Strike the Blood - Volume 19 - Chapter 4.5

5

The effects of the clash between two powerful Beast Vassals were felt even within the Prison Barrier.

The boundary between the Prison Barrier and the real world strained, ferociously shaking the interior of the fortress. If the combat continued for long, surely maintaining the barrier would eventually become difficult.

Still held fast by black tentacles, Natsuki murmured with visible delight, “This ridiculously enormous demonic energy… Kojou Akatsuki, then?”

“It has nothing to do with you, Natsuki Minamiya. You cannot even move from this place,” the red-eyed host of the tentacles spat.

Natsuki let out a scornful giggle. “You are mistaken. It’s not that I can’t move. It’s that I do not need to.”

“…Sour grapes, I see.”

“Heh-heh. Keep barking like the beaten dog you are, Octo Girl.”

The pitying expression coming over Natsuki made the red-eyed girl audibly grit her teeth. The tentacles undulated in a creepy fashion as the power with which they squeezed Natsuki increased.

“Please be mindful of your words, Witch of the Void. Even if you cannot yourself be harmed, I have ways of making you suffer. Shall I begin with tearing that homunculus who refuses to die into little pieces?”

“That won’t change the fact you’re a beaten dog. Why is the Order of the End relying on my Prison Barrier? Where did your prison run off to? Or is that corrupted flesh the price you paid for violating your pact with your Guardian?”

“Be quiet…!” the red-eyed girl screamed. “What do you know?! You’ve only spent fifteen years in your prison!”

She took several menacing steps toward Natsuki.

Unable to bear the pressure from her tentacles, the tattered ropes snapped and went flying, exposing the entirety of her body. It was beautiful and looked young, like she was in her teenage years—but that only applied to her upper half.

Everything from her hips down branched off into a disgusting mass of intertwined tentacles as if they were a plant’s roots. It resembled an utterly alien life-form.

Her witch’s body had fused with that of the Guardian that had been her devil’s familiar. It had consumed her body as the price for breaking her pact with her devil.

“Three hundred years…! I lived inside my otherworldly prison for three hundred years! Then I realized! The existence of otherworldly prisons is meaningless! Even if they are shut away in eternal darkness, even if birds of prey peck at their innards while they still live, even if they are bathed in a snake’s venom at the bottom of the Earth, criminals cannot be reformed. They do not make criminals vanish from the world, while the crimes only increase!”

“So you ran away? You abandoned your duty as a prison warden?” Natsuki asked in a flat tone of voice.

“You’re wrong…! I realized something important! Fear alone… Rule through overpowering fear is the only thing that can keep crime in check. Ugly, pitiful criminals must be immediately, savagely, and cruelly judged.”

“So this is the reason you became an acolyte of the Order of the End?” Even when held captive, Natsuki taunted her captor with a vicious grin. “Don’t make me laugh. The ugly and pitiful one is you. According to your logic, shouldn’t you be first in line to be judged, Merriloé, the Witch of Vengeance? What did you do with the power of a witch you obtained from your pact with a devil?”

“—?!”

“Otherworldly prisons are meaningless? Of course they are. The wardens of those prisons are the criminals upon which weigh the heaviest crimes of all. This eternal idleness is the punishment allotted to us.”

“You’re wrong… I…!”

Merriloé fiercely shook her head. However, Natsuki did not cease her mockery.

“Ruling by fear prevents criminals from being born, so you worship the Fourth Primogenitor, the very symbol of fear. The Blood has been allowing you to imprint your childish ideals onto him, nothing more. He doesn’t genuinely desire any such thing.”

“What…do you know…?!”

Merriloé seemed to wring out her voice as she spoke.

“I will not be deceived, Witch of the Void. I will not be seduced by your words.”

“I have no reason to deceive you. Even without resorting to roundabout methods like that, driving off the likes of you is a simple matter.”

Merriloé’s cheeks flushed with anger.

“More sour grapes from you…! What can you do with your Guardian sealed like this?!”

“Is sealing my Guardian enough? This prison belongs to me.”

“What?” Merriloé couldn’t hide her unease.

A coarse, savage voice echoed throughout the fortress room both girls were in. “Ha-ha! Let’s go, Thunder Ax!”

When Merriloé looked back in surprise, she was assaulted by an impact as if she’d been hit by a car.

It felt like she’d been slashed by a giant, invisible ax. Several tentacles were shredded and torn off; the girl herself was sent flying, crashing into a wall.

“Gah…?! Wh…what…?!”

Merriloé fiercely coughed up blood. She didn’t know what hit her. She hadn’t felt any magical energy whatsoever prior to squarely taking the hit.

“Aaah?! The hell’s up with you?! Ya ain’t Natsuki Minamiya at all, are ya?! I thought I’d shake ’er up with one shot finally, and what, I got the wrong girl?!”

A small-statured youth with dreadlocks approached the fallen girl.

He wore multilayered clothes employing showy colors and wore knee-length old street-wear jeans. His crude words and actions and the look on his face did a splendid job of making him come off as a blockhead.

His words and gestures didn’t make him seem like Natsuki’s ally. Yet, as a result of his attack, Merriloé had been sent flying, freeing Natsuki from her tentacles.

