From the Warlord's Empire (19 page)

“It really is a war out there, geez…”

Kojou groaned with irritation and frustration while listening to the ceaseless gunfire.

The under-construction sub-float had cranes and watchtowers standing around like decrepit trees. The largest watchtower among them was a cylindrical building about five stories tall.

A number of thickly armored trucks had that watchtower surrounded.

Island Guard mechanized troops sheltered in the shadows of the armored trucks as they blind-fired small arms. Each time they did so, return fire came from the watchtower side; the fierce firefight had descended into a complete stalemate.

There was armored truck wreckage strewn all around the watchtower; the casualties were not small in number. It was a war of attrition, like wading through a swamp. It didn’t feel like anything civilians like Kojou and Sayaka should be poking their faces into.

“Looks like the terrorists are defending that place,” said Sayaka, coolly assessing the combat situation.

“Defending? In a place like that?”

Kojou shifted his gaze to her with a doubtful look.

There was nothing for the Black Death Emperor Front to gain from defending a place where they could expect no support from allies and had limited weapons and ammunition. He didn’t think Gardos, who’d gone to a military academy, would choose such a foolish strategy.

But Sayaka pointed to the still-burning helicopter wreckage.

“I wonder if they weren’t planning to use that to escape. But the Island Guard shot the helicopter down, so they’ve lost the means to run.”

“So they have no choice but to do this, you’re saying.”

Kojou made an “mmm” through his nose. Sayaka’s explanation made sense on the surface, he thought. Criminals on the lam tended to hole up in any building close at hand.

But though he couldn’t put it cleanly into words, Kojou still had a strange unease inside of him.

“Landing a chopper in plain sight like this is practically begging people to shoot it down, isn’t it…?”

“Eh?”

“Er, nothing. Anyway, if the Black Death Emperor Front has nowhere to run, it’s possible they’d use Himeragi and the others as hostages?”

“H-hostages…”

That moment, Sayaka’s small face flushed with an agitated sound coming from her.
That’s not good,
Kojou thought, clicking his tongue. Thanks to Kojou’s carelessly tossed word, Sayaka had completely lost her cool.

Without hesitation, Sayaka drew her sword out of the keyboard case she was carrying.

“Yukina…I have to…I have to go save her…”

“Calm down, Kirasaka! The Island Guard has the entrance sealed off. If we go barging in, they’ll arrest us in no time!”

Kojou pinned Sayaka’s arms from behind while shouting into her ear.

Sayaka struggled with both arms and legs.

“I-I understand that, geez! Can’t you do something?!”

“Whaddaya mean,
something
?”

“Spells, spells. Charm the policemen with an evil eye, transform into mist to slip past them, fly in the sky, stuff like that.”

“I don’t have any superhuman skills like that!”

“Huh?! You’re a vampire primogenitor, aren’t you?”

Sayaka looked back in shock at Kojou’s entirely frank confession.

“I told you, I was a normal human being until just lately!”

“Beast Vassals?! Don’t you have any abilities you can use from the Fourth Primogenitor’s twelve Beast Vassals?”

She gave Kojou such an expectant look that he was hesitant to reply, as if intimidated by it.

“No, I’ve…only got one Beast Vassal that’ll listen to me properly right now. That live wire finally recognized me as its master when I sucked on Himeragi’s blood a little while back.”

“What…?!”

Strength surged into the left hand that held Sayaka’s sword.

“You mean
that’s
what Duke Ardeal meant when he said spirit medium…?! So Yukina let you suck her blood so that the Beast Vassal wouldn’t go berserk? Then what was the Beast Vassal you used on the rooftop back there…?”

“I didn’t
use
it. One of ’em tried to come out all on its own.”

“On its own…?”

Dejected, Sayaka staggered back as if having a dizzy spell.

Finally, as if deciding on something, she knitted her beautiful eyebrows and glared at the policemen blocking her path.

“I understand quite well that I can’t rely on you. I’ll have to do this myself…”

“Wait, wait! What do you think you’re doing?!”

