Strike the Blood - Volume 3 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE 

THE AMPHISBAENA 

1 

The rusty, dusty, and dark cargo was filled with sparks scattering from ricochets, the sound of footsteps marching to an eerily perfectly cadence, and ghoulish soldiers clad in black armor, approaching with light machine guns in hand. 

“—Heek?!” 

Sayaka Kirasaka let out a yelp as she ran about, trying to escape the horrible barrage coming at a speed of 725 rounds per minute. 

She was inside the freighter Amalgosa. On her way to rescue Kojou and the others, the coast guard patrol ship Sayaka was aboard encountered this ship, belonging to Magus Craft, at sea. And so, Sayaka had boarded to hear what the situation was, only to be greeted by a hail of gunfire. 

“What’s with these guys?! No one told me I was heading into a firefight here!!” 

Sayaka lamented while wielding her long silver sword as if she was dancing. 

The sword was named Lustrous Scale—a prototype transformable suppression weapon developed by the Lion King Agency. 

The sword’s arc created a spatial distortion that interrupted all manner of physical attacks. Attacks from mere light machine guns were easy to defend against. 

In spite of this, the spatial distortions created by Lustrous Scale were not created by physically slashing through space; it was simply a spell emulating the effect that was caused by cutting space. Accordingly, the effect’s duration was momentary; furthermore, the time lag between activations that accompanied its use was a significant shortcoming. Irrespective of Sayaka’s level of combat skill, it was a fatal shortcoming, one ruthlessly exposed by the ceaseless gunfire. 

Sayaka fled under the shadow of a container still remaining in the cargo hold and breathed a sigh of relief, when… 

“…Huh?!” 

The door behind Sayaka opened; more soldiers appeared. 

Sayaka’s expression froze over as she became caught in an unanticipated pincer attack. The newly appeared soldiers only numbered three. With Sayaka’s combat ability, she could neutralize them in mere seconds. 

However, during that time, Sayaka’s back would be completely defenseless. That was Lustrous Scale’s third shortcoming: It could not simultaneously create spatial distortions to the front and the rear. 

Sayaka clicked her tongue at her unexpected predicament. Rip through the whole ship then? Sayaka wondered as she raised her blade high. 

Lustrous Scale had numerous defensive applications, but its offensive capability was tremendous. No doubt it could slice through even the thick hull of the freighter like it was paper. If she did so, the Amalgosa would certainly sink, but she had no other way to dig herself out of her combat situation. 

However, as Sayaka moved without hesitation to swing down her sword, a gentle wave extended across the space right before her eyes. The air wavered like a ripple on the surface of the water as a small human silhouette came through. It was a baby-faced woman covered in an extravagant frilly dress and a raised parasol. 

And what appeared behind her was an arm: a giant mechanical arm encased with golden armor. Even the palm alone was larger than the girl was tall. 

That arm, suddenly appearing out of thin air, lifted up all of the black-armored soldiers that had appeared behind Sayaka at once and crushed them. The attack had all the ease of plucking a weed growing on the roadside. 

The soldiers’ machine guns bounced off the golden armor without being able to so much as scratch it, whereas fragments of their smashed cogs and armor scattered all about. 

“Natsuki Minamiya? Where did you come from…?!” Sayaka asked while she stood dumbfounded, the timing for her sword strike now lost. 

Of course, she was nominally aware that Natsuki Minamiya, a teacher at Saikai Academy, was an Attack Mage of incredible skill also known as the Witch of the Void. However, she could not conceal her surprise at seeing with her own eyes how she could use high-end sorcery like spatial control magic with the same ease as breathing. 

“I see. Certainly, this is all according to the data Yaze brought.” 

Natsuki Minamiya, the controller of the giant arm, murmured as if bored as she picked up a piece from one of the soldiers scattered apart. 

“So this was why a robot maker was doing research in a Demon Sanctuary…? They were using necromantic rituals to get around the First Law of Robotics that’s burned into every Automata’s activation core. Of course, such infantile methods won’t raise capabilities any… No wonder they lost a lot of money trying to sell these to militaries.” 

“Automata soldiers… Then, Magus Craft’s off-the-books business is…” 

Sayaka’s eyebrows made a scowl as she lowered her sword. Based on the soldiers’ eerily orthodox movements and the strength to wave around heavy machine guns without batting an eyebrow, she could easily accept that they were machines. So the shadow accounts at Magus Craft’s home office were from contracts to sell mechanized troops to the Confederate States of America. 

Elegantly twirling her parasol, Natsuki looked behind her at the mechanical dolls. 

“We’ve arrested all of the crew aboard this ship. All that remains are these worthless toys. You specialize in dealing with riffraff like that, don’t you, Shamanic War Dancer of the Lion King Agency?” 

“N-not that I want to have work just shoved onto me?!” 

Even as Sayaka raised her complaint, Lustrous Scale was changing shape. 

The blade split and spread out to the front and back, with the long sword changing shape to become a beautifully arched silver compound bow. This was the true form of Sayaka’s Der Freischötz, Lustrous Scale. 

Sayaka took a metallic dart out from under her rolled-up skirt, extending it and using the bow to draw it. Then, she shot at the mass of onrushing black-plated soldiers— 

The flying arrow scattered about a shrill cry resembling a wailing voice. This was a powerful curse. The cry released by Sayaka’s magic bow made possible the chanting of a spell with intensity that human vocal cords and lungs could not endure. 

Sayaka had used an Arrow of Dispel. The sorcerous ritual that controlled the Automata was overwritten and neutralized by a curse of even greater power. Such were the tactics of a specialist in curses and assassination such as Sayaka. 

With their strings burned away in an instant, the mechanical marionettes came to a halt. 

Confirming this, Sayaka made a weary sigh. She hadn’t come to this place to take on soldiers like that. 

“…Is this ship really a research facility for the Masked, I wonder?” Sayaka asked while looking up at Natsuki nonchalantly opening her parasol. 

“The cargo hold has an airtight block that was used as a lab. We’ve already seized the data. It would seem the Gigafloat Management Corporation’s board of directors is using the scandal to short sell Magus Craft shares on a large scale. It will either be crushed entirely or become a subsidiary under the Business Department.” 

“…Meaning the Demon Sanctuary’s Research Department’s cutting ties with them?” 

“Only if their current experiment fails.” 

Natsuki spoke with displeasure in her voice. Faux-Angel, an illegal human experiment, had inflicted great damage to Itogami Island. At the very least, Magus Craft’s Demon Sanctuary branch would certainly be shuttered with its employees facing criminal charges. 

But if Faux-Angel should triumph over the Fourth Primogenitor, that was another story. No nation’s defense department could overlook a weapon of such capabilities. Even if Magus Craft itself should fall, the research would no doubt be inherited by a different corporation. 

In the end, the course of events depended entirely on whether the Fourth Primogenitor—in other words, Kojou Akatsuki—could defeat Faux-Angel or not. 

“Ah, one more thing. Just under an hour ago, the coast guard received a distress signal from an Aldegian lifepod.” 

“Princess La Folia is safe?” 

Sayaka’s expression brightened. It had been a while since she’d had any good news. But for some reason, Natsuki continued her words with displeasure in her voice. 

“It seems she’s on the same island as Akatsuki.” 

“…Kojou Akatsuki and the princess…together?” 

An ill feeling without form or substance came over Sayaka, making her grimace, too. 

Sayaka’s intuition as a shrine maiden told her deep inside it was a bad omen. Little was known of her in Japan, but La Folia Rihavein was at the ripe age of seventeen. The princess was so beautiful she was said to be the second coming of Freya, the Norse goddess of beauty. 

For Kojou Akatsuki to encounter a beautiful princess on a remote island cut off from all civilization… 

No matter what kind of optimistic images she imagined, the only futures that came to mind were filled with despair. 

“Anyway, no point staying on this ship any longer, is there? Then, let’s hurry to Yukina and the rest! That’ll settle this whole thing.” Sayaka’s impatience was plain to see. 

However, just as Natsuki was about to leave the deck of the freighter, her feet suddenly halted. 

“It’d be nice if things went that easy.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Following Natsuki’s gaze, Sayaka shifted her eyes toward the sea. Then, she froze in shock. Even at the far edge of the horizon, the calamity that was unfolding was visible to the naked eye. 

The surface of the sea was frozen over across a radius of several kilometers. Appearing in the center was a gigantic pillar of ice. The pillar, a spiral of frozen water, extended far aloft into the sky. 

“What…is that…?!” 

Sayaka barely managed to mumble the words. It was clear that the uninhabited island Kojou and the others were on was the origin point of the anomaly. In other words, neither Yukina nor La Folia were uninvolved bystanders. 

“It would seem that idiot’s gotten himself involved in another fine mess…” 

Natsuki sighed with a neutral look on her face. 

Sayaka’s eyes remained wide open in shock as she gazed at the tapered pillar of ice sparkling from the rays of the sun. 

2 

“—I, Maiden of the Lion, Sword Shaman of the High God, beseech thee!” 

Raising the silver spear above her head, Yukina loudly recited her chant. As her call echoed loud and clear, the keen blade emitted a dazzling light. 

“O divine wolf of the snowdrift, let the echoes of thy thousand howls become a shield and repel this calamity!” 

When the pale light vanished, a semispherical space some four to five meters in diameter appeared around Yukina and the others. It was a defensive ward spread using Snowdrift Wolf’s Divine Oscillation Effect. 

The outer edge of the ward was a thick glacier-like wall of ice. 

Beyond that outer wall, snow continued to fall and blow around ferociously even now, with the surrounding land and the surface of the ocean freezing over. Like the Inuit who dwelled in the Arctic Circle and passed the winter in domed houses of snow, Yukina had constructed an igloo for them to flee into. 

Lying in the center of the ward was Kojou, who had not regained consciousness even now. If Yukina had not instantly set up the barrier, he’d not only have been frozen over by now, but also likely crushed under thick layers of ice. 

“…You’ve done well, Yukina. We should be able to hold out for a while now.” La Folia spoke while looking over the ice-sealed ceiling. 

The flip side of being surrounded by thick ice was that the blowing snow didn’t affect them at all; it was actually surprisingly warm. Eventually they’d suffocate from lack of oxygen, but it seemed they were otherwise safe for the moment. 

