Strike the Blood - Volume 19 - Chapter 2.3

3

The shoulders of the little girl, her back arched like a kitten’s, trembled as she awoke.

Upon seeing this, Motoki Yaze’s face softened with an expression of relief.

It was an underground passage hazily lit by the glow of emergency lighting.

In that dry, artificial space, the effects of the collision of Beast Vassals were nowhere to be felt.

Just before the sub-float collapsed, Yaze moved to Itogami Island proper with the girl in tow. He’d leaped across the canal separating the two artificial isles.

The Yaze family line was one of hereditary psychics known as Hyper Adapters. Yaze himself was one of those natural-born psychics. His main abilities were powers to control gases and molecular motion.

Normally, it was a weak power that could only be used for eavesdropping, but if he set aside his subconscious limiter, he could freely manipulate the flow of the wind. Yaze had succeeded in using the raging winds kicked up by Kojou and company to make an enormous leap of nearly forty meters. If he hadn’t used an underhanded trick like that, he had no doubt escaping with a fainted girl along for the ride would have been impossible.

“Hey, Nagisa. Awake already?”

“Yazecchi…?”

The just-awakened Nagisa Akatsuki slowly lifted her head, looking around the area suspiciously. Then, the girl’s lips suddenly stiffened. The clash of two Beast Vassals, the collapse of the sub-float—those were fresh in her mind.

“Where are we? And Kojou?! What about Asagi and Yukina and Kanon…?!”

“No use worryin’ about Kojou,” Yaze responded confidently and without hesitation. “That ain’t anywhere near enough to kill the likes of him. I mean, his Beast Vassal didn’t go berserk, and that The Blood guy wasn’t serious this time, either.”

In reality, Yaze wasn’t nearly as certain of that as his words would imply. Kojou being safe was nothing more than Yaze’s own deduction. Still, his hypothesis that The Blood had not been serious was probably right.

If he’d really wanted to eliminate Kojou, he wouldn’t have needed to go through the trouble of putting together the stupid event he was calling an Electoral War.

Having Kojou participate was convenient for turning it into an even bigger spectacle. That was why The Blood had gone out of his way to reveal himself before Kojou. Showing off his own power and cruelty, he thereby backed Kojou into a corner, involving him regardless of whether Kojou liked it. It was all to provoke Kojou.

“…And the others?”

“If Kojou’s alive, well, the others are probably fine, too. If anything, from all of us there, the biggest scrubs were you and me, Nagisa.”

Yaze’s self-defacing frivolity brought an awkward smile to Nagisa’s face. “Yeah… Yeah, you’re right. Yukina, Kanon, and Asagi are all strong.”

“See? So we have to make sure we don’t slow ’em down at least.”

“I suppose you’re right. Sorry, Yazecchi… Because I went into a panic…” Nagisa’s shoulders drooped. She no doubt remembered herself hyperventilating earlier.

Don’t worry about it went Yaze’s shake of his hand. “No, no. That’s the reaction any normal girl should have. Asagi and the others just have nerves of steel, that’s all.”

“But…!” Nagisa quickly rose to her feet. There was a dull gong noise coming from the top of her head. “Ouch… What is this?”

Clutching her head with both hands, Nagisa looked up with tearful eyes. There rested a PVC pipeline. It was already a low underground passage without the multiple pipes and cables running in a tidy row close to the ceiling.

“Those are probably gas pipes. This is an underground passage for city utility maintenance. The ceiling’s low, so it’s tough to walk through, but hey, it’s a lot safer than trying to move around topside.”

“But where does it go? Do you have a map?” she asked, concerned as she squinted down the dimly lit passage.

Yaze looked a little proud of himself as he pointed at his own temple. “I have most of the layout stuffed in here.”

“Whoa! That’s amazing, Yazecchi! I think you’re cool for the first time ever!”

“First time ever?!” Nagisa’s all-too-blunt praise brought an expression of dismay over Yaze. “Well, that’s fine and all. I have an older girlfriend and everything.”

“…You actually have a girlfriend? She’s not just a figment of your imagination?” Nagisa asked, full of doubt.

“Yes, she really exists!” Yaze shot back. Then, in a voice too low for her to hear, he added, “If she’s alive, that is.”

