Strike the Blood - Volume 22 - Chapter 5.3

3

The isolation wall Kojou had called the end of Nod was not one flat surface, but countless facilities merged together as a series of intersecting structural blocks. It was a little like a miniature spaceship similar to what you’d see in old superhero shows.

Many of the facilities were tiny structures like containers, but in the middle was a large-scale structure reaching numerous kilometers in total length.

The place Glenda Number Two was taking Kojou and Yukina to was a ridiculously huge transmission tower inside this section. The tower jutted vertically toward the night sky. The tower was five or six kilometers tall. Kojou estimated its diameter to be a couple of hundred meters or so.

This structure, enveloped by clouds of thick steam, looked more like a cape or a floating bridge than a tower when you looked straight up at it. The way it floated in a sea of clouds gave it a surreal, ethereal feel.

Because it was a little removed from the colony center, there was a weak amount of gravity on the bridge’s surface. Thanks to this, Kojou and Yukina, unaccustomed to weightlessness, were able to walk along it with ease.

Their guide, Glenda Number Two, had vanished from sight at some point.

Kojou and Yukina subconsciously held hands as they walked together along the bridge into the clouds—and then a small figure leaped out at them from a pure white cloud.

“Daah! Kojouuu!”

The girl with long, steel-colored hair hugged Kojou with the vigor of a puppy. Owing to the low gravity, Kojou staggered, unable to withstand her momentum.

“Glenda! So this is where you’ve been!”

Seeing that it was the real Glenda this time, Kojou fluffed up and stroked her hair.

A heartwarming smile came over Glenda as she rubbed her cheek against him. Watching this, Yukina exhaled in relief.

Glenda had been in front of a small building standing at the tip of the bridge. Kojou could make out familiar girls nearby and, also, a creature looking like a badly sewn teddy bear.

“—Er, Kiriha Kisaki?! What are you doing here…?!”

Noticing the raven-haired beauty with a foul look in her eyes, Kojou blinked, visibly perplexed.

Hmph, huffed Kiriha, snorting with contempt as she gripped her tuning-fork-style spear.

“Miss Hikawa…Miss Yuiri, too…”

Noticing that Yuiri and Shio were sitting on the ground, Yukina broke into a small run and approached them.

Yuiri and Shio were wearing High God Grove uniforms, but Shio wasn’t wearing her jacket. Yuiri was wearing Shio’s jacket in her place. The right hand poking out of the jacket’s sleeve was red and inflamed, hanging limply. Yukina’s expression grew grave when she realized this.

Beside her, Yukina felt Kojou gasp.

“Avrora…”

Kojou was staring at the willowy, golden-haired girl standing stiff, still clutching the badly sewn teddy bear in her arms. Her radiant blue eyes drifted left and right from worry. Her cheeks were red.

“Avrora…I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“I-indeed.”

When Kojou tensely called out to her, the vampire girl gave him a little nod.

The girl was maintaining an odd degree of distance as Kojou awkwardly scratched his head.

“Ahh…sorry I’m late. I’m here to pick you up.”

“Th-thou hast done well. Thine efforts are praiseworthy.”

“R-right.”

Neither of the two met each other’s eyes, and after exchanging words like complete strangers, Kojou and Avrora fell silent. This was the first time they’d properly met face-to-face in ages, so neither had any idea what to say.

For a time, Yukina and the others watched the tension-filled exchange between the pair with bated breath.

“—What are you, a couple of cousins who haven’t seen each other in forever?!”

Finally, unable to endure the silence, Yuiri gave them a tongue-lashing from behind.

Shio indulged in a deep, weary sigh.

“There’s more to say than that, isn’t there?! Like, hug and stuff, cry tears of joy over being reunited, something?! After you went through all that trouble just to see each other again…!”

“That’s true, but it’s just straight-up embarrassing with everyone else watching…!”

Kojou retorted, his own face red. Yes, yes, said Avrora’s little nods.