“You have done well, oaf.”

Natsuki gently landed and shot him a glance.

“Aaagh?!”

The youth crudely bared his teeth at being called an oaf, but a different man stopped him. “Cease, Schtola D.”

This was a large-statured man with his entire body enveloped in thick plates.

He had steel-colored skin and ashen hair. On his back, he carried a great sword equal to his considerable height.

As a weapon, Ascalon disregarded balance and ease of use; it was forged for the sole purpose of slicing apart the resilient body of a dragon. And bathed in a dragon’s blood, his flesh had been desecrated with the curse of immortality. This was the Great Sinner, Bruté Dumblegraff—descendant of a clan of dragon slayers, and operative for the Western European Church.

“We comprehend the situation, Witch of the Void, but what is it you intend in letting us out of our cells?”

The dragon-slaying mercenary posed the question to Natsuki with a hand still on the hilt of his great sword.

“I am not asking you to fight the Order of the End. Nor do I intend to grant amnesty. This is merely parole on a temporary basis…,” Natsuki replied haughtily, “…but only if you desire it.”

Schtola D exclaimed with visible irritation, “Whaaa—? Do you think we’d do somethin’ just ’cause you asked, you idiot?!”

“Oh, I do. Once you learn their true nature, that is.”

That instant, the expressions on Dumblegraff and Schtola changed. What came over Dumblegraff was delight, and what came over Schtola was a look of fury.

“You don’t say… Very well… I shall play along with thy scheme.”

“Tch… I don’t exactly like bein’ used like this, but this definitely ain’t the time to play with you. Shit!”

When Schtola violently slammed a fist against the wall, a metal manacle appeared on his left wrist. This was the mark of an inmate of the Prison Barrier. Even if they went out into the real world, they would be bound to the Prison Barrier by an invisible chain.

“The time I grant to you is forty-eight hours. Incidentally, don’t harm unrelated human beings. Not if you don’t want me to drag you back to your cells before you can fulfill your goals, that is.”

“Understood.”

“Feh!”

A ripple-like swaying in space enveloped the two sorcerous criminals. Then, they vanished from sight. They had been sent from the Prison Barrier in Natsuki’s dream out into the real world.

The only things left were Natsuki, mistress of the barrier, and severed tentacles that wriggled even still, as well as the wounded Merriloé.

She coughed up fresh blood as she stood. “I never imagined that you would go so far as to release criminals from the Prison Barrier…to enable your escape from us…!”

The tentacles that had been severed by Schtola D had largely finished regenerating.

The tentacles, a devil’s familiar, likely granted her regenerative abilities that made her nigh immortal. So long as magical energy remained within their host, they would likely continue to propagate infinitely, unable to be destroyed.

However, Natsuki gazed upon that girl and spoke with utter indifference. “What, you’re still here, beaten dog?”

“Silence! Call me that again, and no matter what The Blood wills, I shall kill you!” Merriloé screeched.

Natsuki snorted. “Just try it, you beaten dog.”

“I’ll kill you!”

Responding to Merriloé’s anger, her tentacles bulged explosively. From there, they became a pitch-black tsunami as they bore down upon the defenseless Natsuki.

The horde of tentacles came to a stop, all thanks to an arm.

It belonged to a golden, clockwork knight, Natsuki’s Guardian.

A savage smile came over Merriloé’s lips. “That can’t stop me—!”

She and Natsuki were both prison wardens. They’d both paid the same price for their powers as witches. In other words, their Guardians were on equal footing.

However, Natsuki was using the majority of her magical energy to maintain the Prison Barrier. Merriloé had already abandoned her own prison. The price for violating her pact was her Guardian consuming half of her body, but this only increased the magical energy she could freely employ.

In a one-on-one battle, there was no reason for the current Merriloé to lose against Natsuki.

“What?!”

Merriloé was certain of victory when her cheeks stiffened in shock and terror.

When Natsuki’s Guardian appeared, its appearance was not what she had expected.

The beautiful golden armor plates fell away, exposing the Guardian’s innards.

There was no knight within.

Complete darkness from which no light could escape, three eyes from which flames spewed—it was as if the void of the Abyss had been given form.

“Oh dear…” Natsuki let out a languid sigh. “It’s shaken off its bindings.”

Stricken by fear, Merriloé tried to back away, but Natsuki’s Guardian would permit no such thing. The incredible gravitational pull of its darkness caught Merriloé’s tentacles and would not let go.

“I had heard that Rheingold can distort time in this world merely by manifesting… To think that those clockwork mechanisms were to restrain its power…?!” said Merriloé.

“I shall grant your wish, Witch of Vengeance.” Natsuki smiled beautifully, but it struck terror in Merriloé’s heart. The monster attended at Natsuki’s side.

“N…no… Please…stop…”

Merriloé’s lips weakly trembled. The beast of darkness grabbed hold of her tentacles, pulling her in with such overwhelming force, looking as if it were swatting a fly.

The doll-like witch took on an inhuman aura. “Let this ugly, pitiful criminal be savagely and cruelly judged—”

The screams of the Order of the End acolyte echoed through the room of the ancient fortress.