“Yes. However, I must apologize. Escaping has become even more difficult.” 

“There’s no need to think about it now. It’s still a snowstorm outside, after all.” 

Yukina was biting her lip with a hard expression as La Folia made an elegant, charming smile toward her. 

“This snow and ice. What does it look like to you, Yukina?” 

As she touched the wall of ice, Yukina replied calmly, as if making an oracle. “I do not know. But I strongly sense Kanase’s feelings in them.” 

Loneliness, unease, fear, despair—it was as if the wall of cold, transparent ice conveyed a frigid sadness. There was no hatred or resentment, only a transparent emotion that approached nothingness. 

“I thought you might. That is what I think as well. It is likely Kanon Kanase’s psychological state given physical form, influenced by the Faux-Angel ritual.” 

La Folia murmured as she looked up with a pitying look. 

She was looking straight at the center of the pillar of ice, where Kanon was curled up in a fetal position. Her sublime, beautiful form looked like that of a crying child. 

“If that is so, then Kanase is still…” 

Without hesitation, La Folia decisively replied to Yukina’s question. “Yes. She has not lost herself. If we can break the spell, Kanon Kanase will become human once more. However, we cannot get close to her in this state. For that matter, whether we can even leave here alive is in question.” 

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem. When Kojou awakens, an ice wall of this thickness won’t pose any problem.” 

“Senpai is…” 

Yukina knelt by the fallen Kojou’s side and softly peered within. 

His body, which had sustained damage that ought to have been absolutely fatal, was already largely healed. His burned flesh, and his gaping wounds that exposed even bone, had already healed without even a trace. 

However, one place, a cross-shaped wound impaling the very center of his chest, was the exception… 

Realizing there was divine energy blowing out from the open wound, Yukina sucked in her breath a little. 

The golden, gleaming divine energy continued to eat away at Kojou’s body, composed of negative life force, like acid, slowly annihilating it. 

“This wound…?!” 

“The place he was stabbed by Faux-Angel’s sword. The sword continues to impale Kojou’s body even now. It is a sword neither of us can even touch.” La Folia informed her even as her own Spirit Sight confirmed the existence of the invisible sword. 

That sword, extra-planar like the angel herself, prevented Kojou from healing, even as it caused Kojou’s body, which should have been immutable, to gradually waste away. Thanks to the divine energy flowing from the sword, at this rate, it would not be far off until Kojou vanished altogether. 

“…What must we do to save him?” Yukina gave La Folia a serious look as she asked. 

Properly speaking, Yukina, who was no more than the Fourth Primogenitor’s watcher, had no duty to save Kojou. However, Yukina could not even contemplate making the decision to simply watch him die. 

La Folia, gazing at Yukina with great interest, shook her head. 

“We cannot heal Kojou’s wound.” 

“…Oh no…” 

Blood drained from Yukina’s cheeks. 

The Faux-Angel ritual was a secret ceremony of Aldegia. If La Folia said there was no way to break it, Yukina would be completely out of options. 

However, the princess narrowed her trademark pale blue eyes in a mischievous look as she continued. 

“However, we can awaken that which can save him. In the first place, being impaled by Faux-Angel’s sword should have already annihilated Kojou’s body. The fact that his body continues to exist despite that means that Kojou is subconsciously drawing upon that power.” 

“Senpai’s power…?” 

Prodded by La Folia, Yukina lowered her gaze to Kojou’s open wound once more. If she looked at the steady progression of Kojou’s annihilation from another perspective, it felt like something was holding the angel’s power in check. 

“…You don’t mean the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals?!” 

“I do. Kojou Akatsuki inherited twelve Beast Vassals from the Kaleid Blood, Avrora Florestina. It is likely that one of those Beast Vassals possesses the power to neutralize that of Faux-Angel.” 

Yukina nodded, agreeing with the princess’s words. 

Kojou still couldn’t use the majority of the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals of his own volition. 

But several times in the past, a portion of the dormant Beast Vassals’ power ran amok in response to their host, Kojou, falling into danger. That was probably what was going on this time as well. 

“But wake up a Beast Vassal how…? Right now senpai isn’t conscious; surely it is not possible for an external force to interfere with a vampire’s Beast Vassals?” Yukina asked in a brooding tone of voice. This time, La Folia nodded in complete seriousness. 

“This is a first for me as well so I am a bit concerned if I can pull it off, but I have heard of the method from rumors among the maids. There is surely value in trying.” 

Having spoken these words, the princess softly reached out to Kojou’s clothes. She stripped off the parka that the unconscious Kojou was lying on, unbuttoning his wrecked school uniform from the top down. 

Judging from the shaking of his upper body, Kojou’s chest wound was painful indeed. 

It looked like La Folia had forgotten how to breathe as she watched with a serious expression. Kojou had seemed gangly to her, but with his clothes off, he had an unexpectedly firm physique, no doubt due to being a full-time basketball player until just before he became a vampire. 

“…So this is what your body is like?” 

With an expression of deep interest on her face, the princess poked Kojou’s side, as if testing the elasticity of his abdominal muscles. 

It was when she suddenly began to strip off Kojou’s pants that Yukina reproached her with a suspicious look. “Er… La Folia?” 

La Folia lifted her face up as she pulled off Kojou’s belt. “My apologies. I fell victim to my curiosity; I’m taking mental notes for future reference.” 

Yukina sighed. “Wait, why are you taking off your clothes, too?!” 

As the princess began to suddenly take off her own clothes this time, Yukina rushed to stop her. Perhaps there were spells that required direct flesh-to-flesh contact, but even so, this was not something she could let pass. 

However, the princess blinked and tilted her head as she asked her question. “I have heard that intimate relations between a man and a woman involve embracing the other while nude. Am I mistaken?” 

“I-intimate relations…?” 

Yukina’s face froze as she tried to process La Folia’s statement and failed. 

La Folia gave Yukina a quite serious look in return. 

“I believe a foolproof method of awakening a Beast Vassal is for a spiritual medium to offer her blood.” 

“Th-that is certainly the case, but…,” Yukina weakly objected. 

Kojou’s being unable to use the power of his Beast Vassals was apparently tied to his having barely drunk the blood of others at all. Thanks to that, the Beast Vassals did not acknowledge Kojou as their true master, and thus, did not respond to his summons. Furthermore, his proud Beast Vassals required blood of a high spiritual grade to sate their appetites. 

Surely, the blood of La Folia, princess of Aldegia, was of sufficient spiritual grade, but… 

“But…drink blood, you say? Right now senpai isn’t even conscious…” 

“That poses no difficulty. The trigger for vampiric urges is sexual arousal, yes? With proper physical stimulation, it is surely possible to trigger such a response even if he isn’t conscious. My maids say that what happens above the neck and below the belt is completely separate.” 

“…B-below the belt?” 

“Heh-heh, they say the body tells no lies.” 

Yukina made a covert sigh as she watched La Folia’s innocent smile. She wondered if perhaps the Aldegian royal family should pay a little more attention to the sort of people it hired for domestic work. 

“Do not be concerned, Yukina. I do not yet have any serious intention of having sexual relations with him.” 

“Of course you don’t!” 

Yukina’s cheeks were red as she shouted. She couldn’t help but be concerned at her use of the word yet. Yukina couldn’t nail down just how serious this free-spirited princess was speaking those words. 

La Folia stripped off her dress jacket, calmly undoing the buttons of the shirt beneath it as well. From her collar down, her flesh was as white as the driven snow. Also, the swell of her breasts was unexpectedly large. 

“Well then, Yukina. Would you close your eyes for a few moments? Naturally, I feel somewhat…embarrassed to be doing this kind of thing in front of someone else.” 

Speaking these words, La Folia pulled Kojou’s body up into her arms. Yukina could not look away from how their bare flesh was pressing together. Pushing her silver hair up off her cheek, La Folia drew close to the sleeping Kojou’s face. And just as their lips were about to touch… 

“…You mustn’t!” 

Yukina shouted the words before her head thought them. The princess seemed a bit surprised as she raised her face. 

“Yukina?” 

“Y-you mustn’t, La Folia! I do not believe you need to do this!” 

Yukina’s voice was shrill as she strongly pulled Kojou’s body in her direction, as if snatching it back. However, the princess had a composed look on her face. 

“This is to save you, me, and Kanon Kanase. It cannot be helped.” 

“That…might be so, and there might not be another way, but…” 

La Folia made a casual, charming smile as she looked back at the unsteadily murmuring Yukina. 

“Thank you for your concern. However, I am quite all right. Is it not natural to save one who can still be saved, such as Kojou?” 

Yukina was a bit overawed by the gallantry with which the princess had put it. 

Yukina had been thoroughly thrown off by the princess’s frivolous behavior, but La Folia’s words were proper and just. The course she was attempting was the best option to save everyone trapped there. 

To her, offering her own blood to a vampire was nothing but another duty as a member of the royal family. This was how this beautiful princess of a foreign kingdom had borne many burdens all by herself and would no doubt bear many more to come. 

But this was different. 

It was not the princess who needed to bear this burden. 

“…I will do it.” 

This time, Yukina completely seized the sleeping Kojou back from La Folia as she spoke. 

The princess blinked her eyes in apparent surprise. “Oh?” 

“Saving senpai is my responsibility. I-I am the Fourth Primogenitor’s watcher, after all.” 

Yukina declared that it was so with a resolute expression. The twinkle in her eyes conveyed without any need for words, no matter what more you may say, princess, you may not have him. 

As Yukina did so, La Folia made a light nod—as if she’d been waiting for that moment. 

“I understand, Yukina. Well then, I shall leave this in your hands.” 

“…Eh?” 

Yukina felt like she was being brushed off when, suddenly, a dumbfounded expression came over her. 

The princess was watching her with a charming leer on her face. When Yukina saw her beautiful, smiling face, she knew she’d been had. She’d been in the palm of the princess’s hand from start to finish. 

“Er, La Folia… You intended this from the beginning, didn’t you…?!” 

Watching the outraged Yukina clutching Kojou all the while, the princess spoke without a hint of mischief as if speaking a prayer. 

“I believe, Yukina. I believe that if anyone can save Kojou, it is you.” 