“He’s acting quite a bit differently than he does with us, isn’t he?”

“Dah…”

Yukina and Glenda shot Kojou cold stares. Oh, give me a break, said Kojou’s heavy grimace.

“Right, Avrora. You hungry? Wanna eat some, um, candy?”

Reaching into his parka’s pocket, Kojou took out a handful of colorful candy pieces.

“Kojou, when did you get ahold of…”

“Probably when I decided to bring Avrora back. Figured I’d lure her with food.”

Yuiri and Shio whispered to each other with tiny voices. Yukina sighed as she watched on. Avrora, however, peered into Kojou’s hand with glimmering eyes, as if to say, ’Tis as expected of thee.

Then she noticed a tiny, silver-colored ring mixed in with the candies.

“A ring of pacts…”

“Eh? Ah, this…well, this isn’t food.”

“Aaa…”

When Kojou tried to put the ring back in his pocket, Avrora reflexively grabbed his hand to stop him. Kojou found Avrora’s reaction a little surprising.

“Wait, you want a ring, too?”

“Uuu…ah…i-if thou desirest it…”

Avrora spoke those words, glancing at Kojou’s expression as she implored him. After a brief contemplation, Well fine, thought Kojou, handing her the ring. Either way, it wasn’t something Kojou had any use for himself.

Shio and the others were beside themselves as they watched.

“H-hey, Kojou Akatsuki…! Are you all right with this?! If you hand that to Avrora, you’ll become the Fourth Primogenitor’s Blood Serva… Ah, wait, you’re both vampires, which one becomes whose servant…?!”

“K-Kojou…wait a…owww!”

Yuiri tried to stand up in a hurry but moaned frailly as she pressed on her right arm. Yukina instantly moved to support the tottering girl’s back.

“Miss Yuiri…um…your right arm…”

“Ahh, this…I was…kind of a klutz and tripped…”

Hehe, said Yuiri, bashfully sticking out her tongue. She was maintaining her calm, but her arm was hurt even worse than it looked. Even if it was given time to heal, Yukina didn’t think it would ever regain full motion.

“Shahryar Ren’s flame dragon companion got her. This never would have happened if I’d properly supported Yuiri at the time…”

Shio went down on one knee, her face twisting with deep regret. Yuiri shook her head, a bit in a bind.

“It’s not your fault, Shio. Besides, Nagisa healed it so it’ll be all right in a little while. That girl’s healing spells are incredible. Ah…it’ll be hard to use this arm for real combat, I suppose.”

I’m sorry, Yuiri, Yukina expressed with a bow of her head. Yukina bit her lips, unable to reply aloud.

“What do you mean, Nagisa’s healing spells? She really did come to Nod, too?”

Kojou cut into the conversation. He remembered that Glenda Number Two had been adopting Nagisa’s form when she’d appeared before them only a little earlier.

“Ah, no, it’s not that… I mean it’s not that Nagisa came in person…”

“In one sense, I guess she did come, but it was really Glenda doing the talking, you see…”

Yuiri and Shio seemed at pains to explain as they glanced at one another. Apparently even they didn’t have a firm grasp on exactly what had happened.

“Well, that’d be a long story so maybe wait until things calm down a little more before gettin’ into it?”

The badly sewn teddy bear interrupted to arbitrarily drag the conversation back on track. Glancing at the teddy bear still in Avrora’s arms, Kojou let out a languid sigh.

“You’re…Cain?”

“Eh?”

Yukina widened her eyes in bewilderment when Kojou suddenly brought up that name.

The girls were right to be skeptical. The name of the Sinful God was straight out of mythology, whereas this was a badly sewn teddy bear fit for a kindergarten. There seemed to be nothing in common between the two whatsoever, but…?

“Well, that’s pretty close to the mark, I’d say.”

Baring its triangular teeth, Mogwai smiled, downright proud of itself for some reason.

