From the Warlord's Empire (6 page)

The wannabe butterfly, resembling something an elementary kid would scribble, fluttered for a while as it flew all around along the breeze, but finally its strength gave out and it fell back to the ground. Yukina made a small sigh as she looked it over.

“It would seem the caster has fled. I thought I could trace the ritual energy, but…”

“I see.” As Kojou wouldn’t have understood even if she’d explained the fine details, he nodded in her direction. The gist was, by his reckoning, that she’d tried to track whoever it was and failed. If even Yukina’s ritual arts couldn’t track them, there was no way Kojou could chase them down.

Looking over the destroyed bench, Kojou shrugged—it wasn’t like it was his fault—and Yukina made a seemingly dejected sigh as well. Yukina’s expression suddenly went pale.

She was looking at a bicycle rack behind the gym. Two schoolgirls passing by on their way home from school were pointing across a fence toward Kojou and Yukina, talking about something.

“…Himeragi?”

“I’m sorry, senpai. They have seen Snowdrift Wolf. I have to capture them and erase their memories immediately—”

“W-wait up, Himeragi!”

Kojou quickly moved to stop Yukina, who was gripping her spear and seemed ready to fly off.

“You don’t have to do that! Seriously, you don’t need to worry!”

“How can you just dismiss it like that?!” Yukina looked back with an expression that had no room for doubt. For Yukina, an exceptional, overserious student who was ideal for dealing with trouble when it arose, this was her greatest weakness. Kojou tried to ease her back down while calmly pointing things out.

“Er, but waving that around in those clothes, they’re going to think you’re just a girl really into cosplay.”

“Uh…umm…”

Looking down at how she was dressed, Yukina, unable to protest, held her tongue.

A cheerleader uniform paired with a futuristic-looking silver spear. There pretty much wasn’t anyone who’d look at a middle schooler dressed like this and think,
Oh, she’s a Counter-Demon Attack Mage from a secret organization!
Even as she had a dissatisfied look at being mistaken for a cosplayer, Yukina gave up on pursuit of the eyewitnesses.

Kojou made a strained smile as he watched Yukina’s dejected look.

“Hey. Himeragi, those clothes, is that…?”

“I ran out in the middle of fitting the outfit. Please do not stare so much.”

Yukina glared up at Kojou while holding down the edge of her pleated skirt. Due to the skirt being so short, one could see what was under it with only the barest of movements.

“But you, uh, have something on under it.”

“Even so, you may not look, senpai. You have a dirty look on your face.”

“Hey, now, that’s rude.”

Kojou twisted his mouth, bothered by having such exceedingly unfair words spoken to him. Even so, he knew he ought to thank her for coming to rescue him while wearing such an embarrassing outfit. “Oh well. Anyway, I’m all right, thanks to you.”

“It’s nothing. It’s my mission, after all.” Yukina spoke in the same blunt tone she usually did. As she made the expected reply, Kojou stuck his tongue out just a little.

“Ah…and those clothes look nice on you.”

“Huh?!”

That instant, Yukina’s cheeks seemed to explode in a flush of red. Unable to behave calmly, she checked that her outfit was in order once more before a strange mix of embarrassment and anger came over her face as she said “thanks” in a voice that threatened to vanish entirely.

She seemed tentatively happy. Kojou watched her, thinking that it was funny how her reactions were somehow like that of a puppy.

Nagisa was fond of saying that girls should be complimented every time they wore something different. All Kojou had done was faithfully obey her words, but having seen this expression on Yukina’s face, his noisy younger sister’s advice proved to be well worth following.

“That origami from before… You said it’s a way to send letters, right?”

While Yukina was reeling, Kojou’s eyes came to rest over the ground. There was something that had fallen amid the shattered remnants of the bench. Looking like she’d regained her senses, Yukina nodded.

“Yes. That is true, but…”

“So this one’s addressed to me, then.”

