Strike the Blood - Volume 7 - Chapter Ep

OUTRO 

Motoki Yaze awoke on the slope of a coastal breakwater. 

The sky was already thick with twilight. He could feel the ocean breeze turning cool. The gentle waves echoed against the fiber-resin wave-reduction blocks, prickling his nose with the scent of salt. Even stronger was the smell of his blood-drenched uniform. He remembered being cut in his encounter with Meiga Itogami on a building in Island North. 

He’d used his control over the air to hurl himself backward, somehow evading a fatal injury, and by landing on a cargo truck that just happened to be passing through at the time, he’d escaped Meiga’s pursuit. However, that was all he could remember. 

As Yaze lay on his side, he heard a voice right beside him. There was a girl wearing a Saikai Academy school uniform, shutting the book she had been reading as she looked over her shoulder. 

“So you’ve come to, Motoki.” 

Yaze made a wry smile and exhaled at the girl’s ever-brusque demeanor. 

“You, huh?” 

Yaze sat up, letting out a yelp at the pain shooting through his entire body. 

Paper Noise, Koyomi Shizuka, was unmoved by the anguished Yaze. 

“It is best if you do not get up just yet. I have reattached the torn flesh and blood vessels, but it is an emergency measure only. You will not be able to move normally until two weeks pass, I would imagine,” she calmly stated. 

“Seems like that’s about right.” 

Yaze lay prone on the breakwater again, furiously rubbing his disheveled hair. 

Koyomi watched him as he did so, not offering to wipe his sweat, let alone provide her lap as a pillow. She was acting as if she did not wish to touch him with her own bloodstained fingertips. 

Yaze haltingly murmured, as if to himself, “I had a dream about the first time we met.” 

She continued to watch him. A sad smile came across her face, and it seemed as fleeting as the snow. 

“It was only a year ago, yet it feels like the distant past, does it not?” 

“Yeah, it does.” 

Damn straight, he thought, closing his eyes as if berating himself. Far too many things had happened since that day. A planned artificial island sank, and a great many humans perished. And Kojou came to bear a destiny that was altogether too cruel. 

Yaze sat up once more and looked at Koyomi. 

“You being here must mean Kojou and the others are safe?” 

Koyomi looked somewhat beside herself as she nodded in affirmation. 

“Yes. The Third Primogenitor, the Chaos Bride, has departed.” 

“The Chaos Bride, you say…?!” 

So that was it. Yaze stared at Koyomi in obvious discomfort. 

The Third Primogenitor, Giada Kukulkan—if it was all her doing, that explained everything, from the giant Beast Vassal down to Vattler’s confidants getting beaten down. 

Koyomi continued: 

“The MAR facility sustained heavy damage, but they will no doubt hold their silence concerning this incident.” 

“…That’s ’cause they’re up to shady no-good things themselves.” 

“No. They merely see greater profit in their Itogami branch office’s…rather, Mimori Akatsuki’s research, than the expenses required to pay for the damage.” 

Yaze scowled as he made a heavy, languid sigh. 

“There’s some nasty stuff in this world… Not that I’m one to talk or anything…” 

After all, shady dealings for the sake of profit greatly resembled the activities of his own family—in other words, the Yaze conglomerate. 

Koyomi broke the momentary silence. 

“It seems that Meiga Itogami has realized your childhood friend’s secret.” 

Yaze’s face froze. The panic he couldn’t hide elicited seeming satisfaction on Koyomi’s face—an innocently cruel expression, like a child working to monopolize someone’s affections. 

Yaze forgot the pain of his wounds and glared at her. 

“Asagi’s secret…?! So that’s it! Shit, so that’s what it is…!” 

Koyomi appeared undisturbed as Yaze proceeded to chew her out. 

“If you knew that, why did you let him go?! With your power, you should have been able to stop him!” 

Bluntly dismissing him, Paper Noise declared, “Because it was not necessary. The Lion King Agency’s role is to protect the nation known as Japan from large-scale sorcerous disasters and terrorism. I have judged that Meiga Itogami’s conduct does not hinder our objectives.” 

“You really are a—” 

Though Koyomi looked expressionless, her slightly moist eyes wavered. She knew. She understood just how much future unhappiness and tragedy her decision courted. Yet even so, she, one of the Three Saints heading the Lion King Agency, had not stopped Meiga Itogami. 

Yaze looked at Koyomi directly. “Tell me this. What is Meiga Itogami trying to use this island for?” 

Meiga Itogami bore the same family name as Senra Itogami, the designer of Itogami Island. Surely it was no mere coincidence that he had been held in the prison barrier as a sorcerous criminal. Yaze had no doubt that Meiga’s crime had a deep relationship to some critical secret hidden within Itogami Island, as well as why he had taken an interest in Asagi. 

“Have you not realized it already, Motoki?” Koyomi said. 

“…Meiga wants to call him back?!” 

The Demon Sanctuary of Itogami City was an artificial island born from metal and sorcery, a symbol of civilization and strife. 

As an altar for calling upon “him,” it was surely a stage appropriate like none other. 

He, the exile from the land abundant in life. 

He, the First Sinner. 

He, the Father of all demons, and the mortal enemy of Man and Demon alike. 

He, the one who had laid waste to the surface several times in past “cleansings”— 

As Yaze became captive to despair, out of the blue, Koyomi quietly whispered… 

“It is all right—we shall win, for this Cleansing is not his battle alone.” 

Her whisper was like a prophecy. 

“Hmph.” Yaze smiled wryly as he slumped. 

For an instant, the back of Yaze’s mind held the images of Kojou, and cuddling beside him, a small-statured girl. 

Of course, Yaze had no spiritual power, so he could do nothing like Spirit Sight. Even so, the sudden rise of the image in his mind managed to make him feel stupid for worrying about them. 

Yes, it was different from back then. Kojou Akatsuki no longer had just one watcher— 

Koyomi had vanished at some point. 

Exhausted, Yaze sighed and collapsed on the spot, closing his eyes. 

He surely had just a little more time. Enough to immerse himself in memories. 

Then Yaze fell asleep. 

He had a dream. A dream of fondness and sadness. A dream of the girl called the Kaleid Blood…