From the Warlord's Empire (16 page)

But that did not explain why Nagisa was so frightened.

“I don’t really get this, but let’s run for it. It’s better than staying here!”

Perhaps because she saw Nagisa shaking like that, Asagi spoke those words while heading for the clinic room exit.

But before she arrived, the door opened violently.

Seeing the silhouette barging in, Asagi let out a short yelp.

A large man wearing a gray military uniform appeared as if to block Asagi’s path. His face was covered with silver bestial hair, with sharp fangs poking out from his tapered lips.

“…Beast man?”

Hearing Asagi’s murmur, Nagisa made a sound of fright. Strength surged into the arm Yukina was embracing her with. Yukina was confident she could defeat a single beast man in unarmed combat.

But that was if Yukina was alone. It was far more difficult if she had to cover Asagi and Nagisa, even if she had the element of surprise; all the more so with Nagisa in this state of despair.

Leaving her spear behind had been a complete blunder on Yukina’s part. Even on school grounds, she should never have let Snowdrift Wolf go.

“You found her, Grigore?”

Another beast man wearing a military uniform entered after the first. This one was still in human form, but the middle-aged man possessed an incredibly oppressive aura.

“It’s one of these three, Lieutenant Colonel. Comparing their scents one by one, we’ll know soon enough.”

Speaking in a grating, hard-to-understand voice, the beast man tossed the small shoe in his hand onto the floor.

Upon seeing this, Yukina inhaled sharply. They’d come all the way
to the clinic room following the scent of that shoe. In other words, the owner of the shoe was who they were after.

“I can’t tell these Japanese faces apart… Fine, then. Bring them all. They’ll serve as bargaining chips, I’m sure. As hostages.”

“…”

Asagi slowly backed away while glaring at the approaching beast man.

A moment later, an antiseptic, unaccented voice echoed throughout the room as the girl in a white gown stepped forward.

“—Homunculus Guardianship Regulations, Special Exception Number Two, Basic Self-Defense, Invoked. Execute, Rhododac—”

But she never completed issuing her command to her man-made Beast Vassal.

With a speed that even Yukina could not react to, the man in the military uniform, who’d been called Lieutenant Colonel, drew his pistol and shot her.

In an instant, six shots struck Astarte, sending her body suddenly flying right against the wall. Asagi and the others were in shock at the ghastly scene unfolding right before their eyes.

“…Lieutenant Colonel?”

The beast man’s face questioned if his superior’s attack was overkill against a little girl, even if she was a homunculus.

“I sensed a strange demonic energy flowing from this doll—some kind of self-defense system, perhaps.”

The lieutenant colonel spoke casually as he put his gun away. He spoke with no special self-reflection or regret.

But Yukina, watching his savage attitude, knew that he had made the correct decision as a soldier.

An artificial Beast Vassal with overwhelming combat capability dwelled within Astarte’s body. Without any prior warning, he’d detected its presence and had rendered the host incapable of combat before she could summon the Beast Vassal—not a decision a normal military man could make. This man was an absurdly skilled, first-rate soldier. There was no way Yukina could defeat him without Snowdrift Wolf in her hands. No, she wasn’t sure she could win, even with Snowdrift Wolf…

“Ahh, sorry for scaring you. Relax. If you obey our instructions, we don’t intend to cause you any harm.”

The lieutenant colonel spoke in fluent Japanese as if to ease the terrified girls’ concerns.

“One among you is Asagi Aiba, yes? We have a little job we’d like you to do. I promise that once it’s finished, we’ll release the three of you unharmed.”

“…Who are you people?”

As if to shield Yukina and the others, Asagi stepped forward, questioning the men back. She had to be just as scared as the rest of them, but her voice did not tremble at all.

The lieutenant colonel looked over Asagi’s valiant display with an expression of praise. Precisely because he was a soldier of such valor, he displayed respect for courage in others. Perhaps it was simply their fashion.

“I apologize for our rudeness. I am a crude man who knows nothing but battlefield tactics and must apologize for not introducing myself to a lady.”

The man who had been called Lieutenant Colonel removed his hat as he spoke with a gentlemanly demeanor.