“More accurately, I’m an emulated personality from data taken while Cain was alive. My personality was engraved in stone inside of the ‘Coffin’ on Itogami Island. It learned to reconstitute itself as an AI. This is a mock body made with The Cleansing. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Freeing the icons of the Beast Vassal Warheads, that’s your objective, right?”

Kojou inquired without any hint of surprise. Drinking Asagi’s blood and sharing her memories meant that Kojou already knew Mogwai’s true nature.

“Well, that was kind of my one and only regret in life, y’see.”

Gazing at the artificial isle floating overhead, Mogwai narrowed his eyes with a nostalgic look.

“You have my thanks, Kojou My Bro. Thanks to you protectin’ Lil’ Dodekatos, I learned all about the icons. To free them, I needed a sample—I needed one of Mizen’s daughters in my hands more than anything.”

“…Were not you and the Fourth Primogenitor supposed enemies…?”

Yukina seemed perplexed as she posed this question.

In the history known to Kojou and the others, the Fourth Primogenitor was a god-killing weapon created for the purpose of slaying Cain the Sinful God, yet Mogwai spoke the name of the original Fourth Primogenitor as if they were old friends.

On top of that, the emulated personality calling itself Mogwai was in the embrace of the current Fourth Primogenitor. These incongruous facts were leaving Yukina and others confused.

“At the very least, it’s a fact that the Devas left behind on the surface made the Fourth Primogenitor to kill me. I gotta say, when I found out about the existence of Star Beast Vassals made out of pure hatred, guided by the stars so that you could summon ’em even in Nod, far removed from the surface world…man, even I had to shudder.”

Mogwai gazed on the bewildered girls with visible delight as he spoke.

“So you and the Fourth Primogenitor took advantage of that?”

Kojou glared at Mogwai reproachfully.

The human boy named Mizen was tamed by Cain the Sinful God. The Devas used his flesh and blood to give birth to the Fourth Primogenitor to extract payback from Cain, whom they considered a traitor.

Yet even this became but one component of Cain’s plan.

“You made sure they saw you, the administrator, getting killed, and closed the gate to Nod, making sure the Beast Vassal Warheads you left behind couldn’t be used by anyone.”

Kojou turned a glance toward Avrora, standing still and baffled.

“It takes the power of the Star Beast Vassals to open the sealed gate again. That’s why you and the Fourth Primogenitor made him rip his own body apart to hide the Beast Vassals. You forced twelve Beast Vassals onto twelve girls who didn’t know a thing.”

“For the record, that’s somethin’ Mizen did all on his own. I didn’t order him to do it.”

Mogwai justified himself with a slightly sulky tone. Apparently even Cain hadn’t expected his friend the Fourth Primogenitor to choose to end his own existence.

“Mizen’s the one who made that Order of the End thing, then?”

Yeah, nodded Mogwai, in response to Kojou’s question.

“That bastard The Blood got things kinda wrong, but the point of instilling fear about the Fourth Primogenitor into people to stop the Fourth Primogenitor from bein’ revived was the Order of the End’s original role. It would have sucked for the gate to Nod to open before preparations were ready.”

“…Preparations?”

“I mean preparations to neutralize the Beast Vassal Warheads and free the icon girls. It took two indispensable things to carry that out. One, humankind had to have enough technology to at least revive me. The other is the arrival of peace. From the bottom of my heart, I want the icon girls freed from the Beast Vassal Warheads to live well, and they need happy, everyday lives for that.”

“So by chance, Itogami Island fulfilled those two conditions.”

“By chance, huh… I suppose you’re right. If the day you met Lil’ Dodekatos was by chance, then I guess you’re right, Bro.

“Keh-keh,” said Mogwai with a sardonic smile.

