Strike the Blood - Volume 22 - Chapter 2.2

2

“We have finished our analysis of the ring.”

Sami Arashima, a sorcerous engineer of the Bureau of Astrology, returned to the tent with a ring in a vinyl bag.

They were on the tip of Island East—Itogami Island’s container base. A great many Attack Mages and guardsmen remained assembled that day at the place Kojou Akatsuki’s Beast Vassals had raged the night before. They were observing the gate leading to Nod that had appeared in the sky above Itogami Island.

Priestesses of the Six Blades of the Bureau of Astrology and Attack Mages of the Lion King Agency could be seen among that group.

“The ring itself is made of high-purity Ashglow Silver but contains faint impurities, organic matter originating from vampire flesh. It is impossible to separate the two due to how strongly they are bonded with the metal, or more to the point, they have molecularly bonded together to form some kind of sorcerous device.”

Sami explained this in a tone more befitting an elegant music teacher than a proficient sorcerous engineer.

Kiriha Kisaki glared at this partner of hers with a cold expression. Sami was a beautiful, cheerful, and sociable woman, but she had the shortcoming of being excessively roundabout and chatty when a subject had piqued her interest.

“Your conclusions?”

Sami pursed her lips, pouting slightly at the bluntness of Kiriha’s question.

“This is a magical object spiritually linking Mr. Kojou Akatsuki with someone else. It has no use other than this, but put another way, the wielder of the ring connected to him in this manner would seem able to draw upon his supposedly inexhaustible demonic energy however she sees fit.”

“So it provides status on par with the Blood Servants of the primogenitors, in other words.”

Kiriha cut Sami short before she could give another long-winded explanation. Yes, said Sami’s smile.

“…So what are you going to do, Kiriha?”

“Meaning?”

“Will you form a pact with him?”

“Me? Become Kojou Akatsuki’s servant…?”

Kiriha openly grimaced.

Realizing that the Lion King Agency Attack Mages sitting at the next table over—Sayaka Kirasaka, Yuiri Haba, and Shio Hikawa—were desperately trying to eavesdrop, Kiriha exhaled with annoyance.

Properly speaking, the ring Kiriha had asked Sami to analyze was something she’d received from Yukina Himeragi of the Lion King Agency. Kiriha had been a candidate to be one of the twelve Blood Servants supposedly required to bring the rampaging Kojou Akatsuki to a halt.

Asagi Aiba, however, had proposed a change of plans at the eleventh hour, and in the end, Kiriha had not become Kojou Akatsuki’s servant. Kojou Akatsuki had somehow regained control over the Beast Vassals, and all should have been well in the land. Even Kiriha couldn’t hide her bewilderment at facing an issue she’d thought had already been settled.

“The Bureau of Astrology seems to desire as much, since strength on the level of a Blood Servant of a primogenitor-class vampire is very difficult to acquire. Kiriha, if you really don’t want to, I don’t mind doing it in your place.”

“…Are you serious, Sami?”

“Yes. I don’t mind having a younger spouse.”

Sami grinned. Kiriha couldn’t tell from her expression just how seriously she had said it. Kiriha sullenly twisted her lips and rested her cheek upon her palm—whereupon her eyes met those of Sayaka, observing with a sidelong glance. That instant, a cruel glint shone from deep in Kiriha’s eyes.

“Hold on…you have a point… Being Kojou Akatsuki’s Blood Servant wouldn’t be so bad, actually.”

Kiriha deliberately nodded in grandiose fashion as she accepted the ring from Sami.

Sure, when she thought about it calmly, the Bureau of Astrology’s proposal wasn’t a raw deal whatsoever. Becoming Kojou Akatsuki’s servant meant your combat abilities would rise by leaps and bounds, and she would be unaging and undying on top of that. In that case, Kiriha making Kojou Akatsuki weak in the knees for her and giving the other girls heartburn was the far more amusing option.

“Hah?! Hold it right there, Kiriha Kisaki! Are you seriously saying that?!”

Inevitably, Sayaka Kirasaka easily fell for Kiriha’s taunting, lobbing complaints while looking as if she were crushing something with her teeth. Kiriha put on a face as if she were noticing Sayaka’s presence for the very first time.

“My, Sayaka Kirasaka? You were listening?”

“I can hear you whether I want to or not!”

Kicking away the metal pipe chair she was sitting in, Sayaka closed the distance with Kiriha. Kiriha calmly watched her do so with a limp wrist and a mystified look.