He didn’t think Koyomi Shizuka, one of the Three Saints of the Lion King Agency, would sit back and watch as the Order of the End and The Blood carried out their misdeeds, but Keystone Gate had been wrecked and Itogami Island’s City Management System had been hijacked. There was only one possibility he could think of—even Koyomi had been unable to defeat The Blood.

The safety of his defeated girlfriend weighed on his mind, but at present Yaze had no way to find out what had happened to her. Ensuring Nagisa Akatsuki’s safety had to come first.

“Nagisa, how are you feeling? Can you walk?”

“Yeah. I’m fine, but—”

Nagisa looked down at her body to check for wounds. There were no obvious injuries apparent to the eye, though she had bumped the top of her head earlier.

And yet, Nagisa grimaced when she noticed the scent of blood hovering around her. Her already large eyes became larger still when she noticed a smear of blood on Yaze’s shirt spreading outward.

“Yazecchi? What’s with that cut?!”

“Ahh, this? A little thing happened when some leftovers from the Rogues Alliance caught up in the middle of our running away.”

Yaze made a pained smile as he pressed a hand on his left shoulder. It was a wound from a beast person’s claw attack. It had breached his air pressure defenses and gouged him from his shoulder blade all the way down to his hip.

Fortunately, it had missed his vitals, but he was still bleeding at that very moment. That was why Yaze was hiding in an underground passage rather than being on the move.

“Don’t tell me that’s because you were carrying me…?” Nagisa asked in a fearful tone of voice.

Yaze fervently shook his head. “No, no. Apparently that bunch mistook us for being pals of the Order of the End, so it’s not your fault. If anything, it’s entirely possible they let me go because I was carrying you.” He forced himself to his feet.

“…Yazecchi, wait.” Nagisa’s tone was serious. Hovering in her eyes was a look of determination that concealed the worry in them.

“Huh?”

“Take off your clothes.”

“…M-my clothes?”

When Nagisa grasped the hem of his shirt, Yaze hesitated. Aw crap went the shake of his head as he put a hand on the belt of his pants.

“No, no. I’m grateful you want to thank me, but this is bad, ’kay? I have a girlfriend I love, and having Kojou calling me brother-in-law would be kinda…”

“What are you talking about? Um…and why are you loosening your belt? I meant take off your shirt! I’m going to treat your wound!”

“O-oh…?”

With Nagisa scornfully glaring at him, Yaze politely did as she told him. Grimacing from the pain he’d been concealing, he stripped off his bloody shirt.

“But how…? Even if you wanna stop the bleeding, it’s too much of an area to cover, right?”

“Never mind that. Show me your back. This might hurt a little but try to endure it.”

Yaze sat then and there as Nagisa touched a hand to his back. She did not flinch whatsoever from the bleeding wound as she closed her eyes and regulated her breathing.

Nagisa slid her fingertip along Yaze’s back. Yaze scowled from powerful pain. Incredible spiritual energy was flowing into Yaze through his back.

“This is…a healing ritual…?! How do you know how to…?!” Yaze’s voice was shrill from the pain.

“I learned it. From Mimori. Way back in elementary school,” Nagisa answered. She was too focused on what she was doing to be able to hold much of a conversation.

“I see… Mimori’s a physician with her own Adaptation, right.”

Yaze murmured in apparent comprehension.

Mimori Akatsuki, mother of the Akatsuki siblings, was a sorcerous physician working at the medical branch of the giant conglomerate Magna Ataraxia Research. As rumor would have it, she was a medical psychometrist with considerable successes under her belt.

Yaze had also received intel that Nagisa had inherited this ability from her mother. However, this was the first time he’d actually seen her use it in person.

Nagisa didn’t sound very confident. “Yeah. Also, I learned a little about ritual healing from my grandmother. I only know the basics, though, so don’t expect it to work too well. I learned it because Kojou was always getting hurt when he was a kid.”

Quietly, Yaze mentally curled his tongue. Nagisa’s grandmother, Hisano Akatsuki, was one of Japan’s top spiritualists. In other words, Nagisa was one of the precious few Hyper Adapters able to use both psychic and spiritual energy.

That was why Nagisa’s healing ritual was this powerful despite Nagisa’s skills being rough.

“…That so? Gotta give Kojou my thanks, too, then.”

Yaze spoke glibly as he endured the ceaseless pain. However, Nagisa nervously raised her eyebrows.

“You mustn’t. Don’t say one word to Kojou about this.”

“Why not? I think he’d be happy. He really loves his little sister and all.”

