Strike the Blood - Volume 21 - Chapter 1.4

4

Kojou and Yukina suddenly plunged out of thin air onto a street. Having lost their sense of balance, they nearly tumbled onto the road, but the two mutually supported each other and managed to avoid that outcome.

They were midway up a long, gentle path on the slope of a hill, right in the middle of an oddly familiar intersection.

“Where…is this?”

Kojou stridently shook the cobwebs out of his head and looked around.

Running along the roadside were Electoral War refugee tents and rows of cardboard boxes containing MAR-provided emergency supplies. That gave the place a far different impression than usual, but the building beyond the gate was intimately familiar to him.

“It would seem Miss Yuuma teleported us to the front gate of Saikai Academy.”

The expression on Yukina’s face was a mix of bewilderment and relief. Technically, they’d been evacuated from Keystone Gate and bypassed the rioters besieging it, but it was closer to the truth to say they’d been tossed out like yesterday’s garbage. It was surprising Yuuma had done that given her soft spot for Kojou.

“Shit… The hell were you thinking, Yuuma?!”

Kojou gave into his anger and punched the roadside tree in front of him. Thud, went the low echo as he stopped moving then and there. When he regained his composure, his face was twisted and pale from the pain.

“That hurt…”

“Wh-what do you think you are doing?! Senpai, you are no longer a vampire, and you’re not using any enhancement ritual spells, so of course punching a tree would hurt you! Show me your hand!”

Yukina yanked his right hand toward her. When she saw the painful-looking tears in his skin from having punched tree bark, she was almost beside herself as she scowled.

“Um…if you move it like that it hurts pretty ba… Ow, ow, ow…!”

“My goodness…at least it does not seem that you’ve broken any bones…!”

“That seriously hurts…! I’m really sorry—I’ll be more careful!”

Yukina dragged Kojou toward a fountain at the edge of the school yard. Cleaning the wound with cold water in part to cool the affected part, she then produced a large number of adhesive bandages from the pocket of her uniform. Yukina continued to do as she pleased, treating Kojou with a practiced hand.

“…Sorry, Himeragi. You’re a huge help.”

Kojou thanked her right as she was wrapping up her first aid treatment, as though he’d only just realized that he should. He may have hurt himself for nothing, but the experience had cooled his head down a fair bit at the very least.

“You really must be careful right now, senpai. Unlike before, you will die like anyone else if you are gravely injured. So no getting your head cut off or every inch of your body impaled!”

“Er, it’s not like I ever wanted to get banged up…”

Kojou tried a fumbling rebuttal, but Yukina was still clinging to his hand with a worried look on her face. His injury felt like it was gradually warming, something he chalked up to her using a healing spell.

Gazing at the side of her face, a pained smile came over Kojou as he sighed.

She might have been a little pushy about it, but there was no question Yukina was genuinely concerned for his well-being. I should be more grateful to her. Just as Kojou thought that…

“Yukina!”

…someone called out to Yukina from behind Kojou.

The speaker was a schoolgirl wearing a Saikai Academy school instructor jersey. It was Minami Shindou, a high school freshman.

She was Kojou’s former junior from his basketball days and a current classmate of Yukina’s; for some reason, she went by the nickname Cindy. When she saw that Kojou and Yukina were holding hands, a knowing look came over her face. Sensing her friend’s gaze, Yukina swiftly pulled her hands away from Kojou’s.

“Good morning, Akatsuki.”

A girl in a regulation uniform beside Minami gave Kojou a prim and proper greeting. This was Sakura Koushima, another of Yukina’s classmates.

“Cindy…and Sakura, too. You’ve both been safe and sound?”

Yukina inquired to the pair with a visible expression of relief. Minami approached Yukina with rapid steps.

“I’m the one who should be saying that! I couldn’t get in touch with you or Nagisa when the Electoral War started, so I was really worried, and… Oh! Are you hurt, Yukina?!”

“Hurt? Ah, this is all right. It’s nothing serious.”

Yukina had blue bruises and scrapes all over the parts of her arms and legs that her uniform left exposed. They were light wounds that barely needed any treatment at all, but Yukina’s skin was so pale that they stood out. She must have gotten them while clashing with Zana Lashka, Blood Servant of the First Primogenitor, and Yuiri Haba, fellow Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency.

“Did you have a fight with Akatsuki?”

Minami trained a suspicious glare at Kojou.

“Huh? No, of course not.”

Yukina seemed surprised as she shook her head to refute the notion. Minami, however, looked even more suspicious.

“Then how did Akatsuki’s hand get hurt? It looks like he punched someone…”

“Some kind of role-play?”

Sakura interrupted Minami with that question.

“…R-role-play?”