“What are you so nervous about? I’d meant to become Kojou Akatsuki’s servant from the beginning, yes? Did I not say so just yesterday?”

“It was a different situation back then!! Kojou’s not berserk anymore so there’s no need for you to become his Blood Servant!”

“Whether that man is in his right mind or not isn’t a big deal to me.”

“It’s a really big deal!!”

Sayaka’s face was beet red as she rebutted. Kiriha was desperately holding back her laughter, letting only the tiniest sexy expression come over her face.

“I don’t hate that man, though… giggle, as opposed to a man-hater like you.”

“Wha…I—I don’t particularly…mind Kojou Akatsuki…”

“Do you love him?”

Kiriha verbally backed Sayaka into a corner. Sayaka was startled, her entire body freezing unnaturally.

“O-of course I don’t! Who’d love a man hanging around my Yukina like that…”

“Nah, if it’s one or the other, it’s Yukina Himeragi hanging around him, I think…”

“Well, in Yukii’s case, that’s her mission, so yeah.”

Overhearing the exchange between Kiriha and Sayaka, Shio Hikawa and Yuiri Haba chimed in with oddly appropriate banter. Sayaka shut up the pair with a single glare.

“A-anyway, hand that ring back to the Lion King Agency, Kiriha Kisaki!”

“Huh? You don’t even want to be Kojou Akatsuki’s Blood Servant, so you have no right saying such a thing. If anything, shouldn’t you be the one relinquishing your ring? That goes for the two of you as well.”

Evading Sayaka when she tried to steal the ring by force, Kiriha addressed the two other Lion King Agency Attack Mages. Yuiri Haba was a bit flustered as she shook her head.

“Wait, wait, we never said we wouldn’t become his servants. Right, Shio?”

“Eh?! Er…yesterday I kind of went along with the flow then and there, but when I calmly thought things over, I was, like, it might be too soon for that. Maybe we could start off by going shopping when I have time off and holding hands and…ah…er…it doesn’t have to be just the two of us, you can come with us, Yuiri…”

For whatever reason, Shio Hikawa had turned timid and blushy as she murmured quietly to herself.

“S…Shio?”

“Her delusions are quite vivid, aren’t they…?”

Yuiri and Kiriha couldn’t hide how Shio’s sudden revelation of her maidenly side left them at a loss.

“Whatever, just give the ring back! I’m confiscating it!”

Sayaka raged in an attempt to snatch back the ring, but the next moment, Sami, toying with her smartphone off by herself, went Oh my and furrowed her brow in surprise.

“I am sorry, Kiriha. Unfortunately, we must abandon that plan. Please forget all about it.”

“…What is the meaning of this, I wonder?”

Kiriha looked back at Sami as a grave expression came over her, staring with vivid displeasure.

Not that she’d genuinely wanted to be Kojou Akatsuki’s servant, but she fiercely resisted the idea of simply forgetting about it. That was just how Kiriha’s personality worked.

“The situation seems to have changed… It would appear the government of Japan has agreed to a cease-fire with MAR.”

Sami, well aware of how troublesome Kiriha could be when she wanted to, continued in a tone of voice broadcasting that this was not her idea.

Both the Lion King Agency and the Bureau of Astrology were special agencies operating under the Japanese government. If the government of Japan had a cease-fire with MAR, none of them could lay a hand upon it. Of course, that made cooperating with Kojou a difficult affair.

“Cease-fire negotiations…why all of a sudden like this?”

Sayaka commented in a daze. Kiriha let out a sigh with a weary expression.

“The Beast Vassal Warheads are the reason, I take it?”

“Yes. If the Beast Vassal Warheads brought back from Nod were fired at the Tokyo Metropolis on the Japanese mainland, it is estimated there would be a maximum of seven million two hundred thousand casualties. At present, only primogenitor-class vampires are able to face Beast Vassal Warheads, but they cannot protect every region of the globe.”

Sami replied with a somewhat conflicted look.

Yuiri and Shio seemed perplexed as they traded glances.

“So, what? We should be MAR’s lapdogs?”

“This is going just like Shahryar Ren wants…!”

“I really do not care for this.”

Kiriha clicked her tongue with annoyance. Threats against the Japanese government had resulted in Kiriha and company being unable to raise a hand against terrorists—it was a result she found difficult to accept. Her irritation made her want to lash out against someone, but Kiriha touched a hand to her chin and sank into serious thought.

Then a second later.

“—!!”