With those words, Kojou picked up a sealed, brand-new letter. The ornate letter, embroidered with gold leaf, was elaborately sealed with silver-colored wax.

Yukina’s expression hardened when she noticed what stamp it was marked with.

“That seal… It can’t be…”

“Himeragi?” Seeing Yukina thrown off, Kojou spoke in a perplexed voice. “Do you know who this letter’s from? I have a bad feeling about this somehow…”

“Yes…but this shouldn’t be…”

As Yukina spoke, she bit her lip. The seal was decorated with a crest with a snake-and-sword design. It seemed very dignified, but Kojou felt the design was rather creepy somehow.

Kojou waited for her to continue her explanation as both of them looked down at the sealed letter.

“—Kojou?”

That was when someone unexpectedly called Kojou’s name.

Hearing Kojou’s voice, a classmate of his leisurely poked her head out from the shadow of the building. She was a schoolgirl with elegant facial features. Kojou and Yukina swallowed as their faces met.

“What are you doing making a ruckus back here? You have some nerve not coming to practice, leaving me there with the lovey-dovey couples and making me come looking for you…”

“A-Asagi?”

The shocked expression that came over Kojou’s face was due to the unexpected outfit she was wearing.

It was a sleeveless polo shirt with a frighteningly short, pure white tennis skirt. It wasn’t odd for a badminton uniform—and yet, given this wasn’t a public match, but rather practice for a mere sports festival, Kojou thought it was awfully revealing.

For whatever reason, Asagi was expressionless as she looked over Kojou and Yukina as they stood still. Then…

“…What’s that letter?”

“Eh?”

As she asked in a quiet voice, Kojou finally grasped the gravity of the situation.

A boy and a girl meeting behind the gym after classes, avoiding prying eyes, and held in their hands was an unusually extravagant letter. Looking at this, she must have thought that either Kojou or Yukina was giving the letter to the other…

By the thinking of any impartial observer, this was someone tenderly confessing their love.

“Did I interrupt something?” Asagi asked with an awkward expression. Her attitude was that of someone in shock.

Kojou and Yukina vigorously shook their heads at the same time.

“No, you’re not. I met Himeragi here because of an unforeseeable incident, emergency situation; it’s absolutely
not
that we’re exchanging a letter here, right, Himeragi?”

“I-indeed. This outfit’s for class cheerleading, I’m certainly not wearing it because it suits Akatsuki-senpai’s tastes…”

Even though those were the actual facts, somehow even Kojou found them strangely unconvincing. He wondered if he’d normally be in a much happier mood being sandwiched by two girls in short skirts.

Asagi maintained a strange reserve as Kojou and Yukina continued explaining in tandem. “That’s enough,” she said, making a long sigh. “It’s fine, whatever. It doesn’t have anything to do with me, anyway.”

As she spoke, she made a small smile. Her smile was perfect, but Kojou did not sense the usual whimsical Asagi; rather, her smiling face seemed drained of all emotion.

Keeping that artificial smile on her face, Asagi turned her back on Kojou and Yukina.

“Ah, hey, Asagi…!”

Ignoring Kojou’s words of restraint, Asagi vanished into the shadow of the building once more.

Kojou thought, as if strangely detached, that Asagi had been concerned for him, only to have undergone a heavy shock due to a complete misunderstanding.

“Oh, crap. She’s going to think she has something on me for sure. I’ll have to pay her something or bribe her with food to keep her quiet again…and why was she dressed like that, anyway?”

Kojou held his head, trying to understand why Asagi left surprisingly easily.

Seeing Kojou like that, Yukina looked up at him with a face that was somehow full of reproach.

“Senpai…,” she muttered with a weak sigh mixed in.

The man was in the corner of a dreary room with bare metal showing.

The only sound in the quiet, thinly lit laboratory was that of cooling fans. The temperature was low enough to make exhales turn to white mist, no doubt to protect the electronic circuitry packed in the room like a dense grove of trees.

The image displayed by the central monitor enumerated strange written characters of unknown origin.

