The Amphisbaena (11 page)

To begin with, the region around Itogami Island was a tropical zone with a large amount of rainfall. A clear stream flowed between gaps in the exposed rock, carrying water that flowed up from springs on the island. At the very least, it seemed they wouldn’t have any problems getting fresh water.

“…Himeragi?”

Yukina, having continued walking without even a glance back, suddenly came to a stop just as she cleared the forest. It felt like she was conflicted as she gazed at the slope of a nearby cliff. Kojou followed her gaze, squinted his eyes, and…

“Hey, is that…a building?”

“Ah no… That’s…”

Roused by Kojou’s voice, Yukina looked at him, seeming a bit unsure about how to put things.

Halfway up the slope was a blackened concrete wall. The surface was cracked, with moss growing on it, but there was no doubt it was man-made.

“So what, there really is a Magus Craft research facility? Didn’t expect that.”

“No, there should not be… But…”

“Can’t tell anything staring from here, so let’s go. Who knows, maybe someone’s been living on this island and Kirishima and her just don’t know it.”

“Senpai?! Wait, please, that’s…”

As Kojou ran forward, ignoring Yukina’s efforts to stop him, he drew near the building with a straight frontal approach. The back of his mind
did entertain the possibility of traps set by Kirishima and them, but that was as far as the thought led.

But as he arrived close to the actual wall, he realized the reason Yukina had tried to stop him.

It was a very odd building. It was about as tall as a two-story apartment building. Though encased in thick concrete, the holes in the wall didn’t even have glass windows. Peering inside, the structure didn’t have furniture, or even lightbulbs. It didn’t look anything like what someone would actually live in.

“It’s…a pillbox.” Yukina, having caught up with Kojou, murmured as she looked up at the building.

“Pillbox?”

“A defensive structure built to obstruct the approach of enemy forces in wartime. It’s like a fort.”

“People fought a war even on an island like this?”

“I do not know. It doesn’t seem to be an especially old structure, though.”

Having said those words, Yukina stepped into the gloomy pillbox without hesitation. As Kojou followed after her, his face scowled at the feeling transferred to him through the soles of his shoes. Dimly glittering metal cylinders were scattered beneath their feet like branches fallen from a tree. They were machine-gun bullet casings.

“Signs of a firefight…it would seem.”

Yukina spoke with an apparent sigh in her voice.

Looking all around, there were countless cavities and cracks apparently left by gunfire all over the pillbox’s walls. So far as they could judge from the surface grime, the bullet marks weren’t old. At most, they’d been made here within the last few years. However, they had no idea who had attacked this island or for what purpose. After all, they hadn’t heard of any pirates operating in the seas around Itogami Island; even if there were pirates, they had no reason to bother to land on a deserted island like this and play at war.

“I do not see any corpses, either.”

Looking around the interior of the desolate pillbox, Yukina murmured quietly.

Certainly, in contrast to the large number of bullet casings, there was
no sign of any casualties at all. Even Kojou’s enhanced vampire senses could not locate any trace of shed blood.

“Yeah, now that you mention it. Well, honestly, better for us.”

“We’re lucky the roof is intact. It reduces the labor required to set up camp.”

“Wait, you don’t intend to sleep here?”

As Kojou made an appalled expression, Yukina gave him a look that seemed to ask,
Is there a problem?

“I’m…a little scared a ghost might come out or…something…”

“…Senpai, why are you afraid of something like a ghost? You are a vampire, aren’t you?” Yukina sounded like she was about to crack up.

Kojou twisted his lips in a sulky look. “Well, even you’re scared of airplanes, Himeragi.”

“I am not! I’m not scared of them at all!”

Yukina’s face was beet red as she made her retort. Kojou sighed a bit and looked up at the roof of the pillbox.

“They sure didn’t leave us anything to work with, though. Wish they’d have at least left a radio behind.”

“…It may not be very…funny… But now that we cannot leave by our own power, we have no choice but to wait for rescue together… Even if it is…worst case.”

For some reason, Yukina returned to her sulky tone of voice as she spoke, leaning forward where she stood.

“Rescue… Rescue, huh…?”

Kojou made a soft sigh as he gazed through the machine-gun port at the horizon.

