Strike the Blood - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.1

Intermission i 

“—The Prison Barrier is Natsuki’s dream world?” 

Asagi Aiba’s voice echoed throughout the stone-walled castle dungeon. 

Still tied to the metal pipe chair, she surveyed her surroundings like she was trying to ascertain if it was real. 

“Then, this is a virtual space created with magic? Now that I think about it, I do feel like it reflects Natsuki’s hobbies somehow…” 

Perhaps Asagi didn’t entirely pick up on all the surrounding details as she made a cute hum of admiration. 

For some reason, Asagi’s simplistic reaction made Kojou feel a bit lonely and left behind. 

“You sure accepted that fast. I’m still not accepting it all that well…,” he said. 

“That so? I mean, stories of being locked in another world by evil spirits and demons aren’t all that rare, are they? It’s like the genie in the lamp in The Arabian Nights. If anyone can relate to diving into a virtual world, it’s us hackers.” 

“So that’s why,” he noted, accepting Asagi’s fairly straightforward explanation. 

Even if the underlying principles differed, the latest information technology and Natsuki Minamiya’s high level apparently shared certain things in common. 

With a tone of dissatisfaction, Asagi asked Yukina, who stood right beside them: 

“So setting that aside, why am I tied up? Why not just Kojou?” 

“I apologize. There is a defensive barrier set up all around you, so it would be dangerous for you to move.” 

“You said something about it being safe even if Kojou’s demonic energy goes berserk… So that’s bad?” 

“Yes. Quite.” 

Asagi stared at Yukina’s serious expression and slumped her shoulders without a word. She may have been disappointed, but she seemed to trust Yukina for now. 

And the next moment, the air shuddered like a water ripple as a new silhouette emerged without a sound. 

“Mm-hmm. The fact you’re a sharp pupil is very helpful, Aiba. Little time is lost explaining,” said a small woman with long, black hair, a lacy parasol open in her right hand. The contours of both her face and body were very striking; from a distance she could be mistaken for a doll. However, as if to defy her youthful appearance, she wore an elegant red-and-black dress, and a strange charisma hovered around her. She was Natsuki Minamiya—a federal Attack Mage assigned to law enforcement, an English teacher at Saikai Private Academy High School and, according to her, twenty-six years old. 

Surprised by the sudden appearance of her homeroom teacher, Asagi unwittingly yelped in a shrill voice, “Natsuki…?!” 

“I am not Natsuki to you.” 

“Ow!” Asagi cried out, taken aback by a rough slap to her forehead. 

Then Natsuki walked in a leisurely curve until she stood in front of Kojou. Natsuki gave off an impression that felt a little different from what Kojou and Asagi were accustomed to, possibly due to their presence in the Prison Barrier. There was no change in her physique, but if he had to put his finger on it, her expression seemed fuller and younger at the moment. That was probably closer to her “true” appearance. 

“Err… Don’t tell me you plan to get my memory back, Natsuki?” Kojou asked, gazing at the younger-looking Natsuki. 

“I told you, don’t call me by my first name.” 

As she spoke, she suddenly whacked him with the parasol in her hand. Kojou, restrained by chains, could not escape the rather painful blow. Even so, he continued heedlessly, “It feels like no good’ll come from asking this, but how the heck do you plan on doing that, anyway?” 

As he posed the question, Natsuki remained silent as she approached the torture devices lined up against the stone wall. After giving them a once-over, she reached for a metal hammer resembling a meat tenderizer and said, “It’s so nice to have a patient who won’t die even if you kill him. I don’t need to worry about holding back.” 

“Physical attacks?! That’s awfully primitive, isn’t it?!” 

The chains binding Kojou’s entire body creaked as he shouted. He thought that giving a patient with amnesia a strong blow to the head was medically unsound, the sort of thing kids should not try at home. 

“It’s just a little adult humor. Don’t take it so seriously,” Natsuki said without amusement, releasing the mallet. Then, as if pitying Kojou, she narrowed her eyes and made a beautiful smile. “Though, it might be easier on you if I could remind you with only a smack to the head.” 

“Whaddaya mean by that?! You’re freaking me out!!” he exclaimed. He scowled and added, “It doesn’t sound like a joke, coming from you.” 

That was when Kojou noticed the old book Natsuki was carrying under her left arm. 

“—That book?!” 

“Oho, you remember it?” 

The corners of Natsuki’s lips curled up in satisfaction. 

“That’s the one Yuuma’s mom had…from when you were turned back into a little kid.” 

“Yes. Grimoire No. 014…for controlling an individual’s personal history.” 