Kojou rushed to block Sayaka’s path as a bloodcurdling expression came across her face.

“It’s all right, I won’t be a klutz and leave evidence.”

“I’m not talking about that! Aw, crap. The important thing is we just have to get to the sub-float over there, right?!”

“…What do you intend to do?”

As Kojou rephrased the situation, Sayaka shot him an uneasy look.

Kojou put the guitar case containing the spear over his back and briskly circled Sayaka’s flank.

“Sorry, don’t move for a sec, ’kay?”

“Eh? What are y…
yaah
?!”

Sayaka’s whole body virtually froze at her shock from being lifted up into a bridal carry.

In the meantime, Kojou made a small bite into his own lip. He used the taste of blood swirling in his mouth as the trigger to unleash his vampiric strength. Clutching Sayaka all the while, he ran toward the sub-float.

The only thing the police had sealed off was the bridge connecting the sub-float to the island. In other words, they could get across from anywhere,
as long as they didn’t use the bridge
.

The distance between it and Itogami Island proper was about eight meters. Even a normal human being could leap that distance with a running start…if he was an Olympic track and field athlete.

With the aid of a vampire’s strength, he should have had ability to spare even with some added baggage…or so he thought.

“…Whoa?! Huh, that was closer than I figured.”

Landing just over the edge of the sub-float’s cliff, Kojou made a ragged exhale. One step short and any misstep would have put them in danger of falling right into the sea.

Perhaps it was indeed difficult to make such a leap while carrying
another person, even with the strength of a vampire. Or perhaps Sayaka was heavier than she looked… Just as Kojou had that rude thought…

“Wh-wh-wh…what do you think you’re doing?!”

Sayaka suddenly went wild in Kojou’s arms.

“We got across, didn’t we? Didn’t have to hurt any policemen, either…”

“This doesn’t count! This doesn’t count, you hear me?!”

Sayaka pounded Kojou’s head while saying seemingly meaningless words. It really must have gotten to her; the punches were far more timid than one would expect from a Counter-Demon Attack Mage.

“What the heck are you talkin’ about? And don’t move around like that, we’ll fall into the ocean!”

“Shut up, be quiet! Burn to ash!”

“Ow?! Hey, you, quit with the sword, that ain’t funny!”

For some reason, Sayaka had tears in her eyes as she swung her sword. Kojou instantly dodged it, but fell down then and there with Sayaka still in his arms, ending up pinning Sayaka to the ground.

With Sayaka not ceasing her attacks even then, Kojou somehow managed to pin both of her arms down.

“…What are you two doing?”

Suddenly, a mass of frills suddenly appeared before Kojou and Sayaka’s eyes, seemingly walking out of thin air.

She had an expensive-looking parasol and an overly adorned black dress; Kojou knew only one person who would wear an outfit like
that
amid Itogami Island’s never-ending summer.

“Natsuki? Weren’t you taking on the terrorists?”

“I have to let the Island Guard people get the glory some of the time. It seems the assault team has the Black Death Emperor Front survivors on their heels, so they don’t need the help.” Natsuki replied while giving the continuing firefight at the watchtower a long look. So the Black Death Emperor Front was holed up inside there, just as Kojou and Sayaka had deduced.

“So, why is this mouth calling me Natsuki?”

“Ow, ow, ow, stop that…”

Natsuki twisted the unresisting Kojou’s cheek, hard. Kojou’s arms were unavailable, busy as they were keeping Sayaka pinned down.

“It isn’t the time for this…Himeragi and the others have been kidnapped and might be host—”

Even so, Kojou spoke in a desperate tone, as if to convey the gravity of the matter.

It was the next moment that the fierce sound of gunfire abruptly ceased.

Kojou and the others lifted their head at the strange silence that had suddenly descended.

Roaaaaaaaaar—

A great roar, like a bomb detonating, rang in the ears of the people there.

As the roar echoed in midair over the sub-float, the ground shook violently, as if during an earthquake.

