The Tyrant and the Fool Read online

  Copyright

  STRIKE THE BLOOD, Volume 8

  GAKUTO MIKUMO

  Translation by Jeremiah Bourque

  Cover art by Manyako

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  SUTORAIKU ZA BURADDO

  © GAKUTO MIKUMO 2013

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS

  First published in Japan in 2013 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2018 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Yen On

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at yenpress.com

  facebook.com/yenpress

  twitter.com/yenpress

  yenpress.tumblr.com

  instagram.com/yenpress

  First Yen On Edition: January 2018

  Yen On is an imprint of Yen Press, LLC.

  The Yen On name and logo are trademarks of Yen Press, LLC.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mikumo, Gakuto, author. | Manyako, illustrator. | Bourque, Jeremiah, translator.

  Title: Strike the blood / Gakuto Mikumo, Manyako ; translation by Jeremiah Bourque.

  Other titles: Sutoraiku za buraddo. English

  Description: New York, NY : Yen On, 2016–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015041522 | ISBN 9780316345477 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316345491 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316345514 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316345538 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316345569 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316345583 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316562652 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442084 (v. 8 : pbk.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Vampires—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M555 Su 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041522

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-44208-4 (paperback)

  978-0-316-44209-1 (ebook)

  E3-20180110-JV-PC

  INTRO

  The room was cold and dark.

  It was bleak and underground with exposed metal framework. Countless tubes and insulated cables crawled across the walls and floor like snakes, creating a chaotic picture that resembled a living being’s circulatory system.

  The facility was probably a cutting-edge lab—but isolated, a secret block that no sane researcher would ever set foot in. Viewed up close, the tranquil sight was either a mausoleum to preserve a highly valuable corpse or perhaps a cage to seal an abominable demon.

  The density of the mist suddenly increased.

  The thick fog swirled and grew even heavier, finally solidifying into the form of a lone girl: a vampiress wearing a black leather coat. Based on her appearance, she was seventeen or eighteen with glossy brown hair. Her face bore a child’s innocence, giving the impression that she didn’t have a violent bone in her body. Her singular casual motions exuded a faint sense of refinement.

  Yet the expression on her face was stiff from tension.

  Her crimson eyes focused on the center of the underground lab. There, atop a metal pedestal, sat a block of transparent ice, probably over six meters in diameter. It looked like a beautifully cut gemstone, with complex facets seemingly crafted by a practiced hand.

  Inside the ice was the silhouette of a small human girl, hugging her knees as she continued to sleep.

  She had a beautiful face, like a fairy’s. Her long, faintly blond hair resembled a rainbow, with changing colors at different angles.

  She was a stunning sprite that somehow gave off an air of malevolence. She slumbered on quietly inside the cold, icy coffin—a sleeping princess who’d been cursed by a witch…

  “…”

  The brown-haired vampiress glared at the frozen tomb, slowly raising her right hand.

  That hand gripped a black, foldable crossbow.

  Its barrel was already loaded with a bolt—a metal one that glowed silver. With a diameter of some four centimeters, it was less of a bolt than a stake. Its surface was packed with finely engraved magic symbols, and each one emitted a pale glow.

  “…Forgive us…”

  The vampiress shut her eyes and weakly murmured, as if seeking forgiveness.

  “Avrora Florestina, the twelfth Kaleid Blood…please… We are sorry for awakening you…”

  She bit her lip as she set her finger on the crossbow’s trigger.

  Her arm jerked slightly, and the string gave a savage cry.

  The silver bolt she had fired ripped through the chilly air and impaled the icy coffin. That instant, a brilliant flash blotted out her field of vision.

  The explosive demonic energy she had just unleashed went wild, scattering and bursting the tubes and cables. The concrete ceiling began to crumble.

  With a great roar, the ice block shattered. The girl’s hair gently danced in a pure, white whirlwind of freezing air. And her rainbow hair glowed like billowing flames—

  He awoke to the sensation of chains around him.

  When he closely examined his surroundings, which looked like the scene of an industrial accident, Kojou Akatsuki found himself confined to a cheap, metal pipe chair, with slightly rusted steel shackles binding his arms behind him.

  “The hell…is this…?”

  Kojou blinked his uncooperative eyelids, raising his head with a confused look.

  The room was antique, like something straight out of the dungeon of a castle from the Middle Ages. The walls were built from uneven, natural stones, but they were so thick he had trouble breathing. A small window had been carved out of the stone wall, letting the rays of the evening sun pour in, red like the color of blood. There was an orange carpet spread over the floor. He’d never seen this room before.

  “Manacles?”

  Kojou let out a low groan as he felt the cold metal bite into his skin. Apparently, not only were both arms chained behind his back, but his wrists were secured to the chair as well. He’d seen this in plenty of Hollywood movies—a captured hoodlum being interrogated to turn on his organization.

