unrecognizable. Restoring the interior was virtually a lost cause. 

“And Miss Caruana?” 

“The daughter of Duke Caruana? …Unfortunately…” 

“I see.” 

Gajou sighed briefly. He’d guessed Liana was dead from the dissolution of the barrier around the camp. It probably meant that Kojou and Nagisa, whom she had been protecting, were beyond saving. 

In a dry tone, Gajou made a hollow laugh and rose to his feet. 

“You’ve been a lot of help. You have my thanks, Natsuki.” 

“Do not speak my name so casually, Gajou Akatsuki. Besides, I did nothing that you should be thanking me for.” 

“Weren’t you the one who took down Hazaroff?” he asked, perplexed. 

Natsuki’s eyes conveyed no emotion as she silently shook her head. 

“It was all over by the time I entered the ruin. I did not destroy the Prince of Death.” 

“Who, then? You don’t mean he and Miss Caruana took each other out…?” 

Gajou was beside himself as he spoke. Liana had died fighting Golan Hazaroff, the Prince of Death. There was no one present besides her, a vampire noble, capable of defeating Hazaroff. None, save a single exception— 

Natsuki smiled provocatively as she twirled her parasol round and round. 

“All I did was bring the children buried underground outside.” 

“Chil…dren…?” 

“It seems you gave the twelfth Kaleid Blood the name of Avrora Florestina?” 

“The sleeping princess… She woke up…?!” 

Who knows? Natsuki seemed to be saying as she smiled. She said in a noncommittal tone of voice, “I have no evidence that Avrora awakened. Who destroyed the Prince of Death remains unclear. For now, at least.” 

She knew full well just how dangerous the present situation was. She understood what the awakening of the twelfth Kaleid Blood meant. 

She continued: “Nagisa Akatsuki is alive with heavy injuries. I’ve arranged an aircraft to get her to a hospital in Rome.” 

Natsuki pointed to the camp, scorched but still standing, to punctuate her assertion. A Demon Sanctuary medical team was treating the wounded in portable tents. Among them was a girl dressed like a priestess, sleeping like the dead inside a translucent medical capsule. 

They’d apparently abandoned all hope of on-site treatment and intended to transport her to a hospital outside the country while still in a coma. 

Gajou looked around the camp and asked, “What happened to Kojou? He had to have been with Nagisa!” 

His son was nowhere to be found among the wounded receiving treatment. 

Natsuki’s beautiful eyes narrowed in a smile that seemed dangerous somehow. 

“The boy is unharmed. He is simply sleeping.” 

He felt his entire body go numb. 

“Unharmed?” 

“Yes, despite all the signs that his entire body had been riddled and gouged with bullets, including his lungs and heart.” 

“…What?!” 

“—The twelfth Kaleid Blood and the Akatsuki siblings shall come under the care of the Far East Demon Sanctuary. The Warlord’s Empire has agreed. No complaints, Gajou Akatsuki?” 

Gajou finally grasped what Natsuki was getting at. “The Far East Demon Sanctuary…?! I see, Itogami Island…!” 

Itogami Island was an artificial island floating in the Pacific Ocean, a special administrative district under the jurisdiction of the Japanese government. It was also the stomping grounds of Natsuki Minamiya, the Witch of the Void. Once one was on Itogami Island, far removed from Europe, the other Dominions couldn’t touch them. They wouldn’t reach Avrora nor the Akatsuki siblings— 

“Nicely played, Witch of the Void—” he muttered. 

Natsuki Minamiya giggled with a proud smile as she said, “It concerns The Cleansing, so I twisted a few arms. Surely it is not a bad arrangement from your perspective? Are you dissatisfied, Gajou Akatsuki?” 

“…Nah. I hate the fact it’s all going as you please, but I don’t see any other options.” 

He lifted the edge of his scorched fedora. Then he turned his back to Natsuki. 

She raised an eyebrow slightly. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

Gajou never turned back, languidly waving with his still-broken left arm. 

“…I’ve got no right to face those kids right now, and it seems I can trust you. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to look after ’em for a while longer.” 

“Do you intend to search for a way to save those children?” 

Natsuki’s question stopped Gajou in his tracks. He grinned with a twitch of his cheek, like he was mocking himself. 

“I’m a scholar… Looking for stuff is my specialty.” 

Gajou resumed walking, nearly dragging his unsteady body forward. Natsuki made no move to stop him. Finally, he vanished amid the dazzling rays of the sun. 

The wind blew across the scarred outcropping, still carrying a whiff of gunpowder. 

That was the first meeting of the twelfth Kaleid Blood and the Akatsuki siblings—and the prelude to a new tragedy.