Strike the Blood - Volume 19 - Chapter 4.4

4

“Yukina! I’m so glad! I was worried!”

Greeting Yukina and the others as they came up to the school building was Nagisa, who was wearing a Tensou Academy blazer. She ran to Yukina and grabbed her in a tight hug.

Yukina strongly hugged her back. “I am glad you are safe, Nagisa. You are not hurt?”

“I have bandages plastered all over me… Ah, keep this secret from Kojou, ’kay?”

“Yeah.”

Watching as Nagisa pointed to her scraped kneecaps, Yukina’s expression loosened from relief.

It wasn’t a situation justifying a single shred of optimism, but she felt that meeting Nagisa had considerably lightened her mood. Yukina felt that the girl named Nagisa Akatsuki was mysteriously talented at relieving the stress in others.

After taking a moment to savor her delight over reuniting with Nagisa, Yukina surveyed the area. Her eyes bulged as her expression stiffened, for she’d noticed a tall, foreign man sitting cross-legged on the school building’s roof. Beside him was a woman with mature beauty she remembered seeing before.

“Um… Yaze… Why are they…?”

Suppressing her presence, Yukina backed away to Yaze, who was slumped against a fence on the roof. Yaze shook his head with a pained expression.

“I don’t really know, either. For starters, seems they ain’t our enemies for the time being.”

“Ah, I see…”

Yukina fell silent. Ki Juranbarada was paying no attention to her as he stuffed his cheeks with a delicious-looking hamburger from an MAR supply bag. Zana Lashka made a pained smile as she wiped some mustard off his cheek.

Yukina felt a light headache coming on as she covered her eyes with a hand.

She’d known the First Primogenitor was visiting Itogami Island, but even she hadn’t expected to find him eating a hamburger on the rooftop of an all-girls school. On top of that, he seemed to be cooperating with Yume to protect the Tensou Academy Domain. Yukina didn’t have a single clue how to react at a time like this.

Yukina was still completely at a loss as someone reluctantly followed her with weighty steps.

When Yukina looked back, she saw Shizuri behind her, head lowered, seemingly very uncomfortable.

“Miss Kasugaya?”

“Um, I’d like to speak to the girl named Yume Eguchi…,” Shizuri said meekly as she intertwined her fidgety left and right index fingers. Her cheeks were faintly reddened. As someone who knew her personally, such an unexpected look on her face left Yukina tempted to burst out in laughter.

“Um, do you have some kind of business with me?”

“Hyaa…?!”

When a voice abruptly called out to her from behind, the already nervous Shizuri let out a shrill cry.

Standing right beside Yukina and Shizuri was a young girl wearing a Tensou Academy uniform. It was an elementary schooler with an adorable face, her appearance reminiscent of a temperamental cat.

“Y-you are the ruler of this domain?”

“Yes, I am Eguchi,” Yume replied with perfect politeness. Taking off the beret she wore and holding it against her chest, she bowed deeply and courteously toward Shizuri. “You are Shizuri Kasugaya of Saikai Academy Domain, yes? Thank you very much for saving me at such a perilous moment earlier. You have my thanks as representative of the Tensou Academy Domain.”

“Ah… Uh… Wa…wait a—What is the meaning of this, Yukina Himeragi?!”

Shizuri grabbed Yukina’s arm, yanked her close, and spoke to her in a tiny voice. Yukina looked back at the sight of Shizuri fiercely consternated with a questioning air.

“What is the matter? Is there a problem?”

“This girl is ridiculously cute! She’s a little cheeky, but she’s levelheaded, she can greet people properly, also she’s small and dainty, and her cheeks look really soft; her skin is all glossy, too!”

“Umm, well… I understand why you find her cute.”

I understand how she feels, but she is still too excited about this, thought Yukina.

“I am sorry for being cheeky. I hear that a lot.” Yume lowered her head in quite an adultlike demeanor.

Shizuri urgently shook her head. “Y-you are mistaken. I did not mean that in a bad way just now; I mean that in the sense you are reliable—everything I could wish for in an ally!”

“An…ally?” Yume looked back at Shizuri with bewilderment.

Lydianne dismounted from her tank and joined the conversation, clearly in favor of the idea. “I see, to form an alliance with Saikai Academy Domain is a fortuitous idea. She has indeedeth been through many battles, and Lady Shizuri is seeneth as a trustworthy ruler candidate.”

As if to underpin her words, an affirming atmosphere began to course among the other students remaining in the command tent. Shizuri saving Yume before their eyes was a major factor, an exploit sufficient for the people of Tensou Academy to trust Shizuri.

“But how does one form an alliance?” Yume asked.

It was a reasonable question. Yukina and Shizuri glanced at each other’s faces, conflicted. It was their first experience with an alliance as well, so they didn’t know the tangible details.

“You shall activate the Ruler App and read forth the secondary barcode from the participating ally’s screen,” Lydianne explained.

Yaze wearily shook his head as Lydianne politely assisted them in operating the app. “…That’s one hell of a design. It looks like friend requests for a video game…?”