“My name is Kristof Gardos—a former soldier of the Warlord’s Empire, currently a revolutionary activist. Some would call me a terrorist.”

As he named himself Gardos, Yukina watched him, sucked in her breath.

He had a great forehead and a sharp, hooked nose. He had an elderly face boasting both intelligence and a stern, oppressive feeling.

On his cheek was a scar that stood out. A large, old scar…

A lone young man ran, threading the spaces between the buildings stretching around the monorail platform.

He was wearing a Saikai Academy boy’s high school uniform. His hair was short and lightly dyed; he wore closed-type headphones around his neck.

He was Motoki Yaze, classmate of the Fourth Primogenitor, Kojou Akatsuki.

“Aw crap, Kojou, you bastard,
that’s
the place you pick to rampage through?”

Yaze clicked his tongue in irritation at the sandstorm-like noise that still afflicted his ears.

Itogami Island’s weather was good that day, with a rare, gentle breeze blowing. However, as he stood on the monorail platform, powerful eddies blew roughly all around him.

“My ‘soundscape’ is a wreck thanks to you! Those Beast Vassals of yours are nothing but trouble.”

As Yaze spoke, he fished a number of medicinal pills out of a pocket. They were twin-colored capsules that resembled cold medicine sold over the counter. Tossing them into his mouth, he violently crunched them without even a sip of water.

Motoki Yaze had a special type of genetic makeup known as “Hyper-Adapter.” He was no demon, but a human born with unusual abilities. A psychic might be a much simpler way to put it.

The Yaze family was deeply involved in the corporate alliance that founded the Demon Sanctuary, but it was also a family line that cranked out a great many people with special abilities. Motoki, too, was one of those aberrant people.

Using a type of psychokinesis, Yaze’s sense of hearing was as accurate as a high-precision radar system. It was as if he saw sound with his own eyes. Using his uncanny sense of hearing, Yaze had a monitoring net deployed all over Saikai Academy, allowing him to observe everything within the school. Kojou was one of the people he was monitoring.

A passive ability reliant only on listening to sound—furthermore, even Yukina, possessing excellent Spirit Sight, could not detect Yaze’s watching.

But his soundscape had weaknesses, of course.

Just like how an image from a camera bathed in bright light will be washed out, big, explosive noises destroyed the soundscape. The seismic waves released by Kojou’s Beast Vassal were more than powerful enough to rip his delicate field to shreds.

It took some seventy-four minutes to re-create the field as it was destroyed. Asagi Aiba’s abduction had coincided with the time his defenses had been down.

“Going after Asagi with that timing, though…that Gardos bastard ain’t right in the head, either!” Yaze muttered while tossing several more capsules into his mouth.

It was right after Kojou’s Beast Vassal had released so much demonic energy. Of course Gardos and his men had noticed the existence of the Fourth Primogenitor. However, in that moment, it was equally true that Saikai Academy’s security system had been taken down in the process. Their top priority was the timing for success with the abduction, even at the risk of encountering a primogenitor.

That took no small amount of courage.

Yaze was chasing the Black Death Emperor Front car Asagi and the others were being transported in.

He was on his own two legs pursuing the car running at some sixty kilometers per hour. The ninety-kilometer-per-hour tailwind blowing fiercely all around him made it possible for him to sprint at that speed in bursts.

The flow and direction of the signal might change, but microphones and speakers fundamentally worked the same way. It was the same for Yaze’s ability. His ability, normally used to passively “listen,” was now creating a disturbance in the movement of the atmosphere; in that moment, Yaze had created a squall of his own volition, freely manipulating the flow of the air.

Of course, this wasn’t a power a flesh-and-blood human could use without cost.

The pills Yaze had taken were chemical drugs that boosted his abilities temporarily. The side effects were serious, and overuse would bring a suitably heavy cost. Even so, they were all he could rely on at the moment.

“Heliport? Are they planning to take them off Itogami Island…?”

Realizing where the Black Death Emperor Front was heading to, Yaze finally lowered his speed.

It was a civilian aviation company’s helipad at Island East. Most of its business was aerial photography and sightseeing tours for tourists, but it rented out helicopters as well.

