The Amphisbaena (15 page)

The girl slept within the light.

Faintly aware, her ears heard the ceaseless reverberations of spell chants that sounded like solemn music. Beautiful light merged with a flood of sound. The light was being emitted by the complex magical symbols imprinted upon her flesh; the sound of singing came from her very own throat.

Her hideous, mismatched wings remained spread as Kanon Kanase dreamed within the light.

She knew that she was changing into something else, something not human.

She understood, without anyone having to tell her, that by the time the change was fully realized, the being known as Kanon Kanase would vanish from the world.

She did not feel frightened or sad about that. It was simply the way it was. She could do naught but obey the mechanisms of the world determined by God himself.

The remnants of her consciousness contained a faint reassurance.

The small lives she had saved; the memories of their warmth upon her cheek.

Perhaps she was obstinate and tenacious to that degree toward the kittens abandoned by their heartless owners because she saw herself, unaware of her own parents, in their tiny forms. Perhaps she had
subconsciously yearned to leave behind some mark upon the world, some proof she had existed, before she vanished entirely—

Either way, her wish had been fulfilled. Even if no one would remember the girl named Kanon Kanase, no doubt the cats whose lives she had saved would live on.

Therefore, she had no regrets. Not even that her accursed arms, stained by the blood of her comrades, would never again have the opportunity to carry them…

Just before she fell completely asleep, Kanon suddenly remembered.

She remembered the name of the boy, the last one who had called out her name while she had still been human.

She remembered the glimmer of his scarlet eyes. She remembered the vast demonic energy of the familiars he wielded. She remembered how, even so, he had shouted in concern for her as she moved to tear out her comrade’s throat…

She remembered the look on his face when he was awkwardly holding that kitten.

Yes… She was certain that was…Nagisa’s…

“Big brother…”

Kanon’s consciousness dissolved into the light.

As she continued to sleep, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

The ship was anchored at sea about twenty kilometers from Itogami Island.

The ship had originally been a freighter for shipping factory-manufactured robots, but its enormous cargo hold now contained only a single landing craft and several dozen Automata. The aging vessel’s original duties now finished, it was currently on loan for the sake of Kensei Kanase’s research.

“Whew, I feel like lead… These clothes, they’re too stiff. And hot…”

Beatrice Basler made her way down the rusting stairway with a listless gait. She was fresh from having personally driven a ferryboat from Itogami Island to the ship.

Stripping off her nicely tailored jacket, Beatrice unbuttoned her blouse
from the top down. Reaching a state seemingly designed to flaunt her ample bosom, she untied her hair with ease. She dropped her pretense of being an intellectual chief of research and development, displaying her true and far more aggressive personality.

She removed the bracelet, which was no longer transmitting, and opened a thick metallic door. The freighter had been overhauled to install this concealed section. It was the door to the lab Kensei Kanase was using to conduct his sorcerous ritual.

“A dreary ship as always. The food’s bad, too. How can you stay caged up like this?”

Beatrice spoke with little affection in her voice as she looked over the laboratory Kensei Kanase called “the Altar.”

It was a cramped chamber packed with seemingly limitless medical devices. It resembled an intensive care unit at a major hospital as well as a lab for handling dangerous pathogens. Or perhaps more like a solemn temple for revering a god…

Any way you sliced it, it was far from a place that the demonic Beatrice liked or felt comfortable in.

A man standing in the middle of the room replied to Beatrice’s question. “It’s an illegal experiment. It cannot be helped.”

He was a man with an austere face with white mixed into his hair. He looked like he was just short of fifty years old. Though not of any great bulk, the man had an oddly overbearing presence. From his appearance, one might mistake him for a pious clergyman.

But he was neither monk, nor a minister. If anything, he was a man whose beliefs were the polar opposite of theirs. This was a man who sought to master alchemy and sorcery to reshape the world using miracles wrought by his own hand.

In other words, this was Kensei Kanase…sorcerous engineer.

“Though I expected it, the level of miasma generated by activating a Faux-Angel above Fifth Stage is too great. Even in a Demon Sanctuary, the release of miasma on that scale would bring the Island Guard knocking on our door with a warrant.”