Kojou’s sigh could not reach Itogami Island, which was now far, far away.

“He’s L-A-T-E!”

Watching with annoyance as her smartphone failed to connect, Asagi Aiba groaned in displeasure.

She was in the living room of a certain seventh-floor apartment in Island South.

Asagi’s outfit for that day was far plainer than her normal ones. However, she’d actually stretched to ensure she was dressed in brand-new street clothes from head to toe. Thanks to her hair being worn down, Asagi personally prided herself on how she looked like a young lady.

“How long is that idiot gonna keep me waiting for…!”

Next to the indignant Asagi was a blank sketchbook and a full set of painting materials. She’d taken Kojou’s promise to help her with her art homework at face value, taking time out of the middle of her day off, coming all the way to greet him at the Akatsuki residence. Yet, after all that, Kojou wasn’t there. Apparently he’d arrived late the night before and set off again in the early morning, all without a single word to Asagi, of course.

“…Sorry Kojou’s causing trouble for you, Asagi.”

Nagisa Akatsuki hung her head apologetically as she sat next to Asagi. Apparently Kojou’s diligent little sister felt responsible for her absent older brother’s conduct.

Asagi made her usual sarcastic expression, making a good-humored smile at Nagisa. They had, after all, gotten to know each other very well over the last four years.

“You don’t need to apologize, Nagisa. It’s all the fault of the idiot who promised to be here and then left. I was pretty dumb to believe him, too, though. I swear, he’s just…”

“Yeah…but I really wonder where Kojou went? We can’t get him on his cell phone at all, and it looks like Yukina’s been gone since morning, too.”

“That transfer student again…?”

Tch.
Asagi clicked her tongue at Nagisa’s casual murmurs. After so many similar “coincidences,” even Asagi had noticed it was rather odd.

Kojou’s absences had skyrocketed over the last half year or so, but it’d become especially bad after that transfer student had arrived. And without fail, whenever he disappeared without any warning,
she
was involved. There was definitely some kind of secret between them.

Of course, had Asagi been minded to, she could have looked up Yukina Himeragi’s true colors with ease. She was confident that she could dive into various public databases and instantly get ahold of everything from her date of birth to her bank statements. But Asagi was not minded to do any such thing.

It wasn’t Asagi’s style to pick a fight she knew in advance she was going to win. Secrets were something that should be exposed in broad daylight only after smashing through a suitable obstacle. That was why Asagi was so revered as the “Cyber Empress,” the living embodiment of hacker pride.

As Nagisa poured new coffee into their cups, she spoke as if suddenly remembering something. “Ah, but if they’re together, maybe they’re helping out Kanon…”

“Kanon…? You mean Kanon Kanase? The platinum blonde?” Asagi was mystified as she asked back. The Saint of Middle School was quite famous. Even Asagi knew her name and what she looked like.

“A few things happened, and I told Kojou to help Kanon find a new home for a stray cat.

“The circumstances make for a bit of a long story, though…tee-hee…”

Nagisa made her usual happy smile. As the story went, Kojou had mistakenly believed a boy had confessed to his little sister, to the point of barging onto the rooftop of the middle school building.

Usually, Asagi would laugh at an older brother unable to bear to be apart from his little sister, but all she did was make a light chuckle and give Nagisa a gentle look. Even now, Asagi had never forgotten the sight of the young boy visiting his gravely injured little sister four years before.

“Taking care of a stray… Come to think of it, Kojou was asking everyone in the class if they could raise a kitten,” Asagi murmured as she recalled his odd behavior from the previous day. Nagisa nodded with approval.

“Right, right. So, let’s see… Ah, that means they could be at the abbey.”

“Abbey?”

“Yeah. There’s ruins of an abbey behind school where Kanon used to live way back. She’d been taking care of the cat there in secret. I could take you there. How about right now? I have to go to school for club, anyway.”

Nagisa spoke while looking up at the clock on the wall. It was an hour past noon. The weather, even viewed from the inside of an apartment, was bright and sunny to a truly ridiculous degree.

“Hmm… Waiting here doesn’t suit me very much, anyway. Okay, let’s do it.”

Asagi rose to her feet, still clutching her beloved smartphone.

