From the Warlord's Empire (24 page)

“What is it?”

As Kojou suddenly went silent, Sayaka peered at his face, as if there was something mysterious about it.

“R-right,” went Kojou as he averted his eyes in a hurry. Sayaka looked squarely at Kojou, a suspicious look on her face, and finally gasped before covering her own breasts.

“Kojou Akatsuki…!”

“I-I’m not! I thought, it’s cold, so I figured maybe I should lend you my parka…”

“As if I’d wear a parka drenched with your hormones! I’d get pregnant!”

“Like hell you would!! What—do you really think vampires are here?!” Kojou yelled quite loudly. But for some reason, he did not hear the expected retort from Sayaka. She hung her head on the spot and began messing with her fingernails.

“…I-it makes me feel bad for Yukina somehow.”

“Ah? Yukina’s got nothin’ to do with this. Here, put it on already.”

Kojou forced his own parka onto the girl’s shoulders. She was still drenched, but the warmth from Kojou’s own body heat would surely help a tiny bit.

As if tasting that body heat for herself, Sayaka pulled the parka’s collar closer.

“Hey, Kojou Akatsuki?”

“What now?”

“Do you think it’d work out if you used a different Beast Vassal?”

“Well…in this situation, I suppose, yeah.”

Kojou frowned as he remembered someone having asked him a very similar question not long ago.

Kojou had inherited the twelve Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor. Surely one of them could blow the debris to bits in this situation; the one that had been on the verge of pulverizing the school’s roof, perhaps.

“…But when Regulus Aurum came against my will before, it burned a section of Island East to a crisp. If something like that happened here, an artificial island on its last legs like this would sink straight to the bottom of the sea.”

This said, Kojou made a sigh. Why did the Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor have to be so difficult to use?

But Sayaka continued to look up at Kojou.

“If you can control it, it’s fine, right? Yukina let you suck her blood so that you could, right?”

“Kirasaka?”

Kojou raised his eyebrows at Sayaka’s acting like she was mulling something over.

For some reason, Sayaka’s cheeks were red, her gaze wandering all about.

“Er, ah, y’know, I really am…big, aren’t I?”

As she posed her abrupt question, Kojou’s reply got caught in his throat. His gaze subconsciously shifted to how her breasts poked out from the parka’s seams.

“W-well, you’re certainly not small compared to Himeragi.”

“I suppose not. Not cute at all.”

Sayaka spoke with a self-deprecating smile.

What does she mean?
Kojou wondered, perplexed. Perhaps she couldn’t wear cute bra designs because her breasts were too big or something? Certainly one might argue Sayaka’s body was too curvaceous for that. But…

“It’s nothing you need to worry about, though.”

“Eh?”

“A lot of guys like big, right? Feminine.”

Kojou spoke while his head throbbed from recalling his best friend.

But Sayaka tilted her head with a perplexed look.

“Feminine? Smaller isn’t cuter?”

“Well, ah, there’s certainly people who like that, too. People have different tastes about that. Well, it might be hard on a girl’s shoulders and stuff, though.”

“…Hard on the shoulders? What do you mean?”

Sayaka’s eyes blinked a few times. Kojou tilted his head a bit, just like she was.

“Er? It’s not like that? I thought I saw some gravure idol talking about that once…”

“Gravure idol?”

Sayaka’s face turned serious, the confused look vanishing. Finally, her shoulders began slow, angry tremors as she spoke.

“…Who’s talking about breasts here?! I’m talking height, height!!”

“Ah? Why are you talking about height all of a sudden?”

“I’ve been talking about that from the beginning here!”

Sayaka growled in her throat like a ferocious dog.

Kojou had a languid look on his face as he looked down at Sayaka.

“Kirasaka, it’s not like you’re
that
tall, anyway. A hundred sixty-six or seven, about there? That’s normal good looks in my book.”

As a former basketball player, Kojou found height of Sayaka’s level to be completely normal. He even thought that her eye level made her easier to talk to up close.

Perhaps the last phrase came off well, for Sayaka’s mood improved slightly.

“Even so, I was the tallest girl in my whole school! Thanks to that, I kept getting the royal princess treatment…”

“Royal princess treatment…?”

Kojou remembered how she’d desperately yelled, “This doesn’t count.” She seemed oddly worked up about it, but to Sayaka, who was so sensitive about her height, it was a pretty big deal.

“Th-that’s why I was just a little happy. That’s never happened to me before.” Sayaka spoke, beet red to the tips of her ears. “S-so it’s really just
that. It’s not that I fantasized about someday having a fateful encounter with a man who sweeps me off my feet and falling in love with him or anything…!”

“R-right.”

Kojou was a bit relieved that Sayaka wasn’t actually angry.