The origin point of the roaring sound was the watchtower the Black Death Emperor Front had been holed up in. The steel-frame tower was enveloped in flames; the Island Guard personnel surrounding the watchtower put their heads down to avoid the flying debris.

“The heck was that explosion?! Is this from the Island Guard’s assault, too?”

The flame-enveloped watchtower continued to break apart. Kojou was in shock as he gazed at the seemingly unreal sight.

Natsuki continued to hold Kojou’s twisted cheek as she shook her head.

“No…suicide, perhaps?”

“Suicide…?”

A group of bestialized terrorists seemed to have escaped the smoke-wrapped watchtower. But many of them were caught in the tower’s collapse. If they were responsible for the explosion, certainly the sight looked like nothing other than suicide, but…

“What’s…this presence…?!”

Sayaka thrust away the bent-over Kojou and leaped to her feet.

She was looking at the base of the destroyed watchtower. There was something gigantic moving out of the huge pile of debris falling all over the place.

Titanic magical energy gushed out from the depths of the earth. The aura felt very dense, strangely artificial, and somehow bizarrely twisted.

“Hmm, I’m not really sure, but this might be…bad?”

Kojou and the others, overwhelmed by the bizarre sight, heard a sarcastic laugh from behind them.

As Kojou turned, he saw a handsome blond young man wearing a white three-piece suit…

“Vattler?! Why are you here, too?!”

“What are you doing here?!”

Looking back at the grinning Dimitrie Vattler, Kojou and Sayaka raised their voices simultaneously.

Natsuki raised an eyebrow with displeasure as well.

“What do you want, Master of Serpents?”

“My, my, let’s leave the long talk for later. You might want to have your unit pull back first. At any rate, Gardos is not here. The group left a simple decoy.”

As Vattler pulled his sunglasses slightly ajar, his beautiful blue eyes narrowed teasingly.

Natsuki’s beautiful cherubic face twisted as she glared at him.

“Decoy? What do they gain by gathering the Island Guard to a place like this?”

“Of course, it is necessary for their objective, a test of their newly obtained weapon. Surely you have not forgotten what the Black Death Emperor Front brought to this island?”

“…The weapon?!”

That instant, a frigid expression came over Natsuki.

The doubts that had been swirling in the back of Kojou’s mind suddenly came into sharp relief.

A standoff with no hope of victory; a helicopter shot down, just like that—perhaps the Black Death Emperor Front’s objective was to draw the Island Guard’s mechanized force members so that they could be destroyed.

Which meant, what was hidden in the hollow cavity under the sub-float was…

“—The Nalakuvera?!”

As if responding to Kojou’s call, a giant silhouette scattered the debris as it emerged.

Then Kojou saw a crimson beam of light sweeping across the ground. The beam ripped the armored trucks apart with ease, as if they were made out of flimsy paper. They exploded with ferocious flames, pieces scattering in all directions.

Kristof Gardos watched the explosion in real time via a live feed over the network. He turned to a military radio microphone and inquired in a voice filled with satisfaction.

“Status report, Grigore.”

“This is Grigore. Bingo, Lieutenant Colonel. The guinea pig is on the move.”

His subordinate, riding aboard the Nalakuvera, shouted in a tone of voice tinged with excitement.

Called a weapon of the gods, the true nature of the Nalakuvera was a sentient, mechanical beast.

Once activated, it would act on its own judgment to autonomously attack and annihilate all who opposed it.

A controller could issue it commands, but the Nalakuvera’s controller had to use special verbal command codes to do so. Only those who could decipher the words of the gods could make the weapon of the gods obey them.

“Can you continue combat?”

“This is a child’s play. All I’m doing is sitting back and watching. I don’t know how long the island can hold up to the pounding, though.”

Once he spoke, Grigore made a ferocious laugh.

Either way, the only command code they possessed was “The First Words” Asagi had deciphered. With the Nalakuvera now in motion, no mortal could stop it.

“Roger that, Grigore.”

Gardos cut the transmission and slowly turned in Asagi’s direction.