A helicopter apparently kept on standby lifted off as soon as Asagi and the other tied-up girls were loaded into it.

If they were heading off the island, even Yaze’s ability wouldn’t be able to follow them farther. But—

“…Will it reach?”

Yaze gulped down a large number of pills, covered his ears with his headphones, and closed his eyes.

He unleashed his ability, feeling as if his nerves were on fire. Yaze’s field of vision suddenly opened wide, giving him a clear picture even tens of kilometers over the ocean.

Several hundred meters above Yaze’s head, a double of him was created out of the airflow itself. Using atmospheric vibrations to emulate his flesh and nervous system, he transferred his consciousness to it. Yaze named this, his trump card, “Air Loading.”

Though it used the same principle as astral projection by spiritualists, Air Loading, related but with the advantage of physical form, could convey images just as accurately as the physical eye.

But as he discovered the destination of the helicopter now far over the ocean, Yaze was deeply perplexed.

“That’s the Black Death Emperor Front’s hideout…? What’s the meaning of this?!”

A moment later, Yaze heard a sarcastic voice coming from directly behind his real body.

“Acoustic control, I presume? Hmm…quite a rare ability; quite different from Druid magic. Perhaps an ability similar to mystics on the continent?”

“The hell?!”

The drawback of Yaze’s ability was projecting his consciousness to his double greatly reduced his own body’s awareness.

He barely managed to respond to the voice, but he still couldn’t locate the speaker.

Then Yaze sensed a massive surge of magical energy from behind him.

It had a weighty explosiveness to it that rivaled even Kojou’s Beast Vassals.

“What the heck’s that power—?!”

Yaze’s double was enveloped by magic power resembling a ray of light and annihilated. Someone on the ground had shot his concentrated mass of air out of the sky as it flew some several hundred meters aboveground.

Letting out an anguished moan from the pain of the backlash, Yaze collapsed onto the ground.

“That’s crazy. Why are you…?!”

This time he shouted at the sight of the man standing there.

Standing against the backlighting was a tall man, laughing as he lightly snapped his fingers.

A giant mass of flame writhed behind his back.

“Sorry, it’s inconvenient for me if you interfere with them just yet…Don’t worry, you won’t die. Probably.”

Before the man finished speaking, the flame snake lashed out at the ground beneath Yaze’s feet. The superheated cinder blocks burst apart; pulled down by gravity, they fell in pieces like an avalanche.

Below was the watery surface of a transport canal that continued to the ocean. Unable to even scream, Yaze was pulled down along with the debris, making a spectacular splash and sinking down into the muddy water.

Around that time, Kojou and Sayaka were seated beside each other at the emergency stairway behind the school gym, away from prying eyes. At first the atmosphere had been very stormy, but as time passed, that had indeed waned.

With unexcited expressions on their faces, both gazed up absentmindedly, watching the flow of the clouds, until Sayaka finally made a small yawn. As she did so, Kojou glanced in her direction, watching the side of her face.

“…Wh-what are you looking at?”

Sayaka suddenly glared at him, her cheeks reddening.

“Err. Sorry,” Kojou apologized with an annoyed wave. Sayaka’s lips curled in annoyance at how Kojou was dismissing her like a noisy puppy.

Similar sour notes had been struck several times over since earlier, thoroughly draining Kojou and Sayaka’s mental energy.

“Hey. How long do we have to be like this for?”

“Until Yukina comes back, I’d think?”

As Sayaka spoke, she clutched a pair of bags she’d placed on top of her knees. One contained the keyboard case that held Sayaka’s sword. The other was the guitar case holding Yukina’s spear.

“Just to make things clear, I don’t really want to spend even a single moment together with an indecent man like you. What if I get pregnant from breathing the same air as you?”

“Like that can happen!! Whaddaya think a vampire is?!”

“I wouldn’t put it past you. You drank
my
Yukina’s blood—you drank
my
Yukina’s blood!!”

With a resentful tone of voice, Sayaka made a subdued groan. Kojou thought,
Well, this is depressing,
making a deep sigh.

Thanks to that, Kojou somehow realized for himself that both of them were just being stubborn.