Cain, revived inside Itogami Island’s main computer as an emulated personality, had been working under the radar, preparing to neutralize the Beast Vassal Warheads. Asagi Aiba, Priestess of Cain, and Avrora, excavated from an island in the Mediterranean Sea, had been assembled in a Demon Sanctuary, a boxed garden in which humankind and demonkind could peacefully coexist. He probably had something to do with that, plus choosing Itogami Island as the site of the Blazing Banquet so that the Fourth primogenitor might be revived.

“Gotta say, Bro, havin’ a supposed mere human like you getting’ the power of the Fourth Primogenitor had even me clutching my head. Well, it worked out pretty well in the end so I ain’t complaining.”

“I have a whole mountain of things I’d like to say to you, though… Hey, you can’t pull the ‘I’m just a teddy bear’ card out now!”

Kojou shouted in anger when Mogwai stopped moving completely on purpose. Mogwai circled around Avrora’s back in an effort to escape from Kojou’s follow-ups.

Yukina and the others gazed at the earnest exchanges between Kojou and stuffed animal with incredulous looks on their faces. Their minds didn’t seem to have caught up with what Mogwai had said just yet.

“—None of that crap matters, so could you put it off until later?”

Kojou was locked in difficult combat to peel Mogwai off Avrora’s back when Kiriha interrupted with a furious voice. Her glacial tone threw Kojou for a loop as he looked back.

“Er, it kinda does matter but… Wait, aren’t you hurt real bad yourself…?!”

“Be quiet or I’ll kill you. If you don’t like it, drink my blood. As in, right this second!”

Kiriha stripped off the scarf of her sailor suit and showed him her slender, exposed neck. Setting her personality to one side, in terms of looks alone, she was quite a beauty.

Kojou put every shred of his rationality to work as he tore his eyes away from Kiriha’s pale skin.

“Drink your blood… Wait, what do you want that for?!”

“If I become your Blood Servant, I will regain regenerative ability on par with a vampire, yes? I will be able to properly heal these wounds so that I can fight again. Then I can go murder that piece-of-shit dragon!”

Kiriha unloaded a barrage of words. Cowed by her fury, Avrora stiffened like a little animal in the throes of despair. Kojou was a little taken aback by Kiriha’s forcefulness himself.

“Er, ah, I get the logic, but that’s weird, right? You shouldn’t be fighting a dragon; you should get your butt back to the surface and go to a hospital.”

“That dragon hurt me! I’m supposed to let it go? Don’t toy with me; I’ll kill you! Stop complaining and Drink! My! Blood! We’re bath-mates who’ve immersed in the same hot water, are we not?!”

“Hey, that’s got nothing to do with this?! It’s not like I went into the bath with you; you’re the one who showed up uninvited to the guys’ bath after the fact, right?!”

When Kiriha stubbornly grabbed him, Kojou tried to fling her away in annoyance.

At the corner of Kojou’s gaze, Shio began loosening her own necktie. Without a word, she undid her buttons one after another, greatly opening her collar.

“—Er, why is even Miss Hikawa beginning to strip?!”

Noticing Shio’s actions, Yukina swiftly tried to stop her, but Shio had a completely serious look on her face as she walked in front of Kojou.

“I hate to admit it, but Kiriha Kisaki is right. Please, Kojou Akatsuki. Do whatever you want with me. If you tell me to take my clothes off, I’ll strip. I don’t mind if you put me through humiliating things just like Himeragi. Please, heal Yuiri’s wounds…!”

“Um…has he done any such things to me…?”

Yukina froze, seemingly shocked by Shio’s words. In her place, Yuiri rushed over to Shio.

“W-wait, Shio…you don’t need to do anything embarrassing for my sake…! If Kojou tells me to strip, I’ll strip for him…!”

“Er, why is this premised on me telling one of you to strip exactly…?!”

Yuiri and Shio were working each other up when Kojou objected with a weary voice.

Glancing between Kojou and the girls, Glenda blinked hard and tilted her head.

“Dah…should Glenda strip, too?”

“No, you should not!”

“Keh-keh, you sure are popular, My Bro.”