With awkward handiwork, Shizuri and Yume operated their applications, and after repeated trial and error, they succeeded in forming a mutual alliance.

Of course, since this wasn’t a video game, forming an alliance didn’t mean anything had changed to the naked eye. Nor was there some change in their outfits or some sort of gaudy fanfare playing in the background.

Nonetheless, the effects of forming the alliance were immediately apparent.

The communication system of Lydianne’s tank suddenly received a message.

“Ohh, Lady Empress!”

Climbing into the tank’s cockpit, Lydianne raised her voice when she saw the icon for the sender. Coursing from the tank’s external speakers was Asagi’s voice, which Yukina knew so well.

“Ahh… Testing, testing. Seems like I finally got through. You hearing this, Tanker?”

“I am indeed hearing you! Lady Empress, art thou in good health?!”

“From the fact I got through, it seems like Kasugaya arrived there safe and sound.”

“…Lady Empress?”

Bewilderment clouded Lydianne’s expression. Considering that they’d finally made contact, Asagi’s demeanor was strange. She didn’t pick up on Lydianne’s tone of voice over the terrible background noise entering the signal.

No, this wasn’t background noise. It was the sound of an explosion.

Aftereffects from blast winds made sounds tremble through the microphone. Shrieking voices could be heard in the distance. Being in the middle of evacuating might have accounted for Asagi’s breath being labored. Combat was taking place near her.

“Tanker…please. Tell Himeragi and Kasugaya…you mustn’t come back to Saikai Academy. Look for Kojou, rendezvous with him, and…”

The state of the transmission worsened, and Asagi’s voice grew distant, mixed in with the sound of glass panels breaking.

“The Order of the End isn’t the only enemy… The real goal of the Electoral War is…”

Asagi’s voice became progressively more broken until it finally cut out altogether.

Lydianne operated her communication system with urgency, but Asagi did not respond to her calls. The only thing she heard over the speakers was the sound of ferocious static.

“What on earth…? What could this mean?” Shizuri muttered as she stared at her own smartphone. She tried Rui’s and Yuno’s numbers one after the other, but they didn’t reply, either. She bit her lip in concern.

“Was it attacked by the Order of the End?” Yaze asked.

Yukina firmly shook her head. “While she is at Saikai Academy, Aiba is able to employ The Cleansing, and Ms. Sasasaki is there as well. I do not think they would be easily bested, even if the Order of the End is their opponent. Besides—”

Yaze’s expression grew graver still. “She said the enemy isn’t just the Order of the End. What the heck does that mean?”

Yukina shook her head again; she did not have an answer. When it came to enemies beyond the Order of the End, her first thoughts were of the ruler candidates of other domains, but she didn’t think even ruler candidates in the upper rankings would give Asagi a hard fight in her current state.

“Besides, what did she mean about rendezvousing with senpai…?” she muttered, sinking into thought.

“Yukina Himeragi,” Shizuri said, breaking her concentration. “We must set aside such talk for now.”

Shizuri was looking up at the sky as it began to be covered by twilight.

A rainbow-colored aurora poured down from the swaying air that covered the entire sky. The Order of the End had recommenced its assault.

Yaze cleared his throat, visibly tense. “Hey, um… Doesn’t it look like an awful lot of acolytes are showing up around here? We gonna be all right?”

Compared to the initial assault, the number of acolytes appearing had increased. Furthermore, it was obvious that many of them were being deployed inside the Tensou Academy Domain. The latter exceeded two hundred with room to spare.

“’Twould seem the acolytes doth prioritize the higher-ranking domains,” Lydianne said.

“The hell…! This difficulty curve is way too intense!” Yaze groaned.

However, Yukina and the others did not have the luxury of voicing complaints—acolytes were pouring into the Tensou Academy school site one after another.

“Reverberate!”

Judging that defeating them one by one would take far too much time, Yukina released silver ritual tablets into the sky. These transformed into birds of prey that assaulted the acolytes immediately after they materialized.

She’d already heard of the acolytes’ weak point from Yume and the others. She thought that the attack power of a shikigami was more than sufficient if it was just a matter of breaking their masks.

“…Ugh?!”

But she felt an electrical jolt through the spiritual essence that she used to control the shikigami. In the blink of an eye, the acolytes’ counterattacks struck down the shikigami Yukina had released.

“What is with these people?! They’re so strong…!” Shizuri shrieked, making Yukina worry.

Shizuri was fighting some sort of beast person. Not only did this person have excellent physical abilities, but they also came armed with huge claws as hard as metal. Its attacks were swift, heavy. Shizuri, a paladin with skills rivaling that of a Sword Shaman, was being utterly overwhelmed.

The robot tank’s machine guns were not able to penetrate a powerful defensive barrier. Yume’s mental attacks weren’t effective, either. Though she tried to employ the horde of demon beasts, the best she could achieve was protecting the two of them. During that time, the number of Order of the End acolytes increased, exposing the ordinary city residents taking shelter inside the school to peril.

“Yazecchi?!” Nagisa cried from the command tent.

An acolyte raised up a scythe aimed at Yaze, who had gone down trying to shield Nagisa.