Right now, she looked like an ordinary high school girl, just like Kojou’s classmates. You wouldn’t think she and the War Dancer who fought the Nalakuvera so valiantly were one and the same. This was probably the Sayaka that Yukina had always seen as her roommate. He could even agree with the thought that she was cute.

Sayaka grabbed Kojou’s uniform over his stomach and gave it a gentle pull. In doing so, she pulled herself closer to Kojou. Before Kojou knew it, the two were close enough that their breaths were mixing together.

“So…keep this secret from Yukina, okay?”

Sayaka’s voice trembled as she murmured. It was no doubt because of cold and fear.

But seeming to have made her decision, her trembling ceased the instant she leaned fully into him.

“I thought I’d let you suck my blood to thank you, just once. Or perhaps I’m not good enough?”

Kojou was moved by the sight of Sayaka’s teary eyes looking up at him.

“No, nothing like that, but are you all right with this, Kirasaka…?”

Sayaka responded to Kojou’s concerned inquiry by gently moving her hands around his back.

Kojou and Sayaka’s bodies were still cold and dripping wet. However, their skin, pressed together like this, conveyed gentle warmth to the other.

“I’m…not afraid of you. Strange, isn’t it…? You being the World’s Mightiest Vampire and all…”

As Sayaka said that, she gently touched Kojou’s mouth, Kojou’s sharp, tapered fangs…

The flow of water into the corridor increased in vigor, strongly enough that they might be swept away if they were not embracing each other so strongly. Finally, their two silhouettes merged into one, with Sayaka’s minute pants echoing across the surface of the water.

“Shit…it just ain’t gonna work.”

Yaze made ragged breaths as he spat out the remnants of the capsules he’d stuffed down his throat.

The chaotic vortex of air around him was an aftereffect of having used his ability.

He’d hurled Yukina’s left-behind Snowdrift Wolf all the way to the
Oceanus Grave
floating atop the ocean. It was makeshift work only possible with Yaze’s control of the wind, but that much had worked out.

Yukina had defeated Gardos as he’d hoped. According to Yaze’s calculations, Yukina and the other girls would finally be safe. He hadn’t counted on the Nalakuvera’s control codes being deciphered faster than he expected.

“Even Himeragi can’t do anything against that ancient weapon. Damn you, Asagi, I risked an adverse reaction to help you, but you just had to work so damned hard…”

Yaze spat out frail complaints while slumping down to the ground.

Watching Yaze like that with an amused expression, Vattler, wearing his gaudy three-piece suit, spoke.

“I see. So as an observer, you are forbidden from direct intervention in combat. This must be quite hard on you…”

“Only ’cause you got in my way back there. Would’ve gone a little better if you hadn’t.”

Yaze glanced sideways at Vattler, glaring. Yaze had realized the Black Death Emperor Front had been aboard the
Oceanus Grave
right after Asagi and the girls had been kidnapped. If he’d been able to leak that intel to the Island Guard, they wouldn’t have fallen for the decoy operation; things would’ve no doubt unfolded much differently.

“But thanks to that, it’s been quite an amusing sight.”

Vattler said that without the slightest bit of shame.

Five Nalakuvera units were being hauled out of the
Oceanus Grave
just as it pulled alongside Sub-float No. 13.

Even one of the ancient weapons wielded considerable combat ability, but they had six in total. To Vattler, that surely made it a deeply fascinating battle. This was what he’d come all the way to a small island in the Orient for.

“Now then, Gardos’s preparations appear to be complete, so perhaps it’s my turn finally?”

Anticipating a battle to the death as he had not known in some time, Vattler began cheerfully walking forward.

Yaze made a sarcastic laugh behind his back.

“Don’t be so sure. Let me say this as the Fourth Primogenitor’s best friend… I don’t think you should expect him to behave according to plan.”

As if to back up his words, the area around Vattler and Yaze was bathed with a painful, high-frequency ringing.

What followed was a ferocious tremor that made the entire sub-float creak and tremble.

“…Oh my,” Vattler murmured with what seemed like admiration. An incredible mass of magical power had emerged from beneath the sub-float, releasing an ominous, indiscriminate surge in all directions.

It was a wild, violent mass of energy surpassing even Vattler’s fused Beast Vassal. Such a thing did not exist on Itogami Island, with the sole exception of the Beast Vassals of Kojou Akatsuki, the Fourth Primogenitor…

“There you are, Kojou.” Yaze murmured in apparent satisfaction, closing his eyes, his strength seemingly exhausted.

An explosive sound gushed out from underground, becoming a shock wave that blasted through the surface of the sub-float, sending a huge amount of debris swirling into the air. Even so, the roar that shook the ground did not vanish.