“That’s exactly why! It’ll really bother Kojou if he knew he put the healing ritual I learned to waste. I mean, because he became a vampire and everything…”

“Ah…well, got a point there,” Yaze agreed.

Having turned into a vampire primogenitor, Kojou had regenerative abilities that made him nigh immortal. The healing ritual Nagisa had learned no longer held any meaning for him.

Kojou would no doubt be saddened to learn that. He would not lament becoming a demon, but rather having made his little sister’s hard work futile. It was because Nagisa understood this that she’d hidden her own ability.

But that was the same thing Kojou had once done. He had hidden his having become a vampire for the sake of one person—his demonophobic little sister.

“Wait a—Yazecchi, why are you laughing?” Nagisa puffed up her cheeks in dismay.

Yaze silently shrugged. His muscles and tendons felt a little on the tight side, but he no longer felt any pain. Yaze’s wound had largely healed over in less than fifteen minutes.

“Amazing. Thanks so much. I’ll hold together a little while longer.”

“I’m so glad…”

Nagisa patted her chest as she saw Yaze was back to his old self. Her breaths were a little shallow due to using an unfamiliar ritual, but it didn’t seem to have drained her endurance any. By rights, Nagisa had spirit energy of sufficient strength to internalize even Avrora’s artificial vampire soul, so this had to be a piece of cake for her.

“So what’ll we do from here?”

Yaze explained his plan while putting his arms through the sleeves of his torn shirt. “Good question. First, I think we should head to the nearest Island Guard station. I’d like to find Kojou and the others, but it’s dangerous for us to wander around by ourselves, so—”

Suddenly, his words broke off midway. Yaze sank into silence, the gravity on his face increasing as she watched.

“…Yazecchi?”

“Not good. They followed us.”

“By ‘they,’ you mean…”

“Yeah. Survivors from Rogues Alliance.”

Nagisa’s expression stiffened. “But I don’t hear anything…”

“It’s ’cause my ears are special. Call it the boon of a bottom-feeder. Let’s hurry.” Yaze led Nagisa by the hand and set off in a rapid walk.

The underground passage’s ceiling was pretty low for someone tall like Yaze to go walking around, but complaining wouldn’t change anything.

Around four beast people had crept into the underground passage. He was pretty darned sure they were Rogues Alliance scrubs. They’d apparently noticed the entrance to the passage while following Yaze’s trail of blood.

Fortunately, thanks to Nagisa’s healing ritual, Yaze’s bleeding had already stopped. Yaze’s ability allowed him to erase the echo of their footsteps in the underground passage as well.

However, he didn’t think the beast people had broken off their pursuit. Amid the labyrinth-like network of underground passageways, they were pursuing the shortest route without the slightest hesitation.

“So they’re tracking us by scent? Shit…!”

Nervousness came over Yaze. At this rate, it was only a matter of time until the pursuers caught up.

Nagisa took notice of how he was short of breath. “Yazecchi…if you push yourself, your wound will…!”

Ritual healing was first aid at best. It didn’t recover the person’s endurance or blood loss, and there was no guarantee that a just-closed wound would not reopen.

On top of that, Yaze and Nagisa’s pursuers boasted endurance far above that of human beings. With both of them worn down, the chances of a clean escape were slim.

“Sink or swim, huh? Let’s go topside. Better than being backed into a corner in a place like this.”

“…Got it.” Nagisa nodded.

Yaze used his ability to leave decoy footprints as he headed toward the underground passage’s exit. He climbed a metallic ladder and opened the lid of a manhole cover. He felt a sharp pain in his back again, but the situation didn’t allow him to cry about that.

When he crawled to the surface, Yaze’s eyes blinked and went wide.

This was because the state of things around Yaze was a far cry from the Itogami Island landscape he knew.

There were beds of meticulously maintained flowers in full bloom. There was a mysterious, unfamiliar lane lined with trees.

The buildings were all light pastel colors, and the vibrant street was packed with multicolored tiles.

The site’s streetlights and signs were decorated with elaborate carvings, engendering a fanciful atmosphere like something straight out of a fairy tale. It looked like a theme park catering to children or perhaps an educational facility. It was an odd place.

“…Where the heck is this?”

Even while perplexed by the strange sight, Yaze gave Nagisa a hand, pulling her up to ground level. Unsurprisingly, Nagisa too was shocked by the surrounding sights hitting her in the face, but that expression immediately grew stiff.