3 

The pillar of ice born from Kanon Kanase’s rampage finally stopped growing shortly after exceeding ten meters in diameter. The snow had already abated. But the majority of the island was encased in ice and was shrouded in a pure white frost. 

The area above the narrow space Yukina and the others were in was encased by ice several meters thick, which made ominous creaks from time to time. Of course, they could not escape; indeed, the ice seemed just as likely to collapse under its own weight. 

Amid this desperate situation, Kojou alone continued to sleep peacefully. 

Even though his own body was slowly fading away, he had a peaceful look on his face as he slept. 

“…You really are something else…” 

As she gazed at Kojou’s sleeping face, Yukina made a sigh mixed with a strained smile. He slept without any hint of tension as if making sport of her pathetic resolve; it seemed rather ridiculous somehow. 

“Are you all right, Yukina? If you are anxious, perhaps I really should do it instead?” 

La Folia seemed amused as she asked. Yukina shook her head with an awkward look on her face. 

A small part of her wanted to follow that suggestion, but there was no way she could ask her to trade places at this point. Besides, she didn’t want to see the princess embrace Kojou. For some reason it made her heart ache. 

“No problem whatsoever. This is just like CPR, yes, like artificial respiration, you see.” 

Yukina murmured in a tone that sounded like it was chiefly for her own benefit. La Folia made a nod of apparent admiration. 

“Artificial respiration… Indeed, it is so. The mouth-to-mouth version.” 

“U…rk.” 

Yukina’s face went red as she unwittingly pictured the scene. Her effort not to think about it went up in smoke. 

Yukina brought the tip of her spear, lying beside her, against the tip of her finger. 

She registered a faint pain as she pressed the blade in very softly. Yukina took her fingertip, with fresh blood now dripping heavily from the wound, and pushed it inside of Kojou’s mouth. 

Even as he continued to sleep like the dead, Kojou’s tongue made a faint quiver, like a convulsion. 

The change was so small that it could barely be seen by the naked eye, but Kojou was indeed still alive. Even so, the amount of blood was nowhere near sufficient. He apparently needed a much larger quantity flowing into him. 

“Kojou’s reaction is weaker than I expected. Perhaps you are not giving him enough stimulation?” 

La Folia’s tone was uncharacteristically serious as she spoke. Yukina’s face went even redder. 

“S…stimulation…?” 

“The level of bare flesh in contact, perhaps? Hee-hee, shall I assist you?” 

“No, that’s quite all right. I will do it… I’ll do it, so—!” 

Swiping away the princess’s hand reaching out to her from behind, Yukina put a hand to the top of her uniform. At this rate, Kojou would never open his eyes again. She didn’t need to worry about him seeing her like this. Removing the ribbon, Yukina opened up the front of her uniform, gently pressing herself against the sleeping Kojou. 

“That’s not enough exposure,” said La Folia in dissatisfaction, but Yukina ignored her, this time touching her blade to the inside of her wrist. She made a wound as deep as she could go and still heal it by ritual, causing her own blood to spurt out. 

The fresh blood pooled onto Kojou’s cheek and flowed into his mouth. 

His lips conveyed a corpse-like chill to her exposed skin. But there was a tiny bit of warmth left. As if trying to not lose sight of that warmth, Yukina squeezed her arm around Kojou tighter. Finally, with a small sound in his throat, she sensed Kojou swallowing down the blood flowing into him. 

“…Senpai?! Senpai, can you hear me?!” Yukina called out to Kojou right into his ear. And in Yukina’s own ear… 

“Please continue, Yukina. Kojou can feel you.” 

“Wh-why are you watching this, La Folia?!” 

Yukina’s voice was turned inside out as she met the eyes of the princess observing her from point-blank range. 

La Folia had a mystified look on her face. “I have heard nothing from you to the effect of ‘Don’t watch, I’m too embarrassed’ or ‘Don’t look at me’…” 

“I-I didn’t say it, but I believe it is just common sen… Nn?!” 

During the time her attention was occupied by the princess’s behavior, Yukina was suddenly embraced and shaken by a powerful force. Kojou, who was surely still unconscious, touched Yukina’s tongue, as if lured by the lingering scent of blood. 

Yukina’s body startled and froze as she felt the unfamiliar sensation transmitted by the tip of her tongue. 

She felt a numbness climb up her spine, as if strength was being drained from her entire body. 

Even so, Yukina lifted her head in earnest. 

“S-senpai?! Are you awake?! Where are you touching…? Wa…!” 

Kojou’s fingertips, guided by instinct alone, gently ran up Yukina’s back. 

Rigid, Yukina gasped audibly. La Folia covered her mouth with a fiery twinkle in her eyes as she leaned forward. 

“Oh my…” 

“Senpai! The princess is watching, so… No! …Th-that’s my…?!” 

Yukina arched back heavily as Kojou’s fingertip touched the sensitive flesh on the inside of her uniform. 

As if drawn to Yukina’s slender, white, defenseless neck, Kojou sank his fangs into her skin. “Urk,” went Yukina, biting her lip as if to gird herself against the pain. However, she offered no resistance as Kojou, unconscious even now, gently embraced her. 

“…” 

Neither of them moved as La Folia turned her back, seemingly out of consideration. 

Then, the princess suddenly lifted her face—for she sensed Faux-Angel’s divine energy, still ceaselessly pouring into Kojou’s open wound, disappear. 

The chest wound that had seemingly been eating away at Kojou’s body gingerly grew shallower and vanished. 

“The angel’s sword has been…consumed?” 

La Folia murmured as she glanced over her shoulder. 

“As I expected of you, Kojou… With such a Beast Vassal serving you…you really can do it…” 

Still holding up the unconscious Yukina, Kojou yawned. The princess nodded as she watched him before shifting her gaze up above her head. 

The man-made angel continued to sleep within a white, gleaming world of ice and snow. 

4 

“Gwa…!” 

Kojou awoke to ferocious pain, like every cell in his entire body was being ripped apart. 

He’d experienced this pain previously. It was characteristic of having revived after sustaining injuries severe enough to cause instant death. 

“Kojou, are you awake?” 

As Kojou groaned in anguish, he opened his eyes; La Folia was looking down at him with a calm expression as their eyes met. He beheld the graceful features of her face, like those of a serene statue, and her silver hair. Against the backdrop of a transparent wall of ice, her beauty seemed unreal; he felt like he was still seeing a dream. 

“La Folia? Where am I? So I’m still…alive…?” 

Kojou was perplexed at the sweet, lingering taste of blood in his mouth and the soft, warm sensation against his flesh as he awkwardly sat up. 

He felt something odd from his slightly numb left arm. 

There was a supple weight in it that felt nice, like the feel of cradling a kitten in your arms. 

He could feel smooth skin; a charming fragrance filled his nostrils. There was something magnetic about the lovely suppleness. The silky hair that lightly brushed down against him tickled in a pleasant way. Yes, this was Yukina’s hair brushing against… 

“…Wait, what the heck is thiiiis?!” 

This time, the realization that Yukina was sleeping within his arms woke Kojou up for real. He was shocked beyond words. Kojou had no idea when, but his clothes had been stripped off; he was currently naked from the waist up. 

With Kojou like that, here was Yukina, sleeping soundly in his arms. Her sleeping face felt even more youthful than usual, making her cute to a truly amazing degree. She looked as pretty as a budding flower. 

But that was not something Kojou was in any position to appreciate. 

“H-Himeragi?! Why is she?!” 

“Please calm down, Kojou.” 

La Folia spoke as if exasperated from watching Kojou become so very flustered. 

“Er, no, you can say to calm down all you want, but I don’t remember doing anything like…” 

“I know. Yukina provided you with her own blood to revive you. If she had not, you would already have been annihilated via Faux-Angel’s power.” 

“Himeragi…did that for me…?” 

Kojou shifted his eyes to the still-sleeping Yukina once more. Even now, there were still puncture marks from fangs on Yukina’s pale neck. He wasn’t seeing things; Kojou had inflicted this wound upon her. 

Kojou touched the pit of his own stomach and exhaled heavily. 

He thought it was strange to have revived so easily after sustaining that Faux-Angel attack, but it hadn’t been the case at all; indeed, Yukina had saved him once again. 

Kojou couldn’t put into words the gratitude he felt toward the tiny girl in his arms. 

Though he was reluctant to part with the pleasant warmth against his flesh, Kojou gently laid Yukina down on the ground. He averted his eyes from her open uniform. 

“Anyway, would you dress Yukina back up? Even you can’t just leave her like this.” 

La Folia made a pleasant smile as she nodded. 

“I understand… Though it feels rather late for such sentiments after such an intense, intimate encounter, hee-hee.” 

“What the hell are you talking about?!” 

Kojou was shaken once more at the notion he’d committed wicked deeds while unconscious. The fact he couldn’t remember made him all that much more uneasy. What in the world had he and Yukina done right before the princess’s eyes? His pants half off and Yukina’s uniform was open like that. Why…? 

Unintentionally looking up while tormented by unease, Kojou’s expression suddenly grew grave, for he had noticed Kanon sleeping within the ice. 

“Kanase…!” 

The midday sun shone straight through the transparent, spiraling pillar of ice. Kanon was curled up within that golden light. 

The wings on her back were folded, with no hint of those dreadful eyeballs. Perhaps they, too, were asleep. 

“Right after she impaled you, she lost control of herself and went berserk,” La Folia stood beside Kojou and explained. 

Hearing that, Kojou gasped while glancing at the side of her face. 

“You mean Kanase’s still in there?” 

“Yes. However, this unstable state surely cannot continue for long. At this rate, her consciousness will eventually dissipate.” 

“…So we’ve gotta save her before that happens.” 

Kojou groaned from the back of his mouth. Gazing at him, La Folia narrowed her eyes in apparent joy. 

Kanon Kanase was an opponent who’d already tried to kill him. In spite of that, Kojou thought only of saving her—as if that was perfectly natural. “Hmph,” went the princess, her lips forming a broad smile as she drew close to Kojou’s face. 

Seeing the princess get oddly close, Kojou’s heart thumped harder as he backed up. 

As Kojou did so, La Folia grabbed both of his arms and drew even closer. That was when Kojou finally realized that the princess only had a thin shirt over her. 