  The hell’s going on? Kojou thought, his brain in a jumble as he desperately twisted his body. However, the metal did not show the slightest sign of releasing him. Even Kojou’s upper body strength couldn’t break them off, and he was the World’s Mightiest Vampire.

  Even so, Kojou did not give up, stubbornly continuing to thrash around—and then he sensed someone behind him, waking up in a foul mood, probably annoyed by the sounds of straining chains.

  “Mm…? What? What’s that sound?”

  “Asagi? Asagi, is that you?!”

  Kojou forced his neck to turn as he shifted toward the voice. He saw a girl sitting in a chair, positioned back-to-back with him. Her hair was dyed a cheerfully bright color and styled in a showy manner; her school uniform was tastefully decked out. The familiar back belonged to Asagi Aiba.

  She was also secured to her chair, not by chains but with some kind of slender rope. Of course, Asagi, a powerless high school girl, lacked the strength necessary to rip it apart.

  She looked down at her own bound body for a few moments.

  “Kojou? What is this? What’s going on? Don’t tell me you get off on tying up girls…?”

  Asagi made an exasperated face as she glared half-lidded back at Kojou. Apparently, she’d decided their current situation was the result of Kojou playing a prank on her.

  Faced with false accusations, Kojou furiously shook his head.

  “I don’t have any twisted fetishes like that! I was tied up when I awoke, same as you!”

  “Tied up…?”

  Asagi looked frightened as she confirmed that the ropes really weren’t coming off. It was only natural for her to be concerned, waking up in a strange place with her entire body restrained.

  “Come to think of it, where is this? And why was I asleep, anyway?”

  “Lemme see, I heard that Nagisa collapsed back at school and…”

  Kojou’s head was littered with the cobwebs of sleep as he rummaged through vague memories.

  During lunch, Kojou had been told that his little sister, Nagisa Akatsuki, had fainted. He’d hurried to the hospital, which, in turn, was attacked by the Chaos Bride—the Third Primogenitor, ruler of Central America.

  The black lightning cloud. The burning torrent. And then, the skeletal giant filled with a dark void—she freely employed such Beast Vassals, rivaling natural disasters, and had tried to destroy the hospital. Kojou barely stopped her.

  Or more accurately, she’d accomplished her objective and retreated of her own volition.

  Either way, the menace of the Third Primogenitor had passed, and they were left behind a
t the half-destroyed hospital. Afterward—

  Asagi violently shook her metal pipe chair, turning around with great force.

  “I remember now…! Hey, Kojou! What’s the big idea, turning into a vampire?!”

  “Uh…”

  She starts with that, Kojou thought as he sighed listlessly. Now that she mentioned it, the turmoil of the Third Primogenitor’s attack had exposed the truth—that he was a vampire—to Asagi.

  “What the hell, you’re the Fourth Primogenitor?! How dare you keep that from me all this time… and on top of that, Himeragi’s your watcher, and you’ve been drinking her blood left and right!”

  “W-well… I don’t really think that last part is true…” Cowed by Asagi’s verbal onslaught, Kojou could only manage a mumbled retort.

  Apparently, as far as Asagi was concerned, Kojou’s non-human status was greatly overshadowed by it being a secret known only to Yukina.

  And so, Asagi greeted Kojou’s excuse with an inhospitable, “Oh, really…?” Then she continued, “So at the very least, you acknowledge being a vampire. After all, you’ve put your hands on other girls, too, like that Kirasaka girl, or that Aldegian princess!”

  “H-how do you know that…?!”

  It was only after his unwitting exclamation that Kojou realized his mistake. Asagi’s unemotional eyes glared coldly at Kojou. His palms were thoroughly drenched with sweat.

  “W-wait, you’re wrong. There were…various circumstances, and it couldn’t be avoided…”

  “If I recall correctly, isn’t lust what drives a vampire to drink blood?” Asagi asked casually, seeming to suppress her rage.

  Ugh, Kojou groaned, his throat tightening. Besides demonic power replenishment under emergency circumstances, lust was the trigger for vampiric impulses. Of course, this was regularly unknown to someone raised in a Demon Sanctuary like Asagi.

  Actually, Kojou had engaged in far more physical contact with Yukina and the others than had been necessary for mere drinking of blood, so he couldn’t justify himself if pressed, but…

  “…Man, this is really throwin’ me off.”

  A stale look came over Kojou as his still-bound shoulders slumped.

  “What is?”

  “Er, normally, wouldn’t someone be more scared of a vampire primogenitor…?”

  “Huh? Why do I have to be scared of you after all this time?”

  The truly mystified rejoinder put Kojou at a loss for words.

  Asagi had known him for ages, beginning shortly after he’d arrived on Itogami Island. Being so used to demons, she wasn’t scared to find out that her old friend was a vampire.

  “Well, I suppose it’s kinda hard by now…”

  “Of course. But I do want you to explain why all this happened.”

  Asagi stared at Kojou, her face suddenly serious.