Asagi had a seemingly tranquil look on her face as she looked at the image displayed on her tablet PC.

Every time the Nalakuvera unleashed its beam, the resulting giant explosion shook the sub-float. Armored trucks were burning. Island Guard personnel were running for their lives. This tragedy had come as a result of the command code Asagi had analyzed. Surely that fact had affected her deeply.

“…So that’s how it is. Do you still have any questions?”

Gardos asked as he gazed at the expressionless Asagi and the others.

As Asagi remained silent, Yukina asked in her place.

“Why?”

“…Why?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I believe I already explained our objectives?”

“No, that is not what I mean; rather, why is the Duke of Ardeal cooperating with you?”

Gardos raised his eyebrow a little. His gray eyes registered a faint bit of surprise.

“I see. I did not recognize you due to the different outfit, but you were the one accompanying the Fourth Primogenitor that night.”

“This is inside the
Oceanus Grave
, isn’t it?”

Yukina let out a light sigh as she nodded.

Yukina, too, had been late in realizing: the large, old man with a scar on his forehead; the look of intelligence that did not match the ghoulish oppressive sensation; Vattler’s steward, serving as a waiter on the night Vattler had invited Kojou…

The man they’d been searching for had been right under their noses from the start.

“So the reason the people of the Island Guard couldn’t find the Black Death Emperor Front’s hideout was because it was inside a ship protected by diplomatic immunity…isn’t it?”

“There seems to be no point hiding it now.”

Gardos made a curt murmur, apparently ordering his men to open the windows.

They opened the shutter-sealed windows…revealing the vast surface of the ocean, glittering in the sunlight. They saw the artificial silhouette of Itogami Island floating on the horizon.

Yukina and the others had to be ten kilometers or so off the coast.

“Inside…a ship…” Asagi weakly raised her voice, narrowing her eyes at the dazzling rays of the sun.

“This is the personal cruiser of Duke Ardeal of the Warlord’s Empire,” Gardos explained rather casually. The visit of a noble from the Warlord’s Empire had even been broadcast to the general public. As the handsome
Vattler was a hot topic on talk shows, even Asagi had to have heard of him.

“So, why?”

Yukina asked the same question again.

“The Black Death Emperor Front is a beast-man supremacist organization. You and Duke Ardeal, a noble of the Warlord’s Empire, should be enemies, all the more so because he was the mastermind behind the assassination of your leader, the Black Death Emperor…”

“Yes. That is why even the Demon Sanctuary’s security forces never suspected this ship.”

Gardos was expressionless, stating it without any special sense of triumph.

“About half of this ship’s crew are survivors of the Black Death Emperor Front. But appearances aside, Vattler is nobility. He’d never bother to look into the backgrounds of the people crewing his own ship. He leaves that responsibility to the ship’s crew management company, in other words…”

Yukina scowled her eyebrows in displeasure.

“Surely you’re not asserting Duke Ardeal knew nothing of this. What benefit does all this bring to him?”

“Though I do not deign to know the thinking of an unaging vampire, I imagine it’s probably boredom.”

“…Boredom?”

“Yes. That is why he wishes to fight the Nalakuvera, the weapon of the gods that might be able to defeat even a primogenitor: a splendid playmate for a vampire with too much time on his hands. Should the Fourth Primogenitor battle the Nalakuvera first, he can enjoy the view. However, it turns out, he certainly won’t be bored.”

“That’s…”

Yukina felt a surge of bewilderment and anger at Vattler’s deviant thought process. For a temporary relief from tedium, he’d go as far as using and sheltering terrorists after his own life. It wasn’t the conduct of a sane man.

As if agreeing with Yukina’s thoughts, an expression of loathing came over Gardos’s face.

“We do not have such poor tastes. But the Black Death Emperor Front
requires the power to defeat a primogenitor either way. Vattler, said to be the man closest to a primogenitor in might, is an excellent opponent to test the Nalakuvera’s power against. We both want this battle to take place; in this instance, our interests completely coincide.”

