Strike the Blood - Volume 8 - Chapter 4.1

Intermission iv 

The chains…came loose. 

The blond girl, her outline indistinct, glared at Natsuki Minamiya as she laughed ferociously. 

Pitch-black wings of demonic energy sprouted from her back. 

The wings totaled ten, five on each side. Each one became a huge sickle, slicing away the chains that restrained her movements. 

“Fwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…ha-ha!” 

The girl with the ambiguous profile laughed, her blond hair swaying. 

Her eyes, like pale blue flames, glared at Natsuki. Like whips, the wings at her back lashed out at the small witch holding the grimoire. Space itself seemed to ripple as Natsuki jumped away. She was teleporting using spatial control magic. The black wings speared through the place Natsuki had been a mere instant before, piercing nothing but her blurry afterimage. 

“So that is how it is, Root Avrora—” 

Golden chains under Natsuki’s control burst out of thin air, bearing down upon the girl like lances. When they circled around the pitch-black wings, the girl batted them out of the air. She’d predicted the paths of the chains and responded with an incredibly forceful attack. However, cold smiles came over both of their lips, their faces calm as the battle raged back and forth. 

“No, that is incorrect… I shall call you Logic Bomb. A defense mechanism implanted within Root Avrora to protect secrets—a dummy program designed to indiscriminately slaughter anyone trying to access the secrets of the Fourth Primogenitor.” 

Natsuki kept her eyes glued to the hazy girl as she spoke. 

She was not the vestiges of Root Avrora’s soul, recreated by the grimoire. She was a magical virus packaged inside the Fourth Primogenitor’s Cursed Soul, a self-destruct mechanism to annihilate any enemy probing her secrets. 

“Thanks to you, Logic Bomb, we are now well aware that there are secrets to the Fourth Primogenitor unknown to us. Secrets that the Devas went through all this trouble to protect.” 

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha… Destroy-destroy-destroy-destroy-destroy-destroy… Erase-erase-erase-erase-erase… Execute-execute-execute-execute!” 

Hearing Natsuki’s murmurs, the girl increased the ferocity of her attacks. 

The slicing attacks of the wings infused with dense demonic energy deeply gouged the thick stonework walls and smashed the ceiling. The excess energy sent tremors through the other-dimensional space, from which the Prison Barrier was constructed. If she persisted in her attacks, sooner or later the space itself would be destroyed; it was only a matter of time. 

Yet, curiously, not a single thing inside the magic circle behind Logic Bomb was harmed. Within the circle, Kojou and Asagi continued to sleep, registering nothing. 

It was not because the magic circle was protecting them; the girl meticulously avoided striking it. After all, the source of the very demonic energy she was using to attack came from within the circle. The source of Logic Bomb’s demonic energy was none other than the Fourth Primogenitor—Kojou Akatsuki. 

“So she’s drawing demonic energy from Akatsuki…,” Natsuki murmured, exasperated. “That boy attracts some very strange girls.” 

Even such moderated attacks by Logic Bomb, employing the inexhaustible demonic power of the World’s Mightiest Vampire, were overwhelming. Every one of the jet-black wings might have been on par with a primogenitor’s Beast Vassal. 

Yet, Natsuki parried those attacks in stride. 

It was not because the witch’s magical energy was somehow superior to that of the Fourth Primogenitor. Rather, Logic Bomb’s power was weakened. Like a bullet fired into the bottom of the sea, her demonic power was greatly diminished in strength. Logic Bomb’s present capacity was a far cry from her full strength. 

“I told you… We are inside my dream. It permits me certain…liberties.” 

Behind Natsuki, space ripped open, and a giant arm emerged. The limb belonged to a mechanized devil clad in golden armor. It grabbed hold of Logic Bomb’s wings and plucked them out with all the care of a roadside weed. 

“Erase-erase-erase! Execute! Execute…!” 

Having lost many of her wings, Logic Bomb retreated, facing the magic circle. She circled around Asagi, using her defenselessly sleeping body as a shield. 

“I see. You intend to use Aiba as a hostage. Perhaps, I should say, such tactical decision-making capability should be expected of a legacy of the Devas?” 

Natsuki’s brows rose in apparent admiration, but with Logic Bomb certain of her victory, the Witch of the Void also seemed a little disappointed. She shook her head. 

“However, you were careless, Logic Bomb. Why did you think I went out of my way to bring in the girl from the Lion King Agency, unconnected to Kojou Akatsuki’s past?” 

“Tch…?!” 

For a moment, Logic Bomb slowed, seemingly unable to process the meaning of Natsuki’s words. Slowly, a figure rose behind her wielding a silver spear. 

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

With dance-like movements, Yukina Himeragi twirled the spear around as she intoned her chant. 

Vast spiritual energy flowed into the silver spear, enveloping it in a faint white glow—the Divine Oscillation Effect, which could nullify demonic energy and rend any barrier. 

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

“……?!” 

The pitch-black wings attempted to counterattack, but she sliced through them as if they offered no more resistance than warm jelly. The tip of the spear thrust forward with ease, soundlessly impaling the girl’s indistinct form, enveloping her in that dull, white glow. 

That instant, just like that, the specter in the form of a blond girl dissipated and vanished. 

After that, nothing remained except the now-decrepit building of the Prison Barrier, and the magic circle, devoid of light. 

“Senpai really is a lot of trouble, isn’t he…?” 

Yukina gazed at the side of the still-sleeping Kojou’s face as she made a weary sigh. 

Losing his memory—fine. His demonic energy running loose—well, she could overlook that. Yukina had known from the start it was a dangerous ritual for him to relive the past; that was why she was on standby, after all. 

Setting all that aside, Kojou’s obsession with a girl from his memories, to the point of letting her absorb his demonic energy and use it as she pleased, left even her flabbergasted. There had to be limits to how much you indulged a girl. 

It was indeed dangerous to take her eyes off him. Yukina resolved anew to watch him even more strictly than before. 

“Well, she certainly raised a ruckus. This book has taken all it can handle, it seems?” 

Natsuki gazed at the wrecked Prison Barrier building as she raised her voice in annoyance. The grimoire she held in her hand was giving off faint whiffs of smoke, unable to endure the magical energy. Its bindings were coming loose, causing the faded pages to fall loose and scatter. It could not endure the ripples of demonic energy used to maintain Logic Bomb in her physical form, and that meant the complete loss of a precious grimoire able to control another’s personal history. 

“Nevertheless, that is fine. At minimum, we have obtained information that we required.” 

“Yes.” 

Natsuki nodded. The Fourth Primogenitor, fashioned by the three primogenitors and the Devas, indeed held hidden secrets. They still remained unknown to Kojou himself. 

The Cleansing was the key to unlocking them. 

Natsuki looked down at Kojou and Asagi, continuing in their harmonious sleep, and haughtily announced: 

“—It is about time you awoke from your dream. Wake up, you two. Reality is waiting.” 

The loss of the grimoire meant the dream Kojou and Asagi were watching would also come to an end. 

Cutting off a memory before it had fully run its course probably meant it would become distorted and fragmented, with much of it sinking back into the realm of the subconscious, never to be remembered again. 

On some level, this knowledge relieved Yukina, and that caught her by surprise. 

Kojou was spending time with someone in a past unknown to her. Now that this obvious fact truly hit home, she felt a small throb deep in her chest. She dismissed this as a figment of her imagination, pretended not to notice the ache, and quietly closed her eyes. 

The door of the Prison Barrier was opening, heralding the end of the past lost to them, and the arrival of the time to awaken—