Seven figures with spiked outfits completely unsuited to the fanciful scene emerged from the shadows of the buildings and surrounded Yaze and Nagisa.

“Yazecchi!”

“Dammit… The scrubs below were a diversion to drive us up here…!”

Yaze groaned as he noticed the flurry of noise leaking up from a subterranean ventilation shaft. This was high-frequency sound largely undetectable to the ears of human beings. These were actually howls the beast people were using to communicate with one another. They’d been using the sounds to coordinate with their pals on the surface. That was how they’d lured Yaze and Nagisa into their net.

“Aaaaaah!”

Nagisa let out a shriek of fright when a beast person dropping from a treetop ripped her jacket apart.

“You bastard!”

Yaze swallowed a pill to boost his abilities and attacked the foe assaulting Nagisa.

He used an invisible blade created from the air itself. It wasn’t an ability with great destructive power, but it nonetheless had enough force to rend a beast person’s resilient hide with ease.

With both arms exposed and his face torn up, the beast man wobbled back, but this only served to drive his comrades into an even greater frenzy.

“You braaaaat! How dare you do that to one of ours!”

“For an Ugaki bootlicker, you sure got us good, huuuh?!”

“Revenge for the boss—kill ’immmm!”

Angry voices scattered from the infuriated beast people as they bore down toward Yaze.

Yaze groaned in despair. His airflow control abilities weren’t geared for close combat. At this range, he couldn’t even use Aerodyne, the ace up his sleeve. Shoving Nagisa behind him to shield her, Yaze indiscriminately released blades of air, resigned to his own demise.

A particularly large booming sound reverberated all around them.

“Guaaaaaaah!!”

“Gaaaah!!”

Countless sparks scattered across the lane packed with colorful tiles.

Fresh blood spewed from the beast people’s legs as they were sent flying.

It was burst fire from an antipersonnel machine gun. Bathed in gunfire from an unexpected direction, the Rogues Alliance remnants fell into a panic.

Yaze was speechless as he gazed at the spectacle. He didn’t know what was going on.

“Thou art contemptible villains to raise a hand toward a frail maiden.”

The lines Yaze heard from overhead were theatrically old-fashioned.

A machine like a giant tortoise appeared, looming from atop one of the pastel-colored buildings. It was an anti-demon personal weapon—a Micro Robot Tank painted crimson.

A beast person covered his wounds with both hands and shot a glare at the machine overhead. “What the hell’s your problem?!”

The answer to this question came from a youthful but frigid voice belonging to a diminutive figure standing on the tank’s round back. She was a little girl wearing the uniform of a famed elementary school and a beret upon her head.

“You people are quite rude, trampling upon someone else’s domain only to ask what our problem is.”

The beast people’s feet shifted restlessly when they noticed her presence.

“Someone else’s…domain?”

“Tensou Academy…! This is bad; the ruler here… Oh no…!”

Wings spread from the girl’s back before the beast people finished their words—jet-black wings woven from demonic energy.

This served as the signal for a horde of dozens of demon beasts to emerge from behind her.

Harpies, hellhounds, vargheists, mythical apes called zhuyan—all were fiendish demon beasts that absolutely never grew attached to human beings. Yet, these demon beasts, precious few in number and raised by Itogami Island corporations purely for lab purposes, served this girl.

“The World’s Mightiest Succubus…! Lilith!”

The Rogues Alliance remnants let out a terrified shriek.

Their wounded bodies were practically crawling as they began to flee. Yaze and Nagisa felt incredulous as they watched the bunch pathetically turn tail and leave.

Obeying an unspoken command from the girl spreading pitch-black wings forth, the demon beasts left for parts unknown.

The nature of the buildings around Yaze came to him. This was a school constructed according to the difficult-to-grasp refined tastes of a famous architect from overseas. Yaze and Nagisa had blundered their way into one of a handful of renowned private elementary schools within Itogami City.

Yaze and Nagisa stood in a daze as the girl with the beret fluttered down before them.

“So you’re…the ruler of this domain…?” Yaze asked, surprised.

“Yume…!” Nagisa called out.

“It has been some time, Nagisa. Also, Mr. Spiky Hair.”

The succubus girl, Yume Eguchi, bowed meticulously as she greeted Nagisa before pointing at the building behind her as she spoke with pride.

“Welcome to Tensou Academy.”