How did things get like this? thought Kojou in a panic. La Folia was completely composed as she looked at him. 

“…Even after such passionate conduct, I still do not sense a new Beast Vassal awakening…” 

“Y-yeah, that’s right, come to think of it.” 

Now that you mention it, thought Kojou as he tilted his head a bit. Setting his sense of responsibility for what had happened aside, Kojou certainly was feeling the aftereffects of sucking on Yukina’s blood. However, he didn’t feel that he had gained control of a third Beast Vassal. 

So sucking blood from the same human won’t awaken another Beast Vassal…? thought Kojou, gripped by doubt. 

“This Beast Vassal… I see, so that’s how it is?” 

For some reason, La Folia made a pleasant smile as she seemed to grasp something all by her lonesome. Then, she abruptly got on her tiptoes and touched her own lips to Kojou’s cheek. It was a light kiss, like a peck from a tiny bird… 

“Wha…?!” 

Kojou reeled from the unexpected onslaught. 

Watching Kojou’s innocent reaction, La Folia’s voice let out a giggle and smiled. The smile stayed on her face as she brought a hand to her shirt and began unfastening the remaining buttons. 

Kojou hastily put up a hand to stop her. 

“The heck are you doing?! Have you lost your mind?!” 

“Why are you nervous? You have seen all of me once before, have you not?” 

“That’s not the point! And there was mist all over the place back then…!” 

Kojou desperately excused himself as La Folia looked up, her lips in a pout. 

The image of the princess bathing in the spring arose from the back of his mind, reviving the insistent throb from his canine teeth. It was an extremely bad sign that his vampiric urges were returning with a vengeance. 

“Am I indeed not as charming as Yukina?” 

La Folia spoke as a forlorn expression suddenly came over her. It was a look completely unsuited to her usual self, brimming with confidence. 

“No, that’s not the case at all, but… Wait, what’s it to you, anyway?!” 

The princess smiled charmingly, seeming quite satisfied as she looked up at Kojou as he objected with a mysterious sense of guilt. 

“Is that so? I’m quite relieved.” 

“About what?!” Kojou replied with a question, for this greatly increased his unease. 

The princess bashfully lowered her eyes as she made a pained, seemingly fleeting smile. 

“I know nothing about this. I thought that this might be an opportunity to learn the basics on how to behave in such a situation should my marriage be arranged as a member of the royal family. But thanks to my father insisting that he shall let no one marry me…” 

“Won’t let you marry… Huh, he must love you an awful lot. Sounds like a nice dad.” 

Kojou spoke while awkwardly scratching his face. Kojou, who’d lost it when he mistakenly believed someone had confessed his love to his little sister, was in no position to judge her father. 

And for a princess like La Folia, who could be packaged and sent off for a political marriage at the first false move, surely in that sense, the only thing he could call it was kindness toward her. 

But La Folia tapered her lips in a pout. 

“My father has declared any man insolent enough to lay a hand on his daughter should be prepared to have all of the knights and the army pound him into the dirt.” 

“…Sorry, can I take what I said back?” 

Seeing Kojou’s lips twist, La Folia giggled and smiled once more. 

“You ruling a Dominion of your own without a single kinsman… Perhaps you would be able to stand up to my father…” 

The silver-haired princess gently put a hand around Kojou’s shoulder as she whispered. What are you saying? wondered Kojou with a frown. 

Looking at Kojou from a distance so short that the tips of their noses could touch, she commanded in a clear tone. “In the name of the eldest daughter of the royal house of Aldegia, La Folia Rihavein, I command you, the Fourth Primogenitor, Kojou Akatsuki: Suck on my blood.” 

As Kojou moved to say, What kind of nonsense are you…? he suddenly noticed the look on the princess’s face. Her blue, gemstone-like eyes had an earnest light in them, like she was praying. She wasn’t kidding around. 

“This is something we need to do to save Kanase, right?” Kojou asked into the princess’s ear. “Of course it is,” she replied with a sigh. 

With a delicate sound, Kojou touched La Folia with his hand and exposed her white neck. The princess gently closed her eyes. Her slender shoulders made a faint shudder. 

“I’ll take on your dad. You better not regret this, La Folia…” 

“Of course I won’t. Do prove that I have not lost my senses, Kojou Akatsuki.” 

From the tone she made her declaration with, the princess somehow seemed amused. Kojou embraced her thin body. 

Under the light that shone down through the pillar of ice, their breaths converged and became one. 

5 

Within the pillar of ice, Kanon Kanase saw a dream. 

In the dream, she was surrounded by beautiful ice and snow. 

She had laid eyes upon the scene but once, right after she was born. 

It was a silent, lonely, beautiful world built for a single person. 

It was the landscape of Kanon’s very heart. This was her world, which Kanon had brought into being herself. Having thrust outside loneliness, sadness, despair, and all other emotions along with “the world” itself, there was now nothing left inside Kanon. Eventually, this consciousness, too, would completely fade away. 

In that moment, Kanon did not even have anything left to feel sadness about it. The single boy who had tried to stop her until the very end—when Kanon herself tried to annihilate him, that was when she lost everything. 

Six layered wings, six eyeballs, six spiritual nodes drew from the outside. Through them, divine energy from a higher plane flowed into Kanon. Surely this power would guide her to an even higher existence. 

There was no longer anything to be sad of. There was no longer any need to fear loneliness. 

And yet… 

In this world, a world devoid of anyone else, she felt a presence enter—the presence of the boy who should have been lost. The boy who should have been disintegrated had awakened. 

It was not possible. It was something that must not be. And yet… 

Then why? Kanon thought. 

Why did the thought of it make her so happy…? 

Kanon Kanase awoke within the pillar of ice. Tears continued to flow from her eyes. 

“She’s on the move…” 

Faux-Angel, sealed within the ice, opened her eyes. 

Looking up and beholding this, Kensei Kanase let out a satisfied-sounding murmur. 

Even now, a thin layer of snow rested upon his shoulders; a white frost covered the back of his black garment. His cheeks had lost all trace of blood; he was as pale as a ghost. It was the cost of having been rooted to that spot, continuing to observe Faux-Angel for several hours after she ran amok. 

He’d continued to watch over the fruit of his experiment that took the form of his own “daughter.” 

“Perhaps it is projection of mental imagery during the destruction and reconstruction of the surface personality? An unanticipated phenomenon, but that’s fine. Now there is nothing to tie you to this world to hold you back…Kanon.” 

Kensei looked like he’d found salvation as he spoke his monologue. 

But as if to betray his words, the very earth abruptly shuddered with a tremendous roar. 

An incredible oscillation warped the very air, taking on a mirage-like form. It was a summoned beast bearing two horns and an incandescent, glittering mane: a bicorn with titanic magical energy. 

“…A Beast Vassal of the Fourth Primogenitor?!” 

Kensei narrowed his eyes in astonishment. Leaving behind a neigh that seemed to blow like a gale, the Beast Vassal faded away; a group of three familiar faces emerged from the rupture in the ice left behind it. 

It was Kojou, Yukina, and La Folia Rihavein. 

Even as they held one another’s hands, the atmosphere that floated off them seemed formal and distant somehow. They awkwardly avoided meeting one another’s eyes, maintaining an odd distance from each other. 

“…Achoo!” 

Looking up at the dazzling tropical sun, Kojou sneezed hard. He pulled the hood of his tattered parka over his eyes as best he could. 

“…Aw, crap. Really is freezing outside. Gonna catch a cold like this.” 

“Will that not be because you indulged in indecent behavior with your clothes off?” 

It was Yukina who replied in a frosty tone. She’d regained consciousness only to witness the sight of Kojou sucking on La Folia’s blood, putting her in a foul mood ever since. 

It was understandable that Kojou’s sucking on another person’s blood while she, his watcher, was asleep, would have feelings of anger, but… 

“You’re the ones that took my clothes off!!” 

…Kojou made a subdued murmur in the back of his mouth at the sense it was somehow less than rational. 

“That may well be so but…goodness. Come on, turn toward me. You are not a child.” 

Yukina’s cheeks were still puffed up as she spoke, taking a handkerchief and wiping Kojou’s runny nose. 

La Folia giggled and smiled as she watched the interaction between them. 

They’d come face-to-face with death but a few short hours before, and the angel that had pushed them to that point was right before their eyes, yet even so, there was not even a smidgen of tension between them. 

Rather taken back by the sight, Kensei asked his question in a composed tone. 

“You are still alive, Fourth Primogenitor? Or perhaps I should say I would expect no less of the World’s Mightiest Vampire?” 

Sensing an echo of pity in his voice, Kojou saw the suspect look on his face. 

“Old man, you’re…” 

Kensei interrupted Kojou’s words, making a one-sided speech. “But I am grateful. By fighting you once more…if she can fully activate her spiritual nodes in combat against a mighty foe, this time Kanon will evolve to the final stage. There will be no need for Kanon to seek out new enemies. No one will hurt Kanon anymore.” 

Kojou felt blood rushing to his head at his all-too-arbitrary excuses. But before Kojou could think up a suitable counterargument, La Folia stepped forward. Even while smiling pleasantly, her declaration was very stern. 

“That’s a rather laudable statement from someone treating Faux-Angel like a weapon for sale, Kensei.” 

“That is something Magus Craft cooked up all by itself. It is no intention of mine.” 

Kensei brushed off responsibility like it didn’t involve him. 

“…What a self-centered thing for you to say.” 

Yukina wedged herself in, her voice filled with painful sadness that silenced even the princess. The tip of the spear resting in her hands made a tiny shake; her dark eyes wavered. 

“Weren’t you raising Kanase as your own daughter? Why, then, are you using her as a test subject? Do you understand how it feels for you to treat her like a tool…?” 

Yukina’s voice echoed with raw emotion. 

She spoke the words in Kanon’s place that she surely wanted to speak but could not. Of those in that place, only Yukina was qualified to speak those words herself. 

After all, Yukina herself, discovered by the Lion King Agency, was a tool bearing the label of Sword Shaman. 

She and Kanon were a great deal alike. Yukina was fully aware of it. That’s how Yukina was able to speak to Kensei like this—not to condemn him; rather, to save not only Kanon, but also herself as well… 

Kensei made a heavy sigh, as if pushed back by the power of Yukina’s feelings. 

