From the Warlord's Empire (8 page)

“Is that all you have to say
before I erase your memory
, senpai?”

With a wobble, Yukina soundlessly rose up, clenching her fists as she posed her question to Kojou.
Wait, calm down, deep breath,
he thought. Kojou desperately tried to talk her down.

“It’s all right, Himeragi. The dress has dress padding and everyth—”

Before Kojou finished that last word, Yukina’s unleashed heel plunged down onto Kojou’s crown. “Hrgh!!” he uttered in anguish as he clutched his head. Looking down at him, Yukina’s cheeks swelled up in what seemed like a pout.

A little past 9:00 p.m., Kojou finished changing his clothes and came out of his room.

He was wearing a three-piece tuxedo. It had been packed together with Yukina’s dress in the package sent by the Lion King Agency. Their objective was unclear, but apparently the Lion King Agency bunch wanted Kojou and Yukina to meet this aristocrat from the Warlord’s Empire.

Though he found being used for no apparent reason to be distasteful, it’s not as if he had any other clothes he could wear to a party. The clothes had committed no crime, Kojou told himself as he fastened his necktie and closed the buttons of his vest, heading toward the entryway. Then…

“K-Kojou? What’s that? What’s with those clothes?”

Having come face-to-face with Kojou in the living room, Nagisa, fresh out of the bath, widened her eyes as she looked at him.

Her hair was drenched; her cheeks were still a little pink. With water droplets still on her skin, she looked quite defenseless with only a bath towel wrapped around her. Kojou was a bit taken aback at her gawking at his outfit while she walked around like
that
.

“Ah, this. Actually I’m doin’ a part-time job.”

He gave her the excuse he’d thought up beforehand.

Nagisa was instantly taken aback, looking over Kojou’s whole figure in what seemed like shock.

“A part-time job? At night?”

“I’m subbing for a classmate who collapsed from workin’ too hard. It’s just for tonight. On his end, his parents have a hundred and fifty million yen debt left to pay, so if I don’t do this in his place, they won’t be able to pay the medical costs for his sick older sister.”

“I-is that so…?”

Kojou thought it was a sorry excuse by his standards, but Nagisa seemed to believe it with surprising ease. The tuxedo must have added credibility. In point of fact, a normal high school student had very few opportunities to wear something like this unless he was part-timing at a bar.

“I guess it can’t be helped. But don’t do anything indecent,” Nagisa warned him with an uneasy expression.

What in the world is she worried about?
Kojou thought with a pained smile.

“Yeah, it’s okay. Not gonna happen. Sorry about leaving you to hold the fort, but thanks.”

“Yeah, I get it… You take care, Kojou.”

Kojou left while Nagisa saw him off with a cheerful wave.

Though he of course felt guilty about tricking his younger sister, he couldn’t be honest with her and say he was meeting a vampire from the Warlord’s Empire, so it couldn’t be helped.

Kojou went into the corridor, making an annoyed exhale, thoroughly disgusted with himself.

As he did so, Kojou sensed someone right beside him coming even closer, as if to nestle against him.

When Kojou looked, there stood Yukina. She’d no doubt heard Kojou’s conversation with Nagisa.

Glancing sideways at the door to the Akatsuki residence, she spoke as if trying to console Kojou.

“Nagisa’s a good girl.”

“Well, the wilder a story, the easier she’ll believe it, you could…sa…”

As Kojou spoke, turning around to face Yukina, he was suddenly at a loss for words.

His gaze was stolen by the outfit so very different from what she usually wore.

It was a white party dress with deep blue highlights. The cleavage was conservative, but in contrast, the outfit was boldly cut from her shoulders all the way down her back. The thin fabric made the contours of Yukina’s body stand out, with her white, firm thighs poking out from under her elegantly frilled miniskirt.

As might be expected of something made-to-order, it suited Yukina to a frightening degree. The outfit was tidy, pretty, and gave off a slightly risqué feeling. Even Kojou, well acquainted with Yukina’s beauty, could only look in shock with a dumbstruck look on his face.

“Senpai?”

As if delivering a warning, Yukina glared at Kojou with her eyes half-narrowed.

“Y-yeah?”

“This outfit… It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not at all… But! Eh?! Wa… Why’re you pointing that spear at me?!”