Without any warning, the lab’s dividing doors suddenly flew open.

A group of three strange people barged in.

Two of them were men wearing black business suits. The third was a young woman wearing a dress covered in frills. The woman had a cherubic face like that of a little girl.

The man’s chair creaked as he turned to face the out-of-place intruders.

“Who are you people? This is a Class Six classified zone. Entry of unauthorized personnel is strictly—…”

Glaring at them like a bird of prey whose nest had been disturbed, he threatened the men in black. But his expression went rigid mid-sentence. He noticed the ID badges that the men in the suits were wearing.

“…You are Yousuke Makimura of the Kano Alchemical Industries Research Branch, I presume.”

One of the black-suited men spoke in an impersonal voice lacking in inflection.

The badges identifying the men in suits bore simple five-pointed star magic circles for personal protection. These identified the men as national Counter-Demon Attack Mages assigned to the Special District Police Counter-Demon Unit that dealt with national sorcerous offenses.

“Research Chief Makimura. We believe this laboratory is making use of materials in violation of the Sorcery Import Control Act. We demand that you hand over all research data on the premises as well as all materials.”

“I-import Control Act violation?!”

The man named Makimura rose from his seat, sweat appearing on his forehead.

“Wait. There must be some mistake! This is a laboratory that decodes ancient languages. We have permission from the Administration Corporation. If you just speak to the manager…”

“A few days ago, we apprehended one of Kristof Gardos’s subordinates.”

The other black-suited man drew a pistol, informing the researcher in an overbearing manner. Makimura sharply inhaled.

“I hereby place you under arrest under Article Five of the Special District Public Security Code. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You should be careful what you say and do.”

“Ugh…!”

The man in the black suit moved to grab Makimura’s arm and slap handcuffs on him… But that moment, the black-suited man was assailed by a dull impact.

Compared to the slender, helpless-looking Makimura, the man in the black suit had a far more robust frame. There was a weight difference between them of forty kilograms or so. But when Makimura shook the arm the man in the black suit had grabbed, it was the latter that went flying. The man in black slammed against a nearby pillar, making an anguished exhale as he collapsed onto the floor.

Just as certain reptiles altered the pigment of their cells according to their mood, Makimura was capable of changing the very nature of his
cells according to his own will. He was a beast man—a werewolf. The researcher had transformed into a fearsome berserker with the strength and explosiveness of a ferocious beast.

The other man in black instantly turned his pistol on Makimura. With a well-trained motion, he fired silver and iridium alloy bullets popularly known as Lycan-Killers. However, Makimura slipped past the raining bullets and knocked the pistol out of the black-suited man’s hands.

He then made a powerful leap toward the still-open dividing doors, attempting to flee outside.

“So he is an unregistered demon…a Black Death Emperor Front sympathizer?”

The woman watching Makimura’s back as he fled, Natsuki Minamiya, murmured as if quite bored. Then, she quietly issued her command.

“…
Astarte
, I don’t mind if you’re a little rough. Arrest him.”

“Accept.”

As if to block Makimura’s escape, a small indigo-haired girl stood in front of the dividing doors.

She had white, seemingly translucent skin and blue eyes. She had a perfectly symmetrical face. The girl felt like a living being, but she seemed frail and fairylike.

The girl wore an apron dress with a large gap open over the back. Seeing the weaponless girl, the bestialized Makimura ferociously bared his fangs with a laugh.

“Homunculus?! Do you think this brat can stop me…!”

“…Execute ‘Rhododactylos.’”

The next instant, it was as if Astarte’s flesh was ripped open by the wing that emerged from her back, glowing with the colors of the rainbow. The shock wave from them warped the air inside the lab. It was a pulse of magical energy so dense that it gained solidity and physical mass. Bathed in it at close range, Makimura screamed.

“Wha…?!”