A building remained within the park that rested atop the gently sloping hill. The building was an abbey in ruins.

“Caduceus… Just like the intel file said.”

The girl let out an unimpressed murmur after confirming that the relief carved into the roof was as expected.

She was a tall, slender girl. Her skin complexion was light; her hair had a faint chestnut color to it. The elegant, refined beauty of her face was reminiscent of a flower proudly in bloom. She was Sayaka Kirasaka—Shamanic War Dancer of the Lion King Agency.

“This is the abbey Kanon Kanase lived in? Pretty place considering it’s been abandoned for years.”

Sayaka’s shapely eyebrows rose as she looked around the interior of the ruined building.

There was no sign of human presence within. The cracked walls and broken furniture were likely vestiges of the incident from five years earlier.

That incident was what triggered the shutdown of the abbey, scattering all who dwelled within to the four winds. Surely no one had lived here since that time.

But mysteriously, there was not even a whiff of dust. Apparently someone had been regularly coming through and cleaning the place. Surely this was a crucial lead relevant to Sayaka’s current mission. But…

“—Achoo!”

A sudden itchy sensation made Sayaka let out a small sneeze. The cause laid in minute particles floating in the air inside the abbey in spite of the regular cleaning.

“Cat hair?”

The sound of her own sneeze echoed throughout the abbey. Feeling a faint disturbance of the air along with the reverberation, Sayaka reflexively looked behind her back.

“…Who’s there?!”

Retaining her guarded posture, she stretched her hand to the instrument case on her back. Poking out of the gap in the case was the glittering silver hilt of a long sword.

“It’s useless to hide from me…so would you just come out already?”

As Sayaka made her frosty warning, a faint laughing voice came out from behind a pillar. “You got me,” said the voice with an echo that evoked a strained smile.

“…Hiya.”

The word, spoken without a single shred of tension, came as the student wearing a school uniform poked his face out. He was a high school student with short-cut hair, spiky and combed backward, with a pair of headphones hanging from his neck.

“The same uniform as Kojou Akatsuki? You’re…you were with Dimitrie Vattler during that incident…”

“Ahh, was I now? Thanks back there.”

Motoki Yaze smiled tensely with a look of embarrassment.

This was not Sayaka’s first encounter with him. For some reason, this student had been at the scene of the recent terrorist incident that had rocked Itogami City; he’d watched the incident to its conclusion.

“If you ask…who I am, ‘Kojou Akatsuki’s classmate’ is the only answer I can give you.”

Yaze scratched his face with a somewhat conflicted look. Sayaka continued to glare at him.

“Meaning you have no intention of revealing who you really are?”

“Er, well, ah, please don’t pry about that. We’re both in a bind if we start asking questions. Like, who is a War Dancer for the Lion King Agency looking for in a place like this?”

A perplexed expression came over Sayaka as her own identity was so easily spoken of out loud. She could not hide her irritation with Yaze’s know-it-all tone of voice.

“What is…your purpose here?”

“I want to make a deal with you. I’m in a bit of a bind myself, y’see.” Yaze spoke with a rather meek voice.

Sayaka didn’t think his behavior was an act. “A deal?”

“Yeah. And my condition for the deal is that you don’t talk about me to anyone else; not to Kojou, not to Yukina Himeragi.”

As Yaze made his oddly roundabout explanation, Sayaka understood.

The boy before her eyes knew that Yukina Himeragi was Kojou Akatsuki’s watcher. But his position would be made quite difficult if either Yukina or Kojou became aware of that fact. In other words,
his
mission was to monitor what direction things were going in with Kojou
and
Yukina… Suddenly, it all made sense.

“If you can accept that condition, I’ll provide you with information. I think it’s highly valuable information from your perspective.”

“…‘Information’?” Sayaka coldly repeated the word back. She had no reason to make any concessions.

At her jab, Yaze slumped his shoulders and replied curtly. “The whereabouts of Kojou Akatsuki.”

“…Hah?! I-it’s not as if I have any interest whatsoever in knowing that you know…!”

Sayaka’s voice sounded shrill as she made her objection. She had no idea why he would come to her with that sort of offer. After all, what value did such information have to Sayaka…?