Seeing the tip of her spear thrust right before his eyes, Kojou’s expression tensed in a hurry. Still keeping her silver spear at the ready, Yukina coolly gazed at Kojou, finally speaking in a sharp tone.

“I’m sorry. I sensed danger and reacted without thinking.”

“Th-that so.”

Kojou’s face scowled as he sensed the presence of a metallic scent inside his nostrils.

Though he was poorly aware of it himself, Kojou was now a vampire, and the vampire species was known as such because of the existence of a dangerous instinct. Namely, vampiric urges—the craving to sink his fangs into another’s neck and suck on blood that he desperately wanted to resist. And the trigger for vampiric urges was lust. Just now, Kojou,
aroused from looking at Yukina, had apparently been in danger of having his mind taken over by vampiric urges. Yukina had no doubt drawn Snowdrift Wolf because she’d instinctively sensed that.

So this is a Sword Shaman’s Spirit Sight,
he thought in quiet admiration.

“…You’re too easy to understand, senpai. When you’re thinking indecent thoughts, it’s written all over your face.”

Timed as if she was reading Kojou’s mind, Yukina spoke with a sigh mixed in.

“The back really is…too exposed, isn’t it? The fabric’s thin, the skirt so short, it’s just…”

“Means it’s easy to move in, doesn’t it? It’s better than if the skirt’s in your way if it comes down to a fight.”

“…Even if what you say is sensible, your ulterior motive’s smeared all over your face.”

“It is not.”

Kojou sullenly groaned. Yukina made a small shrug, and thinking something, she suddenly tugged down on the edge of her skirt a little.

“Well, it’s fine. The underskirt the cheerleading club gave me has been put to good use.”

“An underskirt?!”

Unconsciously leaning his body forward, Kojou slumped his shoulders as he lamented.

“Senpai, so you really were…”

“Er, no. I wasn’t trying to peek at all, I just mean, an underskirt with that outfit is like, unfair, I feel like my dreams have been shattered, I mean, the reason Schrödinger’s cat has philosophers all worked up is because they don’t know for sure if it’s dead or alive…”

“I have no idea what you are referring to, but I do take from it that you have an extraordinary interest in what is under a girl’s skirt, senpai.”

“So stop pointing that spear at me already!”

Kojou, driven all the way back to the wall, made desperate, pleading gestures.

“Senpai, really, you’re…”

For some reason, Yukina made a sigh of apparent surrender, quietly lowering her spear. She transformed it back to its storage configuration and put it in the case at her feet.

What she had with her was not the usual black guitar case, but a case with an attaché-style handle. It didn’t seem all that out of place with her party-dress look. She looked like a player of a classical instrument heading to an orchestral theater performance. Then…

“This outfit…it’s really not ridiculous?”

Yukina, closing the case and standing up, suddenly looked up at Kojou with upturned eyes, inquiring in a quiet voice.

“No, not at all. It looks good on you.”

“Is that so?”

Kojou nodded curtly in reply and proceeded to walk with Yukina ahead to the elevator. Where her hair was raised, her nape was faintly red. She seemed to be secretly blushing.

Kojou inclined his head as he noticed the hair ornament holding Yukina’s hair up. It was a silver hair clip styled like a Christian cross. It wasn’t in the box of stuff sent by the Lion King Agency, either. It was rare for Yukina, who had few personal possessions, to accessorize herself in this way.

“Himeragi, that hair ornament…”

“Eh…?”

Yukina put her hand to her hair in surprise, wearing an expression like that of a child whose prank had been discovered.

“Is this…odd, by any chance?”

“No, not at all. It suits you.”

Kojou repeated the exact same line from earlier. This time, too, an honestly happy look came over Yukina.

“Sayaka…my roommate when I was at High God Forest…gave this to me.”

“Roommate? Is she a Sword Shaman like you are?”

Kojou asked, his interest somewhat aroused.

High God Forest was the name of the all-girls school Yukina had attended until only the last month.

However, it was really a Counter-Demon Attack Mage educational facility for the Lion King Agency.

Yukina had told him that her own Sword Shaman abilities were drilled into her in that place.

He thought it highly unlikely a girl living together with Yukina would be an ordinary person with no connection to ritual magic.

“She is not a Sword Shaman, but Sayaka is a CDMA for the Lion King Agency as well.”