Yukina blinked hard. Where the hell did that come from? said the painful expression coming over Kojou, but he knew that trying to get a single word in edgewise would only make things worse. Accordingly, he kept his mouth shut. After a bit of thought, it finally dawned on Yukina that Sakura had been implying they were doing something kinky.

“It was not that…! Senpai… He…met an old acquaintance of his…and then…”

Yukina came up with a vague excuse to deftly steer the topic in a different direction. She must have had Avrora in mind when she cited an old acquaintance of Kojou’s. That certainly wasn’t a lie, but…

“Old acquaintance…”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

Minami and Sakura glanced at each other and nodded as if quite sure of something. It seemed that they’d taken this as meaning Yukina had been in a physical dispute with an ex-girlfriend of Kojou’s.

“Ex-girlfriend, huh…”

“Definitely an ex.”

“Eh?”

“So you got in a fight with her. Yukina…did you win?”

“Is that why Akatsuki looks worked up?”

“Eh? Eh…?”

Unable to keep up with her classmates bouncing their own pet fantasies between them, Yukina gingerly looked at the pair’s faces back and forth.

“What have you two been ramblin’ on about…?”

Of course, Kojou couldn’t just stand back and watch. If he didn’t chime in and nip this gossip in the bud, he had a feeling it would spread across the school like wildfire.

When he drew closer, Minami turned toward him like she wanted to ask him something. The instant she examined Kojou up close, however, she widened her eyes in surprise and froze. She was visibly tense with reddened cheeks as she audibly cleared her throat.

“Um…Akatsuki, your aura changed a little, huh? It’s kinda like…you’ve gone back to your basketball days…”

“Really? Hard for me to tell, though…?”

“Ah…er…that’s…um…never mind.”

Minami blushed as she vigorously shook her head and lowered her face. It was an unexpectedly demure reaction for a girl usually so lively and athletic.

Glancing at the side of Minami’s face, Yukina grew wary as she made an audible “hmm.”

Kojou had certainly changed over the past few days—he’d relinquished his vampiric abilities and regained a purely human body. His skin color had improved, and a glint of light had returned to his previously tired eyes.

Maybe this was a return to the old days just like Minami had said. Now that she mentioned it, Yuuma had said something quite similar when she’d looked at Kojou in his current state. What Yukina didn’t get was why Minami had to act like a blushing handmaiden about it.

For her part, Sakura danced strictly to her own tune. After checking on the state of Yukina’s injuries, she gave Kojou’s sleeve a tug, tug.

“You’ll take responsibility for Yukina becoming damaged goods, won’t you?”

“S-Sakura…!”

“Uh, is that even how you use the term damaged goods…?” Kojou replied wearily.

It was hard to tell from her demeanor whether Sakura was joking or being serious.

“Is that so?” asked Sakura with an utterly serious look on her face. For some reason, Yukina reddened and lowered her eyes. Kojou wished she would stop inviting more misunderstandings by acting that way.

“Hey, Yukina, what have you been doing until now? Were you with Akatsuki the whole time?”

“N-no…of course I haven’t been with him the whole time…”

“But you were with him when he met his ex.”

“That was…er… I can only say there were various circumstances…”

Minami and Sakura’s follow-up questions to Yukina about what happened at the long-deferred reunion didn’t seem like they were going to end anytime soon. Kojou felt a little uncomfortable about that, but he had to admit it was a little amusing to watch Yukina chat with her classmates as an everyday girl instead of as someone from the Lion King Agency or the like.

That being said, from Yukina’s point of view, this girlish interrogation session wasn’t amusing in the slightest. Her face was twitching as she glanced toward Kojou in search of a rescue, but the next instant, there came a rattle as something dropped to the ground close by.

Tumbling until it was partially stabbed into the ground was a long sword made of pure silver, its blade bare to the world. Kojou and Yukina widened their eyes and tensed up their faces at the familiar sight.

The owner of the sword was a girl wearing the uniform of an unfamiliar school—Yuiri Haba of the Lion King Agency.

Her eyes were red from weeping. She bit her trembling lip at the sight of Yukina.

“M…Miss Yuiri?”

Yukina gingerly addressed the girl, who looked like she wasn’t in her right state of mind.

That instant, a flood of tears gushed out of Yuiri’s moist eyes.

“Y…Yukii…!”

Kojou stood there dumbstruck as Yuiri raced to Yukina’s side and threw herself to her knees. Heedless of prying eyes, she pressed her face against Yukina’s thighs and began to wail loudly.

“Yukii… I’m so sorry… I…I did somethi…! Something horrible to Yukiiiiii…!”

“Ehhh?! …W-wait a…”

Yuiri’s utterly unpredictable behavior left Yukina looking down at her in total confusion.