Kensei spoke without showing any sign of tiring of gazing through the window before him.

A solitary girl slept on the other side of the multipaned, heavily reinforced glass.

It had bone-white walls with a marble floor with passages from scripture engraved into it. There were seven beds placed in it, all surrounded by electronic devices for medical purposes, but there was only the one sleeping girl. Now, she was the only one left.

“…So, how is our would-be angel doing?” Beatrice asked with a tone of indifference.

Kensei responded without looking back. “It’s going steadily. The pathways of the foreign spiritual nodes she absorbed have stabilized. A bit of damage remains from the combat, but that too shall surely be healed by tonight.”

“I heard that the mask was destroyed in combat.”

Staring at the girl who continued to sleep, Beatrice tapered her lips.

Normally, the girl’s beautiful face would be hidden under a metallic mask.

“Minimal effects. It isn’t a problem. I expected that the blinker would become ineffective once she arrives at Stage Seven in the first place.”

“Ah, really. If that’s so, how do you plan on controlling that monster?”

As Kensei turned back, a faint, seemingly derisive smile came over him.

“Corrupted as she may be, this is still a servant of God. A Faux-Angel reaching this stage is no different from a natural disaster once she is first unleashed. I never imagined controlling her as a tool.”

“…News to me.” Beatrice’s thin eyebrows rose.

To his sponsor, Magus Craft, what Kensei Kanase was attempting to create was mere merchandise. A tool that could not be controlled had no sale value whatsoever.

“There’s no need for concern. Think of them as a type of bomb. An awakened Faux-Angel battles her foes out of instinct, and once her duty is finished, she ascends to heaven…in a literal sense.”

“Ah…is that it…? Well, I suppose it can be sold like that…?”

Murmuring as she rudely flicked her hair up high, Beatrice turned her eyes to the girl on the bed once more.

She was a silver-haired girl with hideous, uneven wings. She used to be known by the name Kanon Kanase.

“So in the end, it was your ‘daughter’ who survived? Thoughts?”

“I expected it from the very beginning,” Kensei said bluntly in a dry, casual tone.

“Nothing went against my expectations. She was simply better.”

“That’s the royal bloodline for you, even if she is a bastard daughter.”

Beatrice laughed with a look of scorn.

Though no expression formed on his face, a glint like cold anger formed in his eyes.

“…Surely you did not come here for such trifling conversation, BB?”

“Of course not,” went BB—Beatrice Basler—as she made a great shrug of her shoulders. “We’ve secured the Fourth Primogenitor.”

“The World’s Mightiest Vampire, yes? So it was indeed a Primogenitor who interfered with the previous
ceremony
…”

“He has a Sword Shaman from the Lion King Agency watching him, after all… Whether he’s the real Fourth Primogenitor or not, we couldn’t ask for a better opponent for displaying our new product. The people at the company will be overjoyed…”

Beatrice’s voice was lively as she spoke. After a long moment of contemplation, Kensei solemnly replied with a question.

“Where is the Fourth Primogenitor?”

“The Goldfish Bowl. You know it, don’t you—the Automata live fire exercise site? You can go ahead and sink the whole island.”

“Very well. I could not ask for a finer catalyst for the final evolution.” Kensei nodded solemnly as he replied. Beatrice smiled elegantly and turned on her heels.

“It’s settled. I’ll tell the captain to get the ship moving…”

That moment, a small device rang out from Beatrice’s chest. Her corporate pager was receiving a text. It took only one glance at the message displayed on the LCD screen for Beatrice to make an unamused snort.

“What is it?”

“It’s from Kirishima. He seems to have found what he was looking for. That Aldegian sow apparently washed up at the Goldfish Bowl… Well, it’s what I expected given the location.”

“Princess La Folia… So she is still alive. A lucky girl… No, perhaps it has only needlessly prolonged her suffering from her perspective.”

Murmuring in a tone rich with implication, Kensei made a sigh as if pitying the princess. Beatrice narrowed her eyes in a cruel look as she
stuffed the folded pager back into a tight-looking pocket on the chest of her blouse.