Mogwai poked his head out from behind Avrora’s back and sarcastically pointed that out.

“How does this situation look like popularity to you?!”

“So whose blood are you gonna go for, Bro?”

“Whose blood… Sheesh, when you put it like that…”

Kojou’s words died in his throat as he felt powerful gazes from Shio and company on his cheeks.

A vampire’s Blood Servant meant a semi-eternal existence living alongside one’s master. Even if this was provisional, he keenly understood the reasoning that servants were not something to create lightly.

On the other hand, the fact remained that this would be an effective means of healing Yuiri and the others’ wounds. If I can save the girls with my actions, shouldn’t I drink their blood without hesitating? anguished Kojou.

Kojou’s clouded thoughts were swept away by the explosion that occurred without the slightest warning.

“—Wha?!”

Enveloped by crimson flames, the little tower standing on the floating bridge crumbled. It was an incandescent beam not reliant on demonic energy—dragon breath.

“The control tower…!”

“The Flame Dragon?!”

Blown down by the blast winds, Yuiri and Shio shouted at the same time. Kiriha and Yukina were sent flying but regained their balance right after, raising their respective spears.

Kojou, Avrora, and Glenda rolled on the ground as one tangled pile. Kojou tried to shield the two, but he’d been sent rolling, unable to withstand the impact.

Something strange happened to Mogwai’s body inside the fallen Avrora’s arms. Faint static ran throughout his body as he rapidly faded.

“The connection to Itogami Island’s been cut, huh…”

Gazing at his own hands as they crumbled further, Mogwai mumbled like it was no big deal.

“Cain…!”

Kojou called out to Mogwai. The badly sewn teddy bear looked back at the unnerved Kojou, making what felt like a smile of satisfaction as he raised his voice.

“Later, Bro. We’ll meet again…soon enough.”

“Uuu… aaa…!”

Avrora tried to hold Mogwai tight, but her arms managed only to futilely pass through him. Watching Mogwai vanish without a sound, Kojou stopped moving, his thoughts completely blank.

The next moment—

“Senpai!!”

Silver-colored sparks ferociously scattered in the corner of Kojou’s vision. Yukina had used Snowdrift Wolf to shoot down a silvery bolt flying amid the flames.

“Wha…?!”

Kojou looked down in shock at the remnants of the bolt impaling the ground.

It was a fully metallic bow gun bolt. It was short and thick, resembling a stake more than a bolt.

It was a silver-colored stake imbued with spiritual energy. It was just like the purging stake for destroying vampires that Kojou had once used to slay Avrora.

If that stake had been made by the Devas, it wasn’t strange if Shahryar Ren had one of his own, but the sudden return of memories of an abominable past left Kojou frozen stiff for a second. This was a fatal opening.

“Eh…?”

Warm droplets fell onto Kojou’s cheeks. They were glossy, crimson droplets, seductive in their beauty.

Yukina’s body wobbled. Bereft of strength, she dropped to one knee.

Yukina’s shoulder was dyed a deep red from the fresh blood gushing from it. Kojou didn’t know what had happened. All he could do was stare in a daze as the fresh color spread through Yukina’s uniform.

“Hime…ragi…?”

Behind the wobbling Yukina, he spotted Shahryar Ren clad in a combat suit.

He’d unleashed an invisible slicing attack—but Yukina took the unseen blade about to slice Kojou and Avrora apart in their stead. Yukina had no time to reposition Snowdrift Wolf right after batting down the purging stake. That was why she had no choice but to use her own body to shield them.

“I am sorry, senpai…I…”

Yukina smiled weakly. Fresh blood spilled from those lips. The slicing attack unleashed by Shahryar Ren had sliced through her shoulder blade all the way to her lungs. It was so grave a wound, she could have died instantaneously.

The instant he realized this, Kojou’s simmering anger was blotted out with white-hot rage.

“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!”

With that scream, the bloody mist gushing out of him turned the sky of Nod pitch-black.