Strike the Blood - Volume 21 - Chapter 1.3

3

A tiny ripple-like sway remained as Kojou and Yukina vanished from sight. Making sure that they were far away, Yuuma released the connection in space.

Usually, teleportation was a high-end spell requiring a vast amount of coordinate calculations, but to a witch like her, it required about as much work as snapping her fingers. The odd sense of fatigue she felt now probably came down to feeling guilty over Kojou.

It killed her that she had only been able to stand back and watch the fight between him and The Blood from the sidelines. She also wished she could lend him her power so he could rescue Avrora, the Twelfth—if Yuuma had been stronger, she was certain things would have ended differently. It tore at her.

It was decidedly not her wish to send him far from Keystone Gate against his will. In spite of that, she’d been told this was the best way to ensure Kojou’s safety now that he’d lost his immortality. She couldn’t argue after hearing that.

At the very least, this meant there was no longer any worry the rioters around Keystone Gate could pose a threat to him and Yukina. She supposed she should be satisfied with that.

“It’s done. I got Kojou out.”

Yuuma booted up an encrypted app on her smartphone and reported to the Coffin.

“Well done, Assistant Attack Mage Tokoyogi.”

The man on the other line was Kazuma Yaze. The fact that he, rather than his blue-haired secretary, had taken the call might have been an indication that he trusted Yuuma a little, despite her former criminal ties.

“So his role ends here?”

Yuuma asked this in a cheerful voice that contained a hint of venom. She couldn’t help but feel disquiet over the Corporation’s treatment of Kojou, using him as Fourth Primogenitor to the fullest only to brush him aside as though he were an outsider the minute he turned back into a human.

For his part, Kazuma replied calmly without the slightest stirring of emotion.

“Kojou Akatsuki is now a powerless high schooler. We should not expect anything else from him. This is for his sake as well as ours.”

“I suppose it is, but the way I see it, Kojou’s still at the center of everything. There’s all kinds of trouble swirling around him.”

Yuuma brought this up almost as if she was talking to herself. She felt like Kazuma was scowling on the other end of the line.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, really. I just have a feeling about this… I should warn you, though.”

Yuuma smiled and gazed up at the glowing dawn sky. The blood-colored firmament concealed the gate to Nod, Kojou Akatsuki’s intended destination.

“My intuition’s usually on the money.”

Yuuma left that as the final word as she hung up.

Leaving a ripple-like swaying in the air behind, the young Witch dissolved into thin air and vanished from sight.