“Young lady, it seems that you are laboring under a misconception.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Yukina’s expression wavered from bewilderment. Kensei looked up at Kanon in the pillar of ice as he continued. 

“I have never seen that as a tool, not even once. Even now, I think of her as my very own daughter.” 

“You’re telling us to look at Kanon as she is now and believe that…?” 

Yukina made an unpleasant scowl of her brows as she asked. Of course it got under her skin. He’d made his “very own daughter” slaughter others and had changed her into a different existence. What father could want such a thing? 

But Kensei calmly shook his head. 

“Even if you will not believe it, the truth is the truth. Perhaps you would be somewhat more minded to believe me if you knew her biological mother was my own younger sister?” 

“Your sister’s…child?” 

Kensei’s unexpected words made Yukina’s eyes stare intently at him. 

Kojou was just as surprised as she was. If what he was saying was true, Kensei was not only Kanon’s adoptive father, but also her biological uncle. 

“It’s some fifteen years ago now, but my sister visited Aldegia while I was serving the royal family of that nation. And so she met the king of that time and fell in unrequited love. Though I only learned of this after meeting her daughter after her death.” 

“And does Kanase…your daughter, know of this?” 

“Of course not. Her own biological mother never claimed her. It’s not something for her to hear from my lips.” 

Kensei bluntly shook his head as he replied to Yukina’s question. But Kojou didn’t think he was lying. 

La Folia was silently listening to the exchange between Yukina and Kensei. No doubt she knew of Kensei’s relation to Kanon from the beginning. 

“The same as your very own daughter, huh…?” Kojou murmured in irritation. Kensei’s little sister was Kanon’s mother. What he was saying about thinking of Kanon as his own daughter was probably true. So Kensei hadn’t adopted her as his daughter just because she was of the Aldegian royal family’s bloodline. 

But that only made his actions even less forgivable… 

“That’s even worse, then. Why’d you use Kanase for your experiment?” 

Kensei calmly endured Kojou’s wrathful gaze. “What father does not wish for his daughter to be blessed?” 

“Blessed, you say?! Kanase, right now, looking like that?!” 

“Kanon has evolved into an existence greater than human. There is no one anywhere who can harm such a being. Before long, she will be summoned to the side of God and become a true angel… If that is not being blessed, what should I call it?” Kensei replied in a tone completely devoid of hesitation or regret. 

But even so, Kojou calmly turned his words back on him. 

“…Did Kanase tell you that? That she wants to be blessed by becoming something more than human?” 

“What?” 

That was when Kensei’s expression, hard like an unshakable boulder, began to sway. 

Kojou gazed down at him with a look of pity in his eyes. Now, he was sure. This guy doesn’t understand anything…! “Is that really the blessing she wants? Or isn’t it just what you decided on your own she wants and pushed onto her by yourself? That’s what the rest of us call treating someone like a tool!” 

“…Be silent, Fourth Primogenitor…” Kensei’s voice was shaking. Pain, anguish, and confusion came over his expression of unshakable faith. “You have no right to speak such words. You who know nothing even of your own self!” 

What does he mean? thought Kojou, at a loss from Kensei’s unexpected words. Then, that moment… 

“…Kensei, get down!” La Folia warned in a sharp voice. 

But an explosion occurred above Kensei’s head before her words could reach him. 

Someone had attacked the tower of ice sealing Kanon within, causing it to explode. 

Countless sharply tapered shards of ice poured down, hitting Kensei squarely and making him collapse. 

“Beatrice Basler…!” Yukina shouted as she realized who’d launched the attack. 

The vampiress wearing the red bodysuit was standing on a hillcrest behind Kojou and the others. 

She had hurled the crimson spear that had destroyed the ice. Her Beast Vassal, in spear form, scattered about fireworks of ferocious magical energy, smashing the wall of ice shielding Kanon to bits. 

Standing beside Beatrice was the bestialized Lowe Kirishima. 

He was holding a metallic container the size of a coffin in both arms. The beast man tossed it down the hill with great ease. 

“Sorry to interrupt your leisurely discussion about how to raise a little girl, but time is money, and we want to go home already. So hurry up and beat the Fourth Primogenitor to death already, would you?” 

Beatrice blew out an unenthusiastic sigh as she recalled her spear Beast Vassal to her own hand. 

Then, she operated the panel of a remote control in her other hand. It was identical to the type of remote control Kensei had. Seeing the word ADVENT on the screen, Beatrice tossed out a laugh. 

“If you don’t, these babies I made will get left on the shelf…!” 

With a roar, the lid of the metallic container blew off from the inside. 

With a long shriek, small silhouettes emerged from within. 

They had four unsightly mismatched wings, magical runes all over their skin…and a ghastly metallic mask over their faces. 

“A Masked?!” Yukina shouted in horror as she poised her spear. 

What Kirishima had carried over was without doubt one of the unfinished Faux-Angels known as the Masked. 

Even incomplete, they had sufficient combat ability to push Kojou into a corner. And there were two of them. 

They’d apparently lost patience with Kanon, still sleeping in spite of failing to finish off Kojou, and hauled the pair off the ship they’d been on. 

“What’s going on here? Didn’t you only have seven test subjects to make Faux-Angels?” 

Kojou’s face grimaced as he glared at Kensei. Kensei was clutching his bloodied head as he nodded. 

“There should be. I only prepared the minimum necessary for the ceremony.” 

“Sorry, but that’s not enough for a product. I took the liberty of expanding production,” Beatrice explained with an expression that resembled scorn. 

The Masked spread their wings and took to the air. They looked very much like the test subjects Kanon had defeated previously. Kensei’s face grimaced as he realized the truth. 

“…Clones?” 

“Exactly. They might be from inferior test subjects and a long way from Kanon Kanase’s capabilities, but these are loyal to my commands and therefore much easier to use.” 

Beatrice proudly raised up her remote control and laughed. 

“I see,” La Folia murmured coolly, making a reproachful look up at the vampiress. 

To her, Beatrice was not merely the criminal who was coming after her personally. She was the enemy who’d shot down the royal armored airship and slaughtered her faithful retainers. She wanted to avenge her subordinates. 

“So you indeed wanted to abduct me so that you could make clones of the Aldegian royal family.” 

“Ahh, you just figured it out, princess? We’ve already squeezed everything we can from Kanon Kanase’s modified cells. Just when we were wondering what to do about it, here you came casually blundering over, you see. 

“That was a big help,” said Beatrice, wildly baring her fangs as she summoned her own Beast Vassal once more. She advanced upon La Folia, dragging the intelligent crimson staff along like it was an annoyance. 

“I’ll chop you all up into little pieces and make plenty more of you, sow. Even without modifying them to be weapons, I can sell your clones for a lot of money right off the shel… Gah?!” 

Beatrice’s lips twisted as her amused-sounding rant was interrupted by a sharp pain. 

A bolt of lightning released from Kojou’s body flew at her like a whip, rapping her shoulder. 

However, this was not an attack aimed at Beatrice. It was merely Kojou’s unquenchable anger turned into a gush of magical energy, scattering indiscriminately all around the area. 

“…Fourth Primogenitor…!” 

Beatrice audibly ground her teeth. 

Kojou shot the vampiress a glare along with a gush of explosive magical energy. 

“Shut up, old maid… And that goes for you, too, old man!” 

“…?!” 

Beatrice and Kensei were both at a loss for words at Kojou’s thunder-like shout. 

“Like I care about royal family or spirit medium stuff! Kanase and La Folia are both ordinary girls, dammit! Making ’em into angels, making clones of ’em, talking with all these big ideas of yours…!” 

Kojou’s eyes were dyed red. It was the color of incandescent rage. 

If you followed the logic, it was really all quite simple. 

Beatrice wanted to turn Kanon and La Folia into weapons and sell them to militaries: the mightiest sorcerous weapons in existence able to defeat even a Primogenitor… 

Kensei was trying to make Kanon into an existence greater than human. That’s why Kanon needed an enemy capable of forcing her to use her spiritual nodes at full capacity. That’s why they’d targeted Kojou. He was the underdog offered up to make Kanon evolve… 

Yes, it was quite simple. 

If Kanon couldn’t defeat Kojou, their plan ended then and there. If he just made clear that no Faux-Angel was going to defeat the World’s Mightiest Vampire, the Fourth Primogenitor, that alone would… 

“Get this into your thick skulls. I’m saving Kanase and smashing your stupid plan to bits! From here on, this is my fight!” 

Kojou gave off an ominous aura as he howled. 

Responding to the Primogenitor-level magic power, the Masked shot bent, warped swords of light at Kojou. 

It was a silver-colored spear that lashed out, knocking the swords of light out of the air. 

Both were weapons surrounded in an artificial divine aura. Just as the Masked were able to defend against Yukina’s spear, Snowdrift Wolf was equally capable of beating their swords of light away. 

Yukina smiled as she poised her spear at Kojou’s side, practically snuggling up against him. 

“…No, senpai. This is our fight.” 

Kojou trusted her with his back as he silently looked up into the sky. 

The pillar of ice had been shattered. Kojou stood on the ground as the eyes of Kanon Kanase’s unfolded three-by-six wings gazed pitilessly down upon him. 

6 

“Whew… What a pain! You’re really making this take more time than it needs to, Fourth Primogenitor!” 

Beatrice manipulated her remote control to dish commands out to the Masked. She was surely betting that even if an unstable Faux-Angel could not be relied upon, she could defeat Kojou with the Masked alone. 

The two Masked on standby descended from the sky and launched a countless hail of swords of light at Kojou and the others. There were far too many for Yukina to block single-handed. But… 

“…Outta my way.” 

Without even turning his head, Kojou easily fended off the flying swords with his right hand. That was all it took to annihilate all of the crooked swords of light. It was as if they’d been consumed, along with the very space they’d occupied. 

“…Hey, BB, what the heck’s going on?!” 

The look on Kirishima’s face changed completely as he watched. That wasn’t in the script, he seemed to want to say as he looked up at the vampiress beside him. 

But Beatrice said nothing in reply. Her face simply grimaced in humiliation. 

“…Senpai, you take care of Kanase. I’ll handle the Masked.” 