The four Attack Mages present stood up at once as if they’d been slapped, each drawing her weapon. Sami responded only a moment later. They felt an incredibly strong “power” approaching, a strange power differing from the demonic and spiritual powers known to Kiriha and the rest. This power rivaled that of a vampire primogenitor—

“What is this pressure…?! Where is it coming from…?!”

Kiriha honed her consciousness and searched for the source of this power, but the power was too strong for her to pinpoint its source. Its overwhelming presence seemed to cover the entirety of the ground at their feet, something that left the Lion King Agency Attack Mages just as perplexed.

The ground at the center of the tent Kiriha and the others were in was being encroached upon by a steel-colored shadow resembling a mirror.

They were stricken by a powerful, unpleasant feeling, like a precursor to being caught up in a large-scale teleport. The shadow-encroached ground ferociously swayed, and an enormous demon beast floated up from it.

It was a beautiful dragon covered in scales with a mane the color of steel.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!!”

The steel-colored dragon emerging from within the shadow made a high-pitched roar. Caught up in the wind raging around its huge body, Kiriha and the others were blown straight out of the tent.

“—A dragon?!”

Kiriha froze in shock for but the briefest of moments. Twirling her lead-colored forked spear, Kiriha instantly adopted an attack posture. Priestesses of the Six Blades from the Bureau of Astrology were experts in anti–demon beast combat. She could think of any number of rituals effective against even a dragon over ten meters long.

Responding to the ritual energy Kiriha sent coursing into it, her forked spear emitted a dull glow. Activating her pseudo-spatial severing ritual, she girded herself for slashing at the dragon’s throat, but someone suddenly stepped in the way before Kiriha could launch her attack.

“Wait, Miss Kisaki! Not her!”

Yuiri Haba of the Lion King Agency stood before Kiriha. The appearance of an unexpected interloper slightly slowed Kiriha’s attack.

During that time, the steel-colored dragon changed shape, going from a huge dragon to a human girl—a little girl with steely hair.

“Glenda! Where have you been all this time?”

Lowering her raised recurve bow, Shio Hikawa raced over to the girl.

Sayaka and Kiriha stared at Shio and Yuiri’s actions in confusion. They’d heard of the dragon being of unknown origin called Glenda, but they couldn’t hide their surprise at seeing her in the flesh. Her being able to use teleportation was news to them, too.

“Yuiri! Shio! Come! Come save Ava!”

Now that she was in human form, Glenda pleaded with Yuiri and Shio in a voice every bit as young as she looked. What does she mean? wondered the perplexed Kiriha and Sayaka, but Yuiri immediately realized what she meant.

“Ava? You mean Avrora?”

“Dah!!”

“You’re telling us to come, but how…?”

Shio looked overhead as she posed the question.

Avrora Florestina, the new Fourth Primogenitor, was probably in Nod that very moment. Reaching Nod meant going through the gate in the sky over Itogami Island, but that gate opened only at night.

Glenda, however, seemed impatient, wrapping her arms around the reluctant Yuiri and Shio as she changed into a huge dragon once more.

“Daaaah!!”

“Ehh?! Wait a…?!”

“G-Glenda?!”

Yuiri and Shio yelped as the steely dragon put them on her back and glared at the ground. That instant, a large, ripple-like sway occurred in the ground upon which Kiriha and Sayaka stood.

A silvery shadow like a watery surface spread farther. The tips of Sayaka’s toes sank into the ground. The shadow covering the ground under Kiriha’s feet was serving as a gate connecting to Nod.

“The encroachment of Nod…! Don’t tell me this dragon can…?!”

Pulling the shaken Kiriha into the mix, the huge dragon flew right into the steely shadow. Yuiri’s and Shio’s faces were frozen stiff as they progressively sank into the shadow and vanished from sight.

Finally, the dragon’s tail was engulfed, and the steely shadow vanished.

The only things left were the metal pipe chairs, worktables, and the remnants of a tent strewn all around, and Sayaka and Sami, standing stiff and dumbfounded.

“The hell…what in the world’s going on?! Hikawa! Haba! Kiriha Kisaki!”

Sayaka fell into a fit of panic, dropping her silver long sword to the ground as she shouted, but there was no reply forthcoming. Realizing something had happened, Island Guard members were gathering around, but not a single soul really understood what had just taken place.

“This is…quite vexing.”

Amid the uproar surrounding them caused by that abrupt strangeness, Sami Arashima’s expression was unchanged as she began thinking up the report she’d send to HQ.

The tilting sun was beginning to paint the western sky with a golden glow.