“Now we’ll use XDA-7 to crush them without mercy, yes?”

“Yes…”

Kensei made a solemn nod as he gazed expressionlessly at the still-sleeping Kanon.

“Yes… I suppose we will…”

The lifepod La Folia had been aboard had washed up on the coast on the west side of the island. It was on the ocean side from Itogami Island’s perspective. It was right on the opposite side of the pillbox Kojou and Yukina had been in, with the spring right in the middle between them.

“So you really are a princess…”

Kojou murmured with deep, earnest emotion as he looked at the lifepod left on the beach.

“Why would I need to lie?”

La Folia inclined her head as she beheld the confused Kojou.

Her lifepod, outfitted for a queen, was frighteningly lavish in construction. The egg-shaped hull was surrounded by a plastic shell and an automatic rubber flotation device. In size and shape, it was broadly consistent with Kojou’s mental idea of what a lifepod should look like. But…

The exterior was a gray metallic color. No rust. No corrosion. Perhaps that had kept it highly conductive and thus resistant to lightning strikes.

The pod was lined with genuine leather and, in spite of the narrow space, was outfitted with a fine bed; though it of course had food and water, its comforts even included a lavatory with hot water.

Any way you look at it, there’s no way someone in a lifepod like this isn’t royalty
, Kojou thought. He could even accept how La Folia still had impeccable hygiene in spite of having been adrift for several days.

“So what should I call you, anyway? Is ‘Your Highness’ all right?”

“Call me La Folia, Kojou. I’m sick and tired of hearing ‘Your Excellency,’ ‘Your Highness,’ and ‘Your Majesty.’ I would at least like friends from another country to call me by something less stiff and formal. That goes for you, too, Yukina.”

“Eh? No, I mean, but…”

Yukina shook her head in apparent surprise. Being technically a member of a government agency, she was of course resisting cozying up like that. But seeing Yukina reacting like that…

“Yes… We could use a pet name.”

“Mhmm,” La Folia nodded, a serious look on her face. Then, the princess made a proud smile.

“How about a Japanese-style one… Yes, you can call me Foli-rin.
Hee-hee
, I’ll have— You know, I’m actually well versed in Japanese culture.”

“…No, if I may be so presumptuous, I shall address you by your name, La Folia.”

Yukina spoke with a tone of surrender. She surely sensed that at this rate, they truly were in danger of addressing her by some silly nickname. Certainly she was fluent in Japanese, but at the very least that nickname wasn’t Japanese-style at all.

Incidentally, Yukina retrieved her drying uniform and immediately changed into it. As squalls were frequent in the area, Saikai Academy used quick-drying fabrics for its school uniforms.

“So what are you doing in a place like this, anyway?” Kojou asked as he finally felt pangs of hunger. It had to be close to dawn, but naturally, he didn’t feel much like sleeping so soon after being shot at.

“My ship was shot down while I was on my way to visit Itogami City.”

La Folia spoke as if it was no great thing. It was Kojou and Yukina who expressed surprise.

“Shot down…?!”

“By Magus Craft, perhaps…?”

Kojou and Yukina both asked questions.

“That is correct, likely for the purpose of taking me captive.”

As if lamenting the sacrifice of her subordinates, La Folia lowered her eyes a little as she nodded.

The armored airship she had been flying aboard had been shot down six days earlier. It was right on the same night of the Masked incidents beginning on Itogami Island.

That day, La Folia and the knight company escorting her set forth for Itogami Island on a royal armored airship. Then, just as they flew over
nearby waters, they were suddenly attacked: an ambush in the dead of night, a thousand meters above sea level.

With the knight company having lost the initiative and most of its fighting strength, her retainers judged the situation lost and stuffed La Folia into a lifepod. She was given no time to resist; the launched pod then fell into the sea.

La Folia had apparently drifted in the ocean for about two days before washing up on this deserted island.

“…Were those Magus Craft people trying to make ransom demands or something?”

Kojou harbored obvious doubts as he asked her. He couldn’t think of any other reason for demons in the employ of the human corporation Magus Craft to shoot down a ship belonging to some country’s royal family.