  Certainly, Kojou had been an ordinary human when he and Asagi had first met. And it was considered impossible for someone born human to turn into a vampire along the way.

  In the first place, vampire primogenitors were the oldest vampires of each bloodline. Naturally, Asagi doubted how a mere human could straddle the line between man and demon and inherit such power.

  “Yeah, you see, that Avrora girl, she…”

  He trailed off, assailed by dizziness. He felt a sharp pain, like his brain was cracking. Something felt eerie, like his limbs were going to fall off.

  It was just like when he’d tried to explain things to Yukina. He couldn’t form the words. A memory of the past, on the brink of surfacing, sank back into the darkness.

  Asagi, finding Kojou’s silence suspicious, prodded him again.

  “Avrora—you mean the girl under the hospital? The one sleeping in a block of i…”

  But her words, too, trailed off midway. Her bound body bent over as she exhaled in apparent anguish.

  “That hurt… What’s with this headache?”

  “…Asagi?”

  Kojou looked back in surprise. He did a double take when he realized what had just happened to her.

  Even if he didn’t know the reason, Kojou could accept that he’d lost his memory. After all, he was a mere human who’d laid his hands on a primogenitor’s power. Surely that must have strained his body. If losing part of his memory was the price to pay, he thought he’d gotten off easy.

  Yet, Asagi’s missing memories were a different story. If that happened to her, a girl with no known connection, it would no longer be Kojou’s personal problem. Surely they hadn’t both lost their memories by coincidence from the same incident. It meant someone intentionally took them away.

  That might mean that Asagi herself was somehow involved in the incident surrounding the Fourth Primogenitor. Probably, because she’d been right at Kojou’s side—

  “—So you really can’t remember.”

  As Kojou was wracked with unease, a gentle voice echoed from behind.

  Her presence undetected, a small, black-haired girl wearing a middle school uniform was standing in a shadow along a stone wall.

  “Himeragi?!”

  “I have always harbored this question. Why did no one around senpai notice that he had become the Fourth Primogenitor? Well, setting aside senpai himself forgetting, it is most unnatural for those closest to him, such as Aiba, to not notice the change.”

  Yukina Himeragi stepped forward without a sound, gripping a silver spear.

  Kojou was a bit thrown off at her presence, somewhat different from the norm.

  She was supple and tenacious, with a beautiful, graceful visage that retained traces of childhood. Her tightly pursed lips made him recall how she looked just after he’d met her. She seemed tough and unapproachable, which was appropriate to her title of Sword Shaman.

  As Kojou and Asagi sat bound, Yukina looked down at them, continuing to speak in a cold, businesslike manner.

  “However, that mystery has been resolved. It is not only senpai, but true for others as well.”

  “Y’mean, having our memories manipulated…?”

  “Yes. Though, they have not been merely sealed away, but rather, stolen…”

  For some reason, seeing Yukina casually reply to that question made Kojou distinctly apprehensive.

  If Kojou and Asagi were tied up, why was Yukina the only one free? In the first place, why wasn’t she surprised to see them both bound…?

  “Well, whatever. At any rate, could you tell us where we are, Himeragi? What are we doing tied up in a place like this, anyway?”

  Kojou asked the question as gently as he could, trying not to provoke Yukina any more than necessary. Yukina gazed at Kojou unemotionally; after a brief, uncomfortable pause, she finally gave a halting reply.

  “You…both fainted, right after seeing the vampire frozen in ice at the MAR hospital.”

  “Fainted?”

  “Yes. Perhaps because you were on the verge of remembering her.”

  “Avrora, you mean…”

  So that was her, thought Kojou, biting his lip. The installation under the MAR hospital housed a giant coffin of ice, and the previous Fourth Primogenitor—Avrora Florestina—slept within.

  When Kojou saw her, he regained his memory for but a brief moment. And apparently, the next moment, he’d lost consciousness and collapsed. So he hadn’t been wrong to think that she was deeply connected to his and Asagi’s memory loss.

  “So you’re the one who brought us here, Himeragi?”

  “Well, yes. I’m sorry. There were no beds, so I had to use the chairs.” Yukina’s apology lacked any emotion.

  Kojou grimaced as he looked up at her. “I get the basics, but what’s with the chains and manacles?”

  Get ’em off already! was Kojou’s unvoiced plea, but Yukina bluntly shook her head.

  “I am sorry, but you both must remain like this for a while longer.”

  “What for?!”

  “It seems a little more time is required to prepare.”

  After saying that, Yukina began to walk in a circle around Kojou and Asagi. That was when Kojou noticed: There were odd symbols embossed on the dark orange carpet, directly underneath him and Asagi. The magic circle gave off an acutely malevolent air.

  Yukina remained silent as she gently walked behind Kojou, checking on the pattern. Her bizarre behavior gave him an even creepier feeling about the symbols beneath him.

  “…Preparations…? What the hell for…?” Kojou asked with a broken voice, but Yukina, standing in his blind spot, did not reply.