Yukina gave the answer Kojou expected. For some reason, her voice was tinged with pride.

“She’s one year older than I am, so she’s already left High God Forest on an official assignment.”

“Huh… Good friends, you two?”

Yukina made a shy assenting nod to Kojou’s murmur.

“I suppose so. I think of her as a sister, really. She’s beautiful and cute, and her personality is cute, too; she’s so gentle… I’m proud to have had her for a roommate.”

“Makes me wanna meet her a little,” Kojou thought out loud in a casual mood. That instant, Yukina’s expression suddenly darkened.

She touched her hair ornament once and informed him in a very small voice, “It might be best that you do not, senpai… I think it’s likely she’d seek to kill you.”

The cruise ship of Dimitrie Vattler, Duke of Ardeal, was moored at a huge pier on Island West. The party was due to begin at 10:00 p.m. They could see a large group of invitees climbing the gangway and getting aboard the ship.

“…A floating graveyard…huh? Name’s in pretty bad taste.”

Looking up at the name engraved onto the hull, Kojou was beside himself as he read the ship’s name,
Oceanus Grave
.

But in spite of the ominous name, the lit-up hull had a palatial, elegant dignity proudly on display under the evening sky.

“That’s his personal…? Geez, how rich are these Warlord’s Empire aristocrats, anyway?”

“I believe there is a strategic objective in proudly displaying his authority in this manner,” Yukina explained in a serene tone.

“Though it is mere superstition that vampires cannot cross the ocean, it is nonetheless true that their abilities are limited when over water. For a Dominion such as this, its nobles merely boarding ships openly acts as
a show of force toward other nations. That’s even if it’s mere civilian ships rather than warships.”

“Hmm…or maybe it’s just that they like showin’ off.”

His mood rather weighed down, Kojou looked up at the blue-white hull once again.

The civilian vessel
Oceanus Grave
bore no weaponry. However, the ship’s owner was a vampire noble. The Beast Vassals he could summon had combat ability equal to top-notch aircraft carriers. In other words, Itogami Island currently had the equivalent of a Dominion warship here, right before its eyes—a delicate situation.

Perhaps because of that, many of the people boarding the
Oceanus Grave
had faces he’d seen on the news. They were big-shot politicians and financial heavy hitters, VIPs from the government and Itogami City.

Since the party’s host was a noble from the Warlord’s Empire, this much was not unnatural by any means. But…

“…We’re the only ones who look out of place, huh?”

Kojou muttered to himself, “I wonder if coming here was the right call,” feeling quite uneasy.

Now that he thought about it, that invitation could have been a forgery sent by someone to trick Kojou and Yukina. Given the circumstances of the invitation’s arrival, it wasn’t exactly baseless speculation.

However, as Kojou thought of such things, Yukina looked up at him, looking beside herself.

“No, an envoy from the First Primogenitor arriving on this island should greet the ruler of this land, the Fourth Primogenitor, before all others. You are the main guest of the party, senpai. Please act more appropriately.”

“Easier said than done, geez. I’m just a normal high schooler!” Kojou weakly objected. Though arbitrarily treated by others around him like a primogenitor, Kojou himself had been a normal human being until a few months ago. Even if he stuck out like a sore thumb here, there was no reason for him to know how to act “appropriately.”

When his invitation was checked and he boarded the ship, he felt even more like a fish out of water: The lighting was dazzling, the food was exquisite, all these important-looking people gathered in one place. A
young man like Kojou walking around warranted no more of a glance than a rock on the side of the road.

“So…where’s the guy who called us over here, anyway?” Kojou murmured as he looked around the interior of the reception hall, continuing to feel very out of his element.

The reception hall inside the ship, now a party venue, was unthinkably large. There had to be at least five hundred invitees.

Finding an envoy of the First Primogenitor, whose face he didn’t even know, in the middle of that was no simple task.

But on the other hand, Kojou had had a strange feeling since the moment after he came aboard the ship.

It was like the rise one got just before starting a basketball game. Fear, delight, the sense of urgency and exhilaration all seemingly combined into a single pleasant sense of tension.

Realizing he was close to one of his brethren possessing great power, he felt like every nerve of his body was sharpened. As a vampire, Kojou’s blood…and the Beast Vassals that dwelled within…boiled in anticipation of encountering a powerful enemy.