Yukina conveyed her message while standing with her back against Kojou’s. 

“Got it… What about La Folia, though?” 

La Folia returned Kojou’s look of concern with an elegant, charming smile. “There is no need for concern. Fight to your heart’s content, Yukina.” 

Yukina knew that she wasn’t the sort of person who’d say that out of bluster and pride. “I will,” Yukina said with a firm nod, sprinting toward Beatrice and the others. With ritual magic augmenting the power of her legs, she accelerated with the speed of a bullet. 

“Jagra!” Noticing Yukina’s approach, the vampiress clicked her tongue and poised her Beast Vassal spear. 

That spear, an intelligent weapon, could freely alter its shape, length, and angle of attack to strike down foes from a variety of ranges. Its reaction speed was well beyond human limits; even Yukina’s martial skill put her on even footing at best. All this had already been amply proven. 

That was why Beatrice had an annoyed look on her face as she thrust her spear forward with ease. 

“You can try and try, but it won’t change the outcome, Sword Shaman! Your spear can’t cut it against my Beast Va… 

“Hngg.” Her words of triumph changed into an anguished groan. 

Slipping past the Beast Vassal and lunging right at Beatrice, Yukina delivered a ferocious elbow strike to her defenseless flank. Beatrice’s face twisted from the fierce pain of ribs shattering. 

“…Young Thunder!” 

From point-blank range, Yukina thrust further up, her elbow infused with ritual energy. In spite of Beatrice’s superior size, the vampiress was lifted several centimeters off the ground, coughing up blood in the process. 

“Wh…what are you…?” Beatrice moaned, her mind in chaos. But Yukina’s attacks did not cease. Practically glued to her, Yukina stomped on Beatrice’s instep and thrust the base of her palm up at her chin. Then Yukina struck her flank with another elbow. 

“Gbah,” Beatrice gasped, her oxygen blown out from her lungs. 

“You’re…kidding. A little girl like this, taking me in hand to…” 

Yukina’s expression revealed nothing as she looked up at the still-confused Beatrice. 

Yukina was a Sword Shaman: an expert trained for the sole purpose of combat against demons. Using ritual power, a Sword Shaman struck her foe, inhibited demonic regenerative abilities, and soundly robbed them of their combat strength. 

Only trained soldiers on the level of Kristof Gardos could stand against Yukina in hand to hand. Demons reliant on their ability to use Beast Vassals had no hope of keeping up with Yukina’s movements. 

“Certainly your Beast Vassal was strong…but that is all.” 

The causal murmur of Yukina’s voice could no longer reach the vampiress’s ears. 

Beatrice herself was an amateur at combat. That was why her Beast Vassal fought independently of its host’s will. In other words, she left the timing of both attack and defense to the spear’s own arbitrary judgment. 

Properly speaking, the spear is an all-purpose weapon. 

However, so long as Beatrice was in control, there was a momentary time lag when moving between offense and defense, for the simple reason that Beatrice herself couldn’t keep up with the spear’s reaction time. Once you knew that, slipping past it was a trivial matter. 

Yukina used Snowdrift Wolf as a decoy while attacking Beatrice with her own bare hands. 

What Yukina was doing was simple. But Beatrice could not block such basic attacks herself. 

With a Sword Shaman able to control her spear at will on one side, and a vampiress led around by the nose by her spear on the other, the outcome of the conflict had been obvious from the start. 

As the Beast Vassal spear flew at Yukina from behind, Snowdrift Wolf, which she had left behind her, struck it down. Then… 

“…Distort!” 

From extremely close range, she delivered a palm strike to the dumbfounded Beatrice’s head. The jolt, directly delivered to her brain, knocked Beatrice out cold. Seizing the opportunity, Yukina took the remote control from her hand. 

It was the remote control for the Masked. With it, she should have been able to put the Masked to sleep, rendering them powerless. 

“Tch… That ain’t good…” 

Seeing their rematch end in the little girl utterly crushing Beatrice, Kirishima was ready to make a run for it. As he looked around, searching for an escape route, he noticed La Folia, left behind and defenseless, and made an aggressive flick of his tongue. Leaping right off the top of the cliff, he landed right before the princess’s eyes. 

La Folia deftly drew her pistol as if she’d been saving it just for Kirishima. 

“You’re thinking, you can get out of this if you take me hostage?” 

“Well, that’s how it is. I’m up against the wall here. Resist and I’m gonna make it hurt.” 

As the princess made a strained, sagacious smile, Kirishima lowered his posture. 

La Folia shot without warning. Unsurprisingly, Kirishima calmly brushed aside the pistol bullets, fired at full auto. 

“I told you, nine millimeters ain’t gonna do crap!” 

“Is that so? I wonder, then, if you can take this, beast man?” 

Discarding the out-of-ammo pistol, La Folia drew her other pistol from behind. 

This was her large-size, sparkling, gold-plated spell gun. The trigger guard had been beautifully adorned, and a bayonet about fifteen centimeters long had been fastened under the pistol’s long barrel. 

“A spell gun, huh? That’s an interesting bluff. Heh,” chuckled Kirishima in a scornful laugh. 

A spell gun was a special gun firing cartridges of precious metal with ritual power sealed within. Extremely few had ever been made; you could probably count all of the fully functional ones in the entire world on your fingers. They were better suited for a museum than a battlefield. 

The firepower was huge, but the cartridges were very costly; furthermore, each round had to be handloaded. The guns were intended for wealthy royals and nobles going big-game hunting. In a certain sense, it was a highly appropriate weapon for La Folia, but it wasn’t something you could call well suited to combat. 

“Better aim real well, Yer Highness.” 

Kirishima made a taunting smile as he charged straight at La Folia. 

He was well aware that the princess’s spell gun wasn’t loaded. After all, the spell gun was a single-shot design; all Kirishima had to do to see if it was loaded was to look straight down the barrel. 

La Folia had the gun pointed straight at Kirishima. But he had no reason to fear a gun without a bullet. 

As Kirishima drew near to shoulder tackle the defenseless princess, a searing blue-white ray of light screamed into his field of vision. As ferocious pain ripped through his chest and fresh blood spurted everywhere, Kirishima made a bitter smile. 

“Ha…ha-ha… The hell is this…? Dammit, you totally tricked me.” 

Still keeping the spell gun in firing position, the princess coldly looked down at Kirishima. 

A blue-white light enveloped the bayonet fastened to the gun’s barrel. It was that light that had seared Kirishima’s field of vision and impaled him through his chest. 

“I am quite offended to hear you employ the word tricked. I never said a single word about shooting you.” 

The princess casually filed her objection. But Kirishima had already lost consciousness and tumbled to the ground and thus had been unable to hear her rebuttal. 

“Lowe…! You piece of shit, you can’t even hog-tie one sow…!” 

It was Beatrice who shouted at the sight of her blood-soaked subordinate, somehow having recovered from the damage inflicted upon her. Yukina, having prioritized neutralizing the Masked, had not inflicted the finishing blow. 

Perhaps she had simply judged correctly that it was unnecessary. 

Yukina’s final blow had not been meant to destroy the body, but rather, to throw the body’s functions off. A vampire’s regenerative ability was meaningless if its cells hadn’t been destroyed to begin with. 

In matter of fact, Beatrice, whose sense of balance had been thoroughly wrecked, was still unable to walk straight. If she continued to resist even so, no doubt Yukina could finish her off with a single blow this time. 

However, La Folia met Yukina’s eyes and shook her head. It was as if to say, There is no need, I shall dispose of Beatrice personally. Therefore, Yukina simply stood back and watched… 

“You really got us good, you little bitches. Shit…this is so lame!” 

Beatrice spat out blood, indignant at La Folia’s confident demeanor. 

“Fine…forget about business. I’m killing all of you!” 

The crimson spear appeared in the vampiress’s hand. Perhaps it was reflecting its master’s anger, but her spear-shaped Beast Vassal had transformed into a more malevolent form than before, with talons and spines along its length. 

“I take it you have made your peace?” 

Even with the ghastly Beast Vassal spear before her eyes, La Folia’s pleasant, charming smile did not falter. Then, she turned the tip of her bayonet toward the wounded vampiress. 

“You think you’re going to stop my Beast Vassal with that puny little knife? Don’t mock me…!” Beatrice shouted. Her Beast Vassal instantly swelled up to nearly double its previous size, forming a number of jagged protrusions in the process, and rushed toward the princess. 

“Jagra! Gut her like a fish!” 

Beatrice smiled triumphantly. But what her ears heard was not La Folia screaming, but rather, the sound of her singing a beautiful hymn. 

“…Children of the gods dwelling within me, guardians of the host, thou who bring victory in the time of the sword, ye who carry the departed!” 

A flash of light enveloped La Folia’s bayonet before she completed her chant. The blue-white light illuminated the area around her like it was the sun before taking the shape of a great blade some ten-odd meters in length. 

With one flash of the sword of light borne by the princess, the spear Beast Vassal was bisected, burning away in the blink of an eye. 

“…Huh?” 

Beatrice stared blankly at the dissipation of her Beast Vassal. She knew what the attack La Folia had unleashed really was. But it simply should not have been possible. 

“A Völundr System pseudo–Holy Blade…?! That’s crazy, you can’t use one of those unless you’re close to a mother ship with a spiritual reactor…!” 

“You’ve certainly done your homework. Knowledge gained from Kensei?” 

La Folia nodded with a look of honest admiration. 

The Völundr System was wielded with pride by knights of the Aldegian royal family. It was a tactical support system that used an enormous flow of spiritual energy to turn a mundane weapon into a spiritual one. 

It was a mighty system, even said to be the mortal enemy of demonkind, but the fact it could not be employed without a link to a mother ship, such as the armored airship Ragnvald, limited its use. 

“But surely you are well aware that the women of the Aldegian royal family are powerful spirit mediums?” 

“…You can’t mean…you’ve summoned a spirit…inside of yourself?!” 

Beatrice’s bloodied tongue quavered. 

La Folia narrowed her eyes as she smiled. Her blue eyes glowed with a pale white light… 

“Yes. Right now, I am the spiritual reactor. Beatrice Basler…” 

Drawing from the spirit within her own flesh, the princess controlled the enormous spiritual energy as she raised the blade high. 