The wing that had sprouted from the girl’s back changed shape to that of a giant arm. It was the arm of a golem, covered in rainbow-colored armor. With all the force of a cannon, its fist slammed into the werewolf man head-on.

The dull, crashing sound conveyed the sense of bone and flesh being smashed.

It was might that surely would have killed any normal human. But the small girl called Astarte had apparently not held back whatsoever.

“A…a Beast Vassal?! That’s crazy… Why does a homunculus have a Beast Vassal…?!”

Coughing up a mass of blood, Makimura made a frail groan that seemed delirious.

Astarte’s expressionless eyes, like the surface of a calm lake, looked down upon Makimura as the arm extending from her back restrained his body. The true nature of that giant arm was a sentient mass of magical energy known as a Beast Vassal.

These were summoned beasts from another world, taking physical form in exchange for consuming the life force of their host.

As familiars went, these were the worst of the worst, suddenly exhausting the life force of their summoners and granting them death.

But by the same token, the combat ability of a Beast Vassal was immense. It was because vampires could use Beast Vassals that they were the most feared of all demonkind.

And only vampires, with infinite “negative” life forces, could tame Beast Vassals…

Astarte was the one and only exception. For Rhododactylos was an artificial Beast Vassal constructed for a certain objective by a Lotharingian Armed Apostle.

Makimura, unable to maintain his bestialized state due to the heavy wounds he’d sustained, coughed violently as he returned to human form. Rushing over while they had the chance, the men in black suits fastened a metal ring around Makimura’s neck. It was an anti-demon restraining device that employed a weak electrical current to throw the nervous system into haywire and prevent bestialization.

“…I’m very sorry, instructor Minamiya. Your aid was invaluable.”

One of the men in black, pressing down on his broken arm, said words of thanks to Natsuki. She elegantly shook her head as she opened up a black-frilled fan.

“No need to thank me. I’m not the one who did the work.”

As she spoke, she made an annoyed-sounding snort. Though her manner of speech was overbearing, her overly childish-sounding voice and natural-born grace kept it from feeling grating.

Indeed, the men in black looked quite pleased at how coldly she treated them. It was all part of Natsuki’s charm.

In the meantime, she looked over several photographs spread out over Makimura’s desk.

They were photos of stone tablets that had been excavated from some ancient ruin. Engraved on the faces of the stone tablets were the same indecipherable symbols as those displayed on the laboratory’s monitor. But merely by looking at those lines of text, she instinctively understood.

What was written here contained frighteningly dangerous power…

“So this is what the Black Death Emperor Front went through the trouble of smuggling in from Southeast Asia… It seems to be no mere relic after all… Where’s the original?”

“…Cannot confirm target. Hypothesis: Target has already been removed from this facility,” Astarte casually replied to Natsuki’s musings. The homunculus girl pointed to a metal shipping case left in a corner of the room.

Though it was a special type that had ritualistic seals piled upon it, it was empty, the seals already broken.

Someone must have taken the stone tablets contained within somewhere else.

“So we’re too late, in other words?”

As she asked herself in a voice of displeasure, Natsuki looked up at the image displayed by the monitor.

Somehow, Makimura had used his own company’s research facilities to decipher the stone tablet. But the deciphering was not yet complete; the only thing he’d managed to decipher was a single word. Natsuki’s expression sharpened as she looked over the characters that spelled “Nalakuvera.”

“This is insane… What are you thinking, Kristof Gardos…?”

Makimura, still on the floor, made a high-pitched laugh as he listened to their conversation.

It was the loud, mad laugh of a terrorist who yearned for global destruction.

Kojou Akatsuki was walking along a seaside footpath illuminated by the rays of the evening sun.

Beside him was Yukina, carrying her guitar case on her back. Thanks to Asagi’s whims turning sports festival practice into a pretzel, they’d ended up just going home together.

Both were taking a minor detour, heading to a supermarket close to where they lived. Thanks to Nagisa coming back late from club activity, buying ingredients for supper on the way back to her place had become a daily ritual for them.