Yukina tried to rush over to save Yaze, but she suddenly stopped. “…Eh?!”

The acolyte wielding the scythe had not swung it down toward Yaze. Dropping the scythe, it was the acolyte who let out an anguished yell. A dagger seemingly flying out from thin air had stabbed the acolyte in the head.

Noticing the dagger, Ki slumped his shoulders, visibly dejected. “Tch… So the bastard’s already caught up…”

With its mask destroyed, the acolyte dissipated before Nagisa’s and Yaze’s eyes. Afterward, all that remained was the dagger that had pierced the mask—a dagger with a pitch-black blade.

“That dagger… Could it be…?!” Yukina’s eyes snapped wide open when she noticed powerful demonic energy making the air shudder.

When she looked back, she beheld a sky buried in blackness. It was a horde of daggers in vast numbers.

These daggers were no mere weapons. They were masses of demonic energy dense enough to manifest in physical form. They were an Intelligent Weapon—a vampire’s Beast Vassal.

“Dance, Ghoula!”

A male voice filled with dignity reverberated. Guided by his voice, the black daggers poured down toward the acolytes.

All of the acolytes appearing in Yume’s domain had their entire bodies ripped apart, dissipating all at once. Their masks were pulverized, not even leaving fragments behind. It was all over in a second.

“That many acolytes in such a short span of time…?!” Shizuri murmured in a daze as she held her crimson long sword at the ready. Even the beast person acolyte she’d had such a hard time against had vanished, its mask broken with ease.

Their duty done, the black daggers vanished as well. Their vampire host had undone the summons.

The man controlling the horde of daggers revealed himself from within the darkness.

He was a tall man with dark skin. He wore a finely tailored old-fashioned coat. He had hair as black as night.

This was Velesh Aradahl, chairman of the Imperial Assembly of the Warlord’s Empire. As an Old Guard vampire whose pedigree was connected to the First Primogenitor, he was the most powerful of the vampire nobility—the next best thing to a primogenitor.

Ki, still sitting on the edge of the roof, gave Aradahl a thumbs-down and booed like a little kid.

“Hey, hey, don’t go stealing your ancestor’s best scenes. You’re just a stick in the mud as always, Aradahl.”

Zana stood as if cuddling up to Ki as she smiled teasingly and agreed with her partner. “He really is. Where did he get that from?”

Aradahl sighed deeply as he glared at Ki and Zana with a dead-serious look.

“Surely you jest, Your Lordship. Just when I think you’ve come back to the real world for once, what is the meaning of going out of your way to involve yourselves in an uproar like this?”

Ki spoke without a single shred of guilt in his voice. “Do you really have to ask? There’s no way I could watch a fun event like this and not stick my finger into it.”

Aradahl’s temples twitched. He was trying to restrain his irritation. “This will be an… No, it has already become an issue of international concern. If Fallgazer and the Chaos Bride learn you have invaded the Fourth Primogenitor’s territory without permission—”

“They won’t say a thing. Well, just watch. It’ll get real interesting in a bit.”

“…Your Lordship?”

Though Ki’s tone was confident, Aradahl did not share it.

Immediately after, an explosion resembling a volcanic eruption ferociously shook all of Itogami Island.

When Yukina and the others reflexively looked back, they saw a giant tornado reaching hundreds of meters into the air. At the center of the whirling was a vampire’s Beast Vassal.

There was a scarlet bicorn shimmering as if it were some kind of mirage, and there was a pitch-black bicorn as well. The collision of the two Beast Vassals scattered explosive gusts in every direction, turning the surrounding buildings to dust.

“Those Beast Vassals?! The Fourth Primogenitor?! Who’s his opponent…?!” Aradahl exclaimed, his expression aghast.

“So it’s begun? Sooner than I thought.” Ki was enjoying this. His expression was that of an innocent child.

“Akatsuki-senpai…!” Yukina strongly gripped her spear.

There was no mistaking that Kojou was fighting The Blood. There was no guarantee whatsoever that Kojou could defeat the boy controlling the same Beast Vassals as the Fourth Primogenitor all by himself.

Yume called out to the hesitant Yukina. “Please, Yukina. Go!”

“Yume?”

“We will protect this domain. So, Yukina, take care of Kojou.” Yume’s determination-filled words and eyes were powerful.

There was no way Yume didn’t feel unease of her own deep down. The Order of the End acolytes continued their assaults, and there was the abnormality occurring at Saikai Academy, too.

Even so, she’d judged that at that moment, sending Yukina off to save Kojou was the right thing to do.

Shizuri stepped forward, grim. “I shall go as well, Yukina Himeragi. If we can defeat this so-called The Blood, we can put an end to this ridiculous war, can we not?”

Her beloved sword, Hauras, had the special characteristic of becoming stronger the more demonic energy it took from the opponent it cut. It was one of the few powerful weapons that could confront the Beast Vassals of The Blood.

Yukina looked back at Shizuri and nodded without a word.

Then, she broke out into a run toward the perilous battleground where violent winds raged.

“Senpai!”