The tremor warped the condensation in the atmosphere, creating a shimmer; finally, the shimmer changed into the form of a beast: a giant beast, bearing two horns, with an incandescent, glittering mane…

Gardos’s conduct was swift and decisive.

“One of the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals! Grigore! I’ll head out in the queen. Hold him off until then.”

“…Copy that, Lieutenant Colonel.”

With that final phrase over the radio, the first Nalakuvera went on the move with a roar. It headed toward the twin-horned Beast Vassal as it scattered its crimson beam all about.

“Wait, Kristof Gardos!”

Yukina turned her silver spear over and chased after them. With a scornful, annoyed look at her, one of Gardos’s men threw something. It was a metallic cylinder about the size of a tin juice container.

Yukina was terrified the moment she realized it was a grenade.

Their hostages, Asagi and Nagisa, had been left behind on the upper deck. If they took that at point-blank range, the defenseless girls would be blown away without a trace.

Yukina gave up on pursuing Gardos and rushed to cover the girls lying on the deck. Her intent was to use her body as a shield to protect them both from the grenade explosion.

“…!”

But Yukina was not struck by the impact she had resigned herself to.

Far into the distance, a small bit of water spray flew up and scattered over the sea.

“Eh?”

Confused, Yukina rose to her feet. There had been no time to pick up the grenade and throw it. There
certainly
hadn’t been enough time to spare to hurl it that great a distance.

But the grenade had been moved regardless, as if someone had teleported it along with the space around it…

“…It would seem you’re all safe, relatively speaking.”

Right before Yukina’s eyes, empty space formed what seemed like a ripple, with a small woman gently walking out of it—a woman with an elegant dress and a black-frilled parasol.

“Thanks to your swinging that spear around, the barrier around this ship was torn, so I was finally able to teleport in. I must thank you for shielding my students, Yukina Himeragi.”

“Ms. Minamiya?!”

Yukina was struck with surprise as she looked up at the void from which Natsuki had emerged without a sound.

Spatial teleportation was a type of magic of the utmost difficulty. Even within the Lion King Agency, only a few people could use it on an individual level. She’d never even heard of a user who could employ it with the same ease as entering a neighboring room.

Her appearance might have been cherubic, but she was apparently more of a monster than Yukina had imagined.

Perhaps it was to be expected of the Fourth Primogenitor’s homeroom teacher. Her constant haughty attitude toward him wasn’t for nothing.

“I’ll take them to a safe place. What will you do, transfer student? Coming with us?” Natsuki inquired as she embraced the sleeping Asagi and Nagisa.

Yukina shook her head as she rose up.

“I will rendezvous with Akatsuki-senpai. I’m his watcher, after all.”

“Hmph. Quite the workaholic. Do as you like,” said Natsuki as space bent nearby. She roughly tossed the still-asleep Asagi and Nagisa into it. Then, with a slight hint of mischief, she smiled with a small chuckle. “But your help may not even be needed.”

“Huh?”

Leaving that significant-sounding comment behind, Natsuki vanished into thin air. Still confused, she searched for Kojou, who was surely in combat with the Nalakuvera.

Above the sub-float, Kojou’s Beast Vassal was dominating the damaged ancient weapon: a bicorn with an incandescent mane; a Beast Vassal unknown to Yukina.

There was only one thing that could mean. Somewhere Yukina couldn’t see, Kojou had sucked on someone’s blood.

For some reason, thinking of that fact made Yukina distinctly uncomfortable; she was a little perplexed at how irritated she felt.

But from a rational perspective, of course Yukina was angry at his sucking on another person’s blood off on his own, without even a word to his watcher.
Yes, that’s all it is,
Yukina told herself.

It was then that Yukina heard the ringtone for an incoming call beside her. The ringtone was from Asagi’s smartphone.

Looking at the name displayed on the screen, Yukina answered the call.

“Hey, young lady. The job’s finished.”

The voice she heard through the digital link was the artificial voice of Asagi’s partner.

With Itogami Island’s citywide functions in its grasp, making a call to a cell phone was no great feat.

“Err…Mogwai, was it?”

Yukina very timidly called out its name. Mogwai seemed to immediately identify the speaker through analysis of her voice.

“Oh my. You’re the transfer student, the young lady’s rival, yes?”

“Eh? Rival?”

“And Asagi is?”

“Right now she’s being evacuated to a safe place. She should be asleep.”

Mogwai made a “hmm” at Yukina’s words, looking like he was contemplating something. For an artificial intelligence, it was quite a refined trick. No doubt his over-the-top appearance mixed with actual subtlety was a reflection of his master’s personality.

“I see. What will I do? She told me to send it to her cell phone without the terrorists noticing but…”

“What are you talking about?”