If he was dealing with someone younger, like Yukina, he’d just smile and let little bits of trouble roll off of him; if it was someone older, like Natsuki—appearances aside—he’d be plenty willing to exercise humility.

As he was thinking about that, he suddenly met Sayaka’s eyes. She
seemed to have been watching Kojou for the whole time he was thinking. Then…

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

After getting along so poorly, both opened their mouths at the same time. Sayaka made an annoyed snort, urging Kojou, “You go first.” Kojou shrugged his shoulders in dismay.

“Er…I mean, sorry. For stuff.”

“Huh?” Sayaka’s eyes widened in shock. “Why are you apologizing? It’s creeping me out.”

“Oh shut up! I mean, I think you were right to say what you said, Kirasaka.”

As Kojou spoke, he pulled the hood of the parka he was wearing down over his eyes. Talking about this while looking into the other person’s eyes was making him blushy somehow.

“With the Armed Apostle old man not long ago and with the terrorist business this time, Himeragi’s been involved in troublesome incidents on my account. So I thought, it’s natural that her friend would be upset about it.”

For some reason, Sayaka tapered her lips with a look of dissatisfaction.

“Certainly it is your fault, but it couldn’t be helped because it’s Yukina’s mission to watch over you; it’s not like she’s helping you because she
wants
to. You don’t really need to worry yourself about it.”

“Ah…well, that may be so, but it’s still true she helped me.”

Kojou shook his head with a pained smile mixed in. Sayaka was such a contrarian that she’d switched to consoling Kojou midway through her words. Having herself realized that midway, Sayaka made an expression of loathing.

“You’re certainly an odd vampire… Usually I don’t think one would thank someone watching him. Or maybe you go for that sort of thing?”

“I’m not thanking anyone for being watched,” Kojou said back in a sullen voice.

“It’s just, the watching’s a bother, but Himeragi’s a good person.”

“I thought you were a completely hopeless man, but it seems you’re at least somewhat sentient. I’ll concede that much.”

Sayaka looked pleased somehow as she spoke. It seemed his
complimenting Yukina put her in a good mood.
She really does like Yukina,
Kojou thought with a smile,
so why does she have to look down on me like this?

“But I can’t give credit for such plain compliments. If you’re going to properly praise Yukina, you need to show more resolve and respect.”

“…What’s a way to compliment with resolve and respect?”

“It’s nothing complicated. All you need to do is faithfully describe Yukina as she really is: her fair skin; the soft, golden hair of her cheek; the little mole under her collarbone; those lines from her shoulder blades, just like an angel’s wings, to her oh-so-tight waist to her curvy hips, weaving into that golden rump…!”

“…That’s all physical appearance, isn’t it?!” Kojou interrupted, unable to bear Sayaka’s starting to ramble on about Yukina’s charms any further. “There’s other things to compliment, too, aren’t there?! And you sound totally obsessed!!”

“…Besides her appearance?”

On her guard, Sayaka looked at Kojou.
This man is dangerous, indeed…

“I suppose. Certainly there’s when I quietly slipped into Yukina’s bed and had her lingering scent all around me… Ahh, such bliss…”

“…Who compliments people on their scent?!” Kojou raised his voice, a sharp headache coming on. “I don’t mean that; talk about her personality, geez! She’s so serious, and she works so hard. She goes a surprising way for other people even though she’s shy, and she’s really strong-willed, but also has some soft spots and weaknesses and stuff…”

“N…not bad, Kojou Akatsuki.”

Sayaka looked at Kojou with a dumbfounded expression.

“To think you could compete with
me
…”

“Er, not that I’m trying to compete with you, but…”

We ain’t exactly on the same page here,
thought Kojou, feeling fatigued.

“I’ll have you know, I’ve been in the bath together with Yukina!”

“Like I care!! This crazy contrarian stuff’s gettin’ on my nerves!”

“Oh, shut up! I’ve been with that girl since she was seven years old. I’ve spent a longer time with her than her actual family has, so…” As she spoke, Sayaka thrust her cell phone before Kojou, as if delighting in victory.

Displayed on the screen was an old photo showing two young girls.