“P-please stand up, Miss Yuiri…! You…you have nothing to apologize for…!”

“Wh-what the…? What’s going on here?”

Kojou was adrift at sea as he looked between Yuiri, crying and begging forgiveness, and the completely bewildered Yukina.

He couldn’t make out even half of what Yuiri was saying in between her sobs. On top of that, since she’d grabbed onto her friend’s skirt, Yukina was desperately working to keep the girl from stripping it clean off. Kojou was baffled as to how such a chaotic scene had come about. It was then that a short-haired girl wearing the same uniform as Yuiri—Shio Hikawa—ran over and tried to peel her crying partner off Yukina.

“H-hey, Yuiri, calm down! You’re making this hard for Himeragi!”

“Ain’t like we could just leave her in the Second Primogenitor’s domain, so I figured we’d just bring her with us… She sure turned into a heap of trouble, though…”

Motoki Yaze appeared right beside Shio, then casually aired that comment like it wasn’t his problem. Apparently, he was responsible for Yuiri and Shio showing up at Saikai Academy.

“Yaze…”

A conflicted expression came over Kojou when he looked back at his friend, who he’d finally reunited with after a considerable absence. They’d both gotten sucked into the Electoral War upon their return from the kingdom of Aldegia, straddling the line between life and death in the process. Kojou wanted to simply let him know how happy he was that they could meet up again safe and sound, but unfortunately, the situation didn’t allow for such sappy comments.

Figuring he’d better help Shio console Yuiri, Kojou approached the pair. Yuiri sensed him and shifted her gaze toward him.

Tears and snot running down her face, she leaped straight into Kojou’s arms.

“K…Kojou… I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Bwuh…M-Miss Yuiri…?!”

Unable to shake the spectacularly grief-stricken girl off him, Kojou grew very nervous. Setting aside the fact that she’d apparently crossed blades with Yukina, he didn’t have a clue why she was apologizing to him.

“Hey, Himeragi, what’s going on here?! What the heck?!”

“I’m the one at fault here… I attacked Yukii by surprise, and then…”

“H-hey, please calm down, Miss Yuiri… It’s all right—it’s okay…”

Yuiri curled up at Kojou’s feet as she kept on repeating how sorry she was.

Watching the two of them from afar, Minami and Sakura nodded deeply as if both proclaiming, Ah, I see.

“So that’s Akatsuki’s ex…?”

“Yukina’s really something to push her far enough that she ended up like this.”

“Y-you are mistaken! Miss Yuiri is not Akatsuki-senpai’s former girlfriend; she is someone else… You have this all wrong…! M-Miss Hikawa, I’m begging you, please stop Miss Yuiri!”

Yukina desperately tried to vindicate herself even as she sought aid from Shio, who hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Ahhh, s-suppose you’re right… But is that Kojou Akatsuki? He looks hotter than… Er, rather, he seems different than usual…”

“Miss Hikawa…?”

A suspicious look came over Yukina when she watched Shio say the last thing they needed to hear under the circumstances. Shio gasped, then returned to her senses with a shake of her head.

“No, it’s nothing…! Come on, Yuiri, that’s enough. Get away from him already…”

“But…but…!”

Yuiri was still making little sobs and clinging to Kojou by the time Shio wrapped her arms around the girl and pulled her off. Yuiri simply didn’t have any stamina left to resist her. Shio grasped the girl firmly by the neck and pulled her away from Kojou inch by inch.

“Thanks, Shio. You’re a lifesaver.”

Kojou smiled a bit as he thanked her. The energetic, almost dazzling way he stared back at Shio made her voice go shrill.

“N-nah… I’m not doing this for you… No need to thank me…”

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re both safe. You fought the Second Primogenitor, right?”

“Y-yeah, I’m glad you’re safe as well, Kojou Akatsuki. So could you move away just a little? The way you are now, I’m getting a little n-nervous…”

“Kojou… I’m sorry. It’s…it’s all my fault…”

Yuiri was starting to break into tears again while Shio and Kojou tried to soothe and calm her. Minami and Sakura pressed close to Yukina, questioning her in detail about her relationship to Yuiri. Yaze put up a front and acted like this had nothing to do with him.

Though it was early morning, a scene of this size was bound to stand out. Sure enough, people who’d taken refuge inside the school were gathering together to eavesdrop on the uproar.

Suddenly, the curious onlookers parted ways. Boldly walking into the center of the crowd was a high school girl wearing a flamboyant, deliberately askew Saikai Academy uniform. When the citizens showered reverence upon her, they recoiled in fear from her morose gaze.

“What the hell is going on?”

The girl—Asagi Aiba—had a weary look on her face.