“For striking down not only knights, but noncombatants as well…in the name of La Folia Rihavein, I find you guilty. Now feel your sins against my people repaid.” 

Thanks to the damage she’d sustained in her fight with Yukina, there was no way Beatrice could evade the attack. The pseudo–Holy Sword cleaved into the vampiress’s body from the shoulder down. 

“Dam…mit all… Why is this happening to me…?” 

Beatrice’s voice spat out curses as the radiant beam set her entire body ablaze. 

That her body remained intact rather than burned to a crisp was because La Folia stayed her blade at the last possible moment. She was gravely wounded and on death’s door even so. After several fierce convulsions, the vampiress finally stopped moving. 

No longer paying heed to the criminal she had punished, La Folia lifted her eyes toward the sky. 

There, dancing in the sky, three-by-six wings spread, was Faux-Angel… 

The pseudo–Holy Sword of the Völundr System would not work against an artificial angel protected by a divine aura. There was only one person who could save Kanon Kanase now… 

“I believe in you, Kojou Akatsuki.” 

La Folia made a charming smile as beautiful as any flower as she lovingly stroked the mark left on her own neck. 

7 

Affected by Kanon Kanase’s awakening, a sea breeze mixed with powdered snow began to rage. 

Pillars of light broke through the cracks in the gray clouds, stretching to the ground. 

Against those rays of light, Faux-Angel hovered high in the sky, gazing downward. 

“Kyriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—!” 

The angel’s visage of idealized beauty twisted as she cried out. 

There was no longer any sign of the two Masked. Though unfamiliarity with the remote control had slowed Yukina down, she’d somehow managed to shut them down and put them to sleep once more. The skies belonged to Kanon alone. 

The eyeballs on the surface of the six-fold wings gazed upon Kojou with the countenance of a supreme being. 

Calmly ignoring the frigid gaze that seemed capable of turning all in its view to ice, Kojou gazed at Kanon’s eyes alone. Even now, Kanon’s deep blue eyes were weeping, tears of blood pouring from them. 

Kojou called out to Kanon in a soft voice. “Are you suffering, Kanase?” That voice disappeared amid the snowstorm and Faux-Angel’s cry. But Kojou was sure that his words were reaching Kanon. 

“I know. You wouldn’t even criticize the irresponsible owners of all those abandoned cats, not even once…” 

She didn’t know who her parents were; she’d lost the land of her birth, too. She was kinder to others than anyone because she’d tasted more loneliness and sadness than any of them. 

He didn’t know if she was just born that way or if it was the result of the love with which she’d been raised by those around her. But Kojou thought that her sublime nature was indeed worthy of those who called themselves royalty. 

There was no way Kanon wanted to hurt anyone. 

Even if her opponent was a vampire Primogenitor cursed by the very gods… 

“If the folks they call gods are arrogant, petty minded, and cruel enough they have to destroy everything that they don’t like, I ain’t gonna let you be their errand girl.” 

The eyeballs on the surface of the angel’s wings shot out a sword of light. 

But the attack was not of Kanon’s volition; it was the defensive reaction of her angelic body. An angel could no more choose not to attack demons than fire refuse to burn wood or acid refuse to dissolve metal. That fact made Kanon suffer. 

An angel did not possess free will; she was a phenomenon, no different than heat or light. 

Turning a person into an angel was the same as looking at life itself as a mere phenomenon and spitting on it. 

No doubt some would call that salvation. Some would feel it was liberation from suffering. 

But to someone who did not desire it, it was nothing more than eternal torment. 

There was only one way to free Kanon from her suffering— 

“I’m gonna drag you down from there, right this minute!” 

Kojou wiped out the swords of light that poured down one after another as he yelled. The ominous aura gushing out from his entire body made the irises of the angel’s eyeballs narrow like those of a cat. 

Kojou thrust his left arm out, aiming straight at them. What gushed from the end of his arm was fresh blood. 

“I, Kojou Akatsuki, inheritor of the Kaleid Blood lineage, release thee from thy bonds…!” 

The fresh blood transformed into an enormous surge of demonic energy; the surge condensed, changing and materializing into a summoned beast: a vampiric Beast Vassal covered in glossy, silver scales. 

“…Come, Beast Vassal Number Three—Al-Meissa Mercury!” 

It was a dragon that emerged. It had a slowly undulating serpentine body, four talons, and giant, ominous wings: a serpentine dragon covered in silver scales. 

And there were two of them— 

The two dragons that emerged simultaneously wrapped around each other’s body in a spiral, taking the form of a single giant dragon with one head on each end; in other words, the form of a two-headed dragon. 

This was one of the Beast Vassals that Kojou had inherited from the previous Fourth Primogenitor, Kaleid Blood. Al-Meissa Mercury, the two-headed Beast Vassal, was really two beasts merged into one. 

That was why it had not awoken from sucking Yukina’s blood alone. 

Making them completely obey required consuming the blood of two different spiritual mediums at the same time. No doubt La Folia had allowed Kojou to suck on her blood because she’d perceived as much. 

The body of the mysteriously materialized Al-Meissa Mercury was colored silver. This was both the color of Yukina’s spear and the color of La Folia’s hair. 

“Kyriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—!” 

Faux-Angel launched swords of light at Kojou’s Beast Vassal. 

But the dragons opened their great maws, swallowing the swords of light into the unfathomable depths within. They were thus annihilated without a trace. The angel’s swords of light had been…consumed. 

The irises of Faux-Angel’s six eyeballs opened wide in apparent shock. 

With a thunderous roar, the giant two-headed quicksilver-colored dragon assailed her. 

The golden light that enveloped the angel’s body grew in radiance. This was the light of the divine aura flowing in from the upper planes. 

Enveloped in this radiance, Faux-Angel was simultaneously in the world, but not of it. Even the incredibly destructive might possessed by a Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals were unable to bring harm to an otherworldly angel…or so it should have been. But… 

“It’s not possible…!” 

Kensei Kanase raised his voice in horror at the impossible scene unfolding before him. 

Kojou’s quicksilver-colored Beast Vassal was consuming the very golden light that enveloped the angel’s wings—wings it should have been unable to even touch. Faux-Angel cried out as light gushed out in place of blood. 

“It…consumed Faux-Angel’s Extra-Dimensional Membrane?!” 

Before Kensei’s shocked eyes, Faux-Angel lost one of its wings and fell. 

But the two-headed dragon’s assault did not relent. From the front and back, top and bottom, left and right, its two maws assaulted, whittling the golden defensive membrane down. 

As Kensei beheld this, he finally realized the true nature of Kojou’s Beast Vassal. 

“That Beast Vassal… It’s a Dimension Eater! It can consume any space and the dimension along with it?!” 

Indeed. It looked every bit as spectacular as the lightning lion, every bit as wild as the incandescent bicorn. But in pure fiendishness, the quicksilver-colored two-headed dragon was head and shoulders above them. 

It was a Beast Vassal that consumed, so to speak, the very world itself, dealing unrecoverable damage. It was the mortal enemy of those beings of creation known as “gods.” Surely, it was the most horrible, most accursed of all Beast Vassals. 

But at this moment, this very Beast Vassal was Kojou’s trump card for saving Kanon. 

Now that Faux-Angel had lost its upper-dimensional grace, Kojou’s attacks would reach it. She was no longer invincible. 

However… 

As if to scoff at Kojou’s vain hopes, the divine aura flowing from Kanon’s body grew even more intense. 

“G…wah?!” 

Kojou groaned as an incredible beam of light burned into his retinas. 

Kanon’s body was on fire. Divine aura flames gushed from her giant wings, completely at odds with her all-too-small limbs, before they burned out like candles. 

“That’s right. She’s only fallen into the same dimension… She has not lost her flow of higher-planar divine energy.” 

Kensei murmured with a voice of self-admiration, or perhaps one of relief. 

Kanon’s gnawed-off wing regenerated. That wing launched countless swords of light indiscriminately. 

The Beast Vassal’s attacks continued. The two-headed dragon swallowed the outpour of divine energy and the revived angelic wing whole. The lost higher-planar divine energy membrane did not recover. Kojou’s attacks were effective upon her. But so long as Kanon herself remained unharmed, upper-planar divine energy continued to flow into her. 

“Kanase, stop this!” Kojou desperately called out to the still-wailing Faux-Angel. 

There was no way to defeat the infinitely regenerating angel other than to destroy the spiritual nodes inside Kanon’s body… 

But that was a choice he could not make. Kojou was fighting to save Kanon. If victory could only be obtained by wounding her, that was the same as defeat. 

This was all the more so because Kojou’s all-too-powerful attacks would surely kill the now-defenseless Kanon. 

Kojou could not defeat her. He could not win against her. 

“That’s right. Even against a Primogenitor’s Beast Vassal, Faux-Angel will not be defeated. We will prevail, we must prevail…!” 

“Shit! Why?! Even this isn’t enough, Kensei…?!” 

As Kensei made a satisfied laugh like that of a martyr, Kojou’s face grimaced in despair. 

That moment, Kojou heard a sharp metallic ring and the echo of a clear serene voice. 

“No, senpai. In this fight, victory is ours.” 

A small girl in a school uniform appeared before Kojou gripping a silver spear. 

A brilliant smile came over the girl as she kicked off the earth, leaping. 

“—Himeragi?!” 

Kojou stared dumbfounded at the sight of her fairylike back. 

Yukina did not flinch as she plunged forward into the battlefield as the artificial angel unleashed swords of light upon the giant, wildly raging dragon. And without a sound, she soared into the air. 

“—I, Maiden of the Lion, Sword Shaman of the High God, beseech thee.” 

Responding to Yukina’s solemn chant, her silver spear began to emit a glow. 

That dim, white light was a divine oscillation wave that could rip apart any barrier. It was a purging light that could nullify all magical energy. 

“O purifying light, O divine wolf of the snowdrift, by your steel divine will, strike down the devils before me!” 

Yukina’s spear traced a beautiful silver arc. 

Faux-Angel, her upper-planar divine energy membrane having been consumed by Kojou’s Beast Vassal, no longer possessed the strength to repel the attack. 

Yukina didn’t need to run Kanon through. 

All she needed was a scratch—to slice but a single, thin layer of her skin. 