A personal history encompassed someone’s accumulated time from birth to the present; in other words, it magically stored an individual’s life. Grimoire No. 014 could steal other people’s personal history—their memories, growth, and changes. The vile tome could return a talented adult to the state of a powerless child, as well as steal another person’s knowledge and experiences. Even in LCO, a criminal organization accumulating grimoires from the world over, it was a dangerous book only the leader of the organization was permitted to bear. 

“Properly speaking, it is a grimoire for wholesale robbery of the ‘time’ another person has passed, like Aya Tokoyogi did, but I cannot expect it to work to the same extent against a vampire primogenitor. I believe it can at least recreate the time you experienced in the past and allow others to share it with you.” 

Natsuki offered her conclusion without the slightest hesitation. Kojou’s unease preceded his understanding of exactly what she was saying. 

“Others…sharing the time I spent…?” 

“Grimoires like this tend to work poorly on vampires given their high magical resistance, but that’s why you’re in the Prison Barrier. We are inside my dream world, after all; it should serve us fairly well. Worst case, I’ll have the transfer student help. If she stabs you with that Schneewaltzer, your power to resist shall surely diminish.” 

“I suppose you are right.” Yukina, gripping the silver spear, agreed without the slightest hesitation. Her spear, dubbed Snowdrift Wolf, was a primogenitor-killing weapon that nullified demonic energy. 

“Wait a darn minute!” screamed Kojou without restraint. “Never mind power to resist, that thing’ll kill me! Don’t just agree with her like that, Himeragi!” 

When Kojou had been impaled by that spear before, he’d experienced not only enough pain to kill a man, but he’d endured a terrible wound that even vampiric healing ability could not overcome. Just remembering it made him shudder. 

Asagi ignored Kojou’s fear and asked, “What would experiencing the same time as him mean?” 

“It means exactly what it sounds like. Everyone here will experience the occasions Kojou Akatsuki did. You could say it’s close to watching a person’s memories. The difference is, the actual events shall be faithfully reproduced regardless of his own memories.” 

“I see… So even if the memory vanished, the ‘experience’ still stays with you. It’s like transferring unreadable data to a different disk so you can recover it.” 

Asagi readily accepted Natsuki’s explanation. 

Kojou’s lips twisted in irritation as he looked up at her. “Maybe this is a selfish thing to say, but what about my privacy here?” 

Natsuki appeared mystified. “…You have such a thing?” she mused aloud. 

“Hey!” he exclaimed, his voice getting ragged. “Oh yes, I do! Everyone’s got one or two things they don’t want people to know!” 

Asagi chimed in, “What, you mean like the Big Breasts Special Edition pin-up magazine you hid in your room in middle school?” 

“How the hell do you know about that?!” 

Kojou, disturbed at the sudden revelation of his embarrassing past, turned his gaze toward Asagi in horror. 

“Nagisa found them when she was cleaning your room and was shocked, so she came to me and Motoki to talk about it. Well, in the end, it turned out that Motoki had lent it to you in the first place…” 

“Aaaaaaaaaaggghhh…” 

Asagi’s explanation hit Kojou like a sucker punch, making him hunch in dismay despite the chains. The fact that even his little sister knew his secret pushed him deeper into despair. 

“Big Breasts Special Edition?” 

“Big Breasts Special Edition… Is that so…” 

Natsuki and Yukina stared at Kojou, and in a tone even colder than normal, they said: 

“You’re the worst.” 

“You really are the worst.” 

“Oh, shaddup! A middle school boy is into lots of stuff!” Kojou lamented in a mixture of defiance and desperation. 

Asagi sighed, truly exasperated. “‘Lots of stuff,’ meaning you’re hiding more?” 

“No! That’s not what I meant!” 

Yukina murmured in apparent resignation, “Well…I knew from the start that you’re an indecent person, senpai.” 

Kojou looked hurt. “Hey, there’s no connection between those two things!” 

Natsuki giggled and grinned as she twirled her parasol, ridiculing Kojou. 

“Do not be concerned. Your private life does not hold my interest. I shall revive only the parts of your memory that are missing: in other words, those related to the previous Fourth Primogenitor—Avrora Florestina.” 

“If that’s the case, say so from the start, dammit.” He glared at Natsuki and grumbled, “Didn’t need to embarrass me like that.” 

Natsuki gazed at Kojou, her eyes unemotional as she stated, “This will probably be a difficult experience for everyone.” 

“Yeah, I know that.” 

Kojou quietly nodded. The chains wrapped around his body somehow seemed heavier. 

“…I already know that.”