“…You’ve resurrected that monster for a trivial reason like that? All of Itogami Island could be destroyed…!”

“If tens of thousands of the humans who built this cage they call a ‘Demon Sanctuary’ and their tame, hand-fed demon pets are killed, we will feel not one shred of guilt.”

Gardos spoke in a tone devoid of emotion.

“Of course, we do not desire meaningless slaughter. Our primary objective is the destruction of our target, Vattler. We will minimize the damage to the city as much as possible…if we can completely control the Nalakuvera, that is.”

“Meaning, hand over the deciphered command codes if you don’t want Itogami Island turned to ash?”

Having kept silent all this time, Asagi shot a venomous look at Gardos.

The corners of Gardos’s lips turned up in a smile.

The Nalakuvera had already been activated. The only way to stop the indiscriminate destruction was for Asagi to decipher the command codes, knowing full well that the Black Death Emperor Front would be able to use the Nalakuvera as it wished as a direct consequence.

“That’s low. You really are a terrorist.”

“The Souverän Nine is inside. All the necessary data has been made available; it has full network access, so use it however you like.”

“I don’t have a choice either way. Fine, then. But this is going to cost you dearly.”

Without paying the slightest attention to Asagi’s abusive language, Gardos headed out of the room, taking his men with him.

Finally, he looked back at Asagi for just a moment.

“It is not that I doubt your skill, but you should hurry as much as possible. It will be inconvenient for both of us should the island sink before we get those command codes.”

“I’m doing this for me, not for you…!”

As Asagi shouted, drenched in loathing, she violently kicked open the room’s inner door.

It was a cold room for the preservation of fresh fish. However, the spartan room contained neither fish nor fresh meat, but rather, rack-mounted high-performance computing servers—in other words, a supercomputer. With wild abandon, Asagi stormed into the air-chilled room being used to keep the circuits from running too hot. That moment, a voice came to her from an unexpected direction.

“…Do not be impatient, young woman.”

A clear, cool voice flowed from the lips of Nagisa, who should have been soundly asleep.

Asagi turned around, drawn in by the somehow odd reverberation of the voice.

Nagisa’s tied-up hair was now loose, flowing down almost all the way to her hips. Her eyes, with her irises opened wide, projected no emotion, like the surface of a calm pool of water. Her lips formed a smile all by themselves.

“Do not permit your mind to be troubled. With that contraption’s capabilities, it shall not take you very long to decipher a single document from a long-dead civilization.”

“Nagisa, is that you…?”

Bewildered, Asagi called out to Nagisa, who felt like a completely different person than her usual self.

Yukina shook her head with a look of surprise.

“No, it is not… This condition is…divine possession? Or a spirit…?”

“
Ho-ho
, I see. So
you, too, are a shrine maiden
, Sword Shaman of the Lion King.”

Nagisa made a smile of apparent pleasure as she spoke. Deeply disturbed, Yukina stared at her, as if trying to assess the situation.

“Then, you must understand as well. Even without your concern, that boy shall buy you time—time for that young woman to move forward with her plan.”

“Who…are you…?!” Yukina sharply narrowed her eyes as she asked in return. However, Nagisa did not respond in any way. Without another word, her eyelids gently closed, collapsing like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

“What was that? Who was that?”

Yukina held her tongue and shook her head at Asagi’s questions.

Even Yukina could not explain Nagisa’s abnormal behavior. She had clearly witnessed something greater than a human being taking the girl over. Perhaps it was divine possession; could also have been a latent personality buried deep within Nagisa’s psyche. Perhaps it had something to do with the injuries she’d sustained that had never been written in the Lion King Agency’s report…but at any rate, this wasn’t the time or place to look into it.

Yukina slapped her cheeks and rose, as if forcing her emotions to switch gears.

“Aiba. May I borrow your cell phone?”

“Sure, but what are you planning?”

Asagi tossed her light pink smartphone to Yukina. She’d be able to get a cell signal now that the ship was getting close to Itogami Island.