From that alone, the magical runes drawn upon Kanon’s flesh dissipated. 

With one blow from the magic-nullifying Snowdrift Wolf, the spiritual augmentation mystic formula Kensei Kanase had engraved upon his daughter was wiped away. This meant Faux-Angel had lost the power of the spiritual nodes that had sustained it. 

“Wha…?!” Kensei beheld the scene in abject shock. 

Kanon, freed from her sorcerous curse, returned to her proper human form, with the three-by-six wings falling from the nude girl’s back. The eyeball-shaped spiritual nodes, no longer under control, were running amok… 

…or the moment it seemed they would: 

“…Chow down, Al-Meissa Mercury!” 

The two giant flying maws swallowed the eyeballs whole. The glittering radiance dissipated; the gushing divine energy petered out. 

As if its hunger was finally sated, the giant two-headed dragon made a final roar before it, too, vanished. 

Yukina supported the unconscious Kanon as she fell back. Seeing this, Kojou breathed a sigh of relief; he glared at Kensei, standing behind him. The fingers of his right hand squeezed together, hardening into a fist. 

“…It’s over, old man.” 

Kensei nodded, looking like he’d been robbed of his very soul. “Yes, so it would seem.” 

Watching the completely lost look in his eyes, Kojou made an exasperated sigh, lowering his poised fist without a word. Kojou had meant to smack him, but he no longer had the urge, for behind the tint of disappointment in Kensei’s eyes, Kojou was certain he felt concern for Kanon…and love. 

Even if it was an illegal experiment, even if he’d ignored her wishes in the worst possible way, he was still acting out of love for her in his own fashion. Therefore, it was not Kojou’s place to punish him. It was not Kojou’s duty to decide whether to smack him or forgive him. 

“Kanon…,” the black-suited sorcerous engineer weakly murmured. 

The silver-haired girl once called an angel now slept on Yukina’s lap, her back curled like that of a kitten. 

A single snowflake gently fell upon her cheek, but bathed in the tropical island’s powerful sunrays, it melted without a sound. 

8 

It was but a short time later when the coast guard patrol ship arrived. 

They could make out Natsuki Minamiya and Sayaka Kirasaka on the deck of the patrol ship. Kojou did not doubt that the unexpected speed of their rescue was thanks to their hard work in investigating their whereabouts. 

“Yukina!” 

Sayaka, landing via an inflatable rubber boat with a trolling motor, paid the horrific sight of the scorched island not even a single glance as she embraced Yukina, who had gone to greet her arrival. Sayaka proceeded to press her own cheek to Yukina’s and rub against it. 

“Ahh, Yukina, I’m so glad you’re safe, Yukina, Yukina, Yukina! All you all right? A…are you wounded?” 

“S-Sayaka?! Th-that tickles…!” 

Yukina twisted her body, looking a bit confounded by the intensity of Sayaka’s excitement. But Sayaka’s sudden release from anxiety had apparently set her lust ablaze. Breathing heavily through her nostrils, she moved her face right up to Yukina’s neck and pushed a hand up under her school uniform with very suggestive movements. 

“Sayaka… Wa-wait, that’s…?!” 

“Hey.” 

Unable to watch Yukina being violated any longer, Kojou karate chopped the out-of-control Sayaka. 

“Ow!” cried out Sayaka, looking over her shoulder with tears in her eyes. Taking advantage of the opening, Yukina fled, put her disheveled clothes back in order, and hid behind Kojou’s back. 

“I-I’d rather you not touch me so casually!” Sayaka protested to Kojou while pressing down on the back of her ponytail. I’m having a déjà vu feeling here, thought Kojou with a sense of annoyance. 

“Can we leave it at that? Everyone’s watching.” 

“Ah!” Sayaka, having finally calmed back down, nervously looked around the area. Realizing all eyes were upon her, she cleared her throat with an “ahem,” as if that made it better. 

After that, she glanced up at Kojou with what seemed like a questioning look. 

“S-so you’re still alive, too, Kojou Akatsuki. Well, that’s nice. I was worried for nothing.” 

“Sorry to make you worry. Totally saved our bacon by coming to pick us up, thanks.” 

“Sh-sure. You’re very welcome… Wait, it’s not as if I came here for you! You just happened to be here! There’s no deeper meaning to it! Really!” 

Sayaka’s face was bright red as she made her retort. High-maintenance girl as usual, thought Kojou, brusquely waving her off. 

“Yeah, yeah, right. Gotcha already.” 

“Ugh… What’s with you. Geez. Die already.” 

For some reason, Sayaka’s look turned resentful as she grumbled her complaints. Yukina covered her eyes, as if just watching Kojou and Sayaka go at it was giving her a headache. 

Then, La Folia called out to Kojou. “…Kojou, would you lend me a hand?” 

Beside her, lying on the ground, were the unconscious Kirishima and Beatrice. Come to think of it, I’d forgotten all about them, Kojou reflected. 

As registered demon criminals, they would no doubt be tried and sentenced according to the laws of the Demon Sanctuary. But for now, they’d just have to bring the two along on the ship. 

“They still alive?” Kojou asked with concern on his face as he picked up the two tattered souls. There was no sign they were regaining consciousness, even though they’d been down for the count for quite some time now. Kojou was concerned that this was bad, even for demons. But. 

“I held back. But these are wounds inflicted by a spiritually blessed pseudo–Holy Sword; even demons cannot heal them without appropriate treatment.” 

La Folia’s face was nonchalant as she spoke. This beautiful, doll-like princess was the very person who’d put both demons in this state. Note to self: Don’t make that girl angry, Kojou secretly vowed in his heart. 

Then, Sayaka’s eyes widened at the sight of the two of them walking side by side and getting along very nicely. 

“Princess La Folia…?!” 

Her lips quivering as she murmured, Sayaka hurried to grab Kojou’s arm and drag him away. She glared at Kojou with an expression resembling a scold as she asked in a shrill voice… “Wh-who do you think you’re flapping your lips to so casually? Do you know who this is?” 

“Yeah… Well, kinda.” 

Kojou made a vague nod. Come to think of it, Sayaka was supposed to be La Folia’s tour guide to begin with. 

The circumstances of their having met had somehow inured him to it, but if he had to pick, he’d have to say Sayaka’s reaction was the proper reaction to have to a princess. But Kojou somehow thought that La Folia wouldn’t be pleased if he changed how he was treating her at this late stage. 

“Sayaka Kirasaka, is it? It seems you have gone through quite some trouble on my behalf.” 

La Folia gave Sayaka a charming smile. Sayaka regained her poise in a hurry. 

“I’m very sorry, Your Highness. I will severely lecture this idiot later, so please…” 

“It’s quite all right. Kojou is special to me… He is my, ah, my first you see.” 

La Folia lowered her eyes slightly with a look of sudden embarrassment. Blood rushed to Kojou’s face at the princess’s statement, an open invitation to misunderstandings. 

“Y-your first? What do you mean by that…?” 

Sayaka’s face stiffened as she asked. The princess lowered her face as her cheeks reddened. 

But Kojou did not miss how the corners of her lovely lips formed a faint smile. La Folia clearly found this very amusing. She apparently meant to have fun at Kojou’s expense. 

And to further add to his peril, Natsuki, appearing out of nowhere, stared hard at Kojou and La Folia. 

“Hmph. I see, it would seem you had a very enjoyable evening, Akatsuki.” 

“Wai… Natsuki?! Can you please not say totally over-the-top stuff like that…!” 

His homeroom teacher’s words, clearly spoken in malice, made Kojou unintentionally shout. “Enough with the first name,” replied a puffed-up Natsuki, but to Kojou, it was no time to pay attention to a trivial thing like that. 

“Enjoyable…? Wait, those marks Yukina and the princess have on their necks, you don’t mean that’s…” 

Sayaka’s face went pale as she moaned. Even now, Yukina and La Folia’s necks both had little marks remaining that resembled hickeys. They were the traces left by Kojou’s vampiric actions. 

“It—it’s not like that, Sayaka.” 

Yukina hurried as if to soothe her former roommate. 

“This wound is a mark from something like artificial resuscitation; it is absolutely not a mark of unseemly behavior. Th-that’s right, isn’t it, senpai?” 

“R-right. That’s how it is, so there.” 

Kojou instantly went along with Yukina’s explanation to try and somehow clear up Sayaka’s misunderstanding. Their perfectly synchronized excuse made Sayaka stare at them in silence for a while. 

Then, Sayaka smoothly drew her silver long sword out of the instrument case she carried in her left hand. The sword transformed into a bow as she notched a sharply tapered arrow. 

“Kojou Akatsukiiiiiiiiii…!” 

“K-Kirasaka? W-wait, calm down! That bow, it’s, um, it’s dangerous, right…?!” 

“I’d prefer if you didn’t move, foul beast! I take my eyes off you for one minute and you do this!” 

“Gah! Listen to what people say, would you?!” 

Kojou desperately fled from the berserk Sayaka’s attacks. Yukina was trying to stop Sayaka somehow. La Folia smiled in apparent amusement at the interaction between the three. 

Then, the princess walked over to Kanon Kanase, who’d been laid down on a rescue team stretcher. She’d noticed that Kanon had regained consciousness, her eyelids having opened a crack. 

“Have you awakened from your bad dream, Kanon?” 

La Folia asked the question as she leaned over the girl who resembled her very much, like a little sister. 

“Dr…eam…” 

Kanon murmured in bewilderment, looking up at the princess with a dazed look. Then, she nodded back; she seemed to think she was still dreaming. 

“That’s right. My father said he would save me… I…hurt many people…” 

“It’s all right, Kanon. Kojou and the others saved you.” 

La Folia made a gentle, charming smile at Kanon while pointing in the direction of Kojou and the rest. 

“…He…did?” 

“Not just him. I was with him as well, Kanon.” 

La Folia gently held Kanon’s hand. 

Kanon looked back at the princess with a mystified look. Perhaps she thought that even the actual touch of her hand was part of her dream. 

“Who…are…?” 

“I am your… Yes, I’m part of your family.” La Folia spoke after a slight pause for reflection. 

Kanon repeated the word with her own lips, as if it was a very precious thing indeed. 

“Family…”