Yukina raised her voice louder. Asagi had been covertly working on something right under Gardos’s nose. She thought it had to be
very
important.

“Well, y’see.”

Mogwai reluctantly opened his mouth, as if cowed by Yukina’s threatening manner.

“It’s a command code for the ancient weapon thingy…
the fifty-fifth
.”

Kojou and Sayaka were standing together on top of a road on a gently sloped hill.

It was the first time in a while they could see the bright sun above their heads. The summer sea breeze felt good over their cold, wet bodies.

Behind Kojou and Sayaka, there was a crater one could mistake for a dried-up lake about three hundred meters in diameter.

In a concentric circle, the steel plates that covered the sub-float’s surface had caved in; and in the center of that sunken crater, an incandescent bicorn raised an ear-splitting roar.

“…You’re really something else.”

Looking back at the crater, Sayaka made a sigh of lament, looking utterly beside herself.

But her words were tinged with a tone that seemed somehow amused.

“Certainly that got us back to the surface, but you didn’t have to make that ridiculously huge crater, too. If I hadn’t protected us from the debris with Lustrous Scale’s barrier, we’d both have been buried alive.”

“If you’ve got a problem with it, tell it to
him
. I was gonna be happy if it just did somethin’ about the debris blocking the corridor.” Kojou retorted in a voice that oozed mental fatigue.

Yes, the power of the newly obtained Beast Vassal had blown away the debris in the corridor.

That’s all Kojou wanted. However, what actually happened was that the Beast Vassal, figuring,
If the ceiling’s too high to escape, just lower it
, engaged in wholesale destruction. Thanks to the vibration and shock waves, the sub-float’s internal pillars and walls were pulverized, making the ceiling cave in on them.

Regulus Aurum was a huge heap of trouble, but this wild, twin-horned horse was every bit as much so, perhaps even worse…or perhaps that exceedingly horrid sense was just a figment of his imagination. But right now, he was relying on that ferocity.

“Yukina really is in danger from being close to someone like you.”

Sayaka looked up at Kojou as she spoke. There was none of the old sharpness in her voice. She nestled against him as they stood, a smile coming over her face.

“That’s why, this one time, I’ll take very good care of you. Let’s settle this quickly.”

Sayaka’s gaze was turned toward the sight of the ancient weapon landing once more. This was the wounded Nalakuvera that Kojou and Sayaka had initially fought against.

Its form hadn’t changed since the last time they’d seen it. However, its movements were clearly different. They were intelligent movements reflecting the will of a pilot. It used the caved-in terrain as a shield as it launched a crimson beam from its sub-arm.

On his own, Kojou probably could have never dodged such an unorthodox attack.

But Sayaka’s sword stopped the speed-of-light attack cold. Taking good care of him as she’d promised, she was acting as Kojou’s shield.

“Get over here, Beast Vassal Number Nine: ‘Al-Nasl Minium’…!”

The flesh of the seemingly shimmering Beast Vassal was like an incredible oscillation given form.

The two horns that thrust out of its head resonated like a tuning fork, spreading about a fiendish, high-frequency vibration. This vibration could reduce boulders to dust, rip through metal. In terms of annoyance to the neighbors, it was without question the most awful of Beast Vassals.

And the roar of the bicorn became a barrage of shock waves that assailed the Nalakuvera.

The titanic magical energy possessed by the primogenitor’s Beast Vassal transformed the “oscillation” into a mass of physical energy and pounded it home. It wrecked the weapon of the gods to its core. The armor was shattered, the endoskeleton broken, and the radical change in the air pressure heated the surrounding air thousands of degrees Celsius, scorching the machine.

Blown several hundred meters away, the Nalakuvera came to a halt.

“Oh, crap…is the pilot inside…dead?”

It was Kojou who was beside himself at the bicorn’s merciless attack.

There had to be a Black Death Emperor Front terrorist inside the Nalakuvera. He didn’t think anyone could survive being blown away that spectacularly, but…

“A beast man’s life force is too strong to die from just this. I don’t think he’ll be moving for a while, though.” Sayaka shouted right into the unnerved Kojou’s ears. “More importantly, the five units over there! Smash them before pilots can get in!”

“R-right!”

Sayaka was pointing at the Nalakuvera that’d been brought out of the
Oceanus Grave
. Lacking pilots, the units were inert, even now. Like that, it should have been possible to smash them without any difficulty.

However, when the incandescent bicorn moved to attack the swarm of ancient weapons, its giant body was struck in the side by an equally giant explosion.

“…The heck?!”

What halted the advance of the bicorn was a flying disk spewing out flames. It greatly resembled the chakrams used by a certain god of battle from western China. And the chakram that violently crashed into the bicorn exploded, becoming enveloped by a giant whirlwind of fire.