Strike the Blood, Vol. 7: Kaleid Blood Page 16

  A moment later, sound returned to the world.

  “Gwah!” She coughed up clotted blood. The huge lightning lion, perhaps cut off from its supply of demonic energy, wavered like a mirage and faded away.

  Neither Yaze nor Veldiana knew what was going on. The uniformed girl known as Paper Noise slowly turned around and looked down upon Pemptos.

  “Your conduct violates the rules of the Banquet. Should you continue to engage in combat activities, I would be forced to immediately disqualify you by my authority as Bookmaker—”

  Paper Noise was holding the severed right forearm. She tossed it back to the other girl with ease.

  Pemptos rose up, armor creaking all over her body. Glaring at Paper Noise with hatred, lightning enveloped her entire body once more. Then, at the speed of light, she flew off to somewhere unknown.

  Paper Noise watched her go with a sigh. Next, she looked at Yaze and Veldiana. Or, more accurately, her frigid gaze focused on Veldiana, propped up in Yaze’s arms. She asked in a gentle tone, “Now then, Veldiana Caruana—would you explain to me why you are here? The house of Duke Caruana has already lost its qualifications to participate in the Banquet, has it not?”

  Veldiana audibly clenched her fangs, desperately wringing her voice out from her throat.

  “It was my older sister who protected the twelfth Kaleid Blood. The Caruana family has a right to wager upon her, upon Dodekatos—!”

  With Veldiana’s crimson eyes glaring at her, Paper Noise stared back without emotion. A faint sound like clothing rubbing together pricked Yaze’s ears.

  “Very well. I shall postpone my decision concerning your qualifications. However, until such time—”

  With that statement, Paper Noise displayed the metallic attaché case that had come to rest in her hand—Veldiana’s case that Yaze thought he’d been holding.

  “I shall take custody of this Key,” Paper Noise casually declared.

  Veldiana glared at her in obvious anger, wildly slamming her blood-soaked fist against the surface of the street. She quivered in humiliation as she spat, “Lion King Agency…!”

  Paper Noise turned away from Veldiana, leaving her back unguarded, and departed. When she was no longer visible, only Yaze and Veldiana remained.

  Taking notice of the wrecked pedestrian bridge, a crowd of onlookers had gathered. It would no doubt be mere minutes before the police and Island Guard came running. Yaze, a Gigafloat Management Corporation spy, was practically part of the Island Guard himself, but this time, being arrested would be troublesome even for him. It was surely best to go while the going was good.

  But there was something that Yaze had to find out first.

  “Could you explain what this whole thing’s about, Vel?”

  Veldiana, who’d been hanging her head, lifted her sour face to look at Yaze. “Why are you cozying up to me with such a nickn—”

  Suddenly, her eyes opened wide in shock.

  “Yaze, is that—?!”

  “I thought something like that might happen, so just in case…”

  As he spoke, Yaze lifted up the thing he’d been hiding behind his back: a metallic rod covered by cloth. Somehow, the meticulously engraved magical symbols on its silver-glowing surface gave it a futuristic feel.

  It was about three or four centimeters in diameter, and about fifteen centimeters long, give or take. One of its ends had been tapered to a sharp, polished point. It was too short to be a spear, and too heavy to be an arrow; the closest thing to it was a stake.

  This stake had been inside the attaché case Veldiana had entrusted to Yaze. He’d used a momentary opening during Paper Noise’s battle with the armored girl to take it out, hiding it from the girls’ sight in the back of his school uniform.

  Veldiana made a heavy sigh of relief.

  “To pull that off in such a situation… You are quite the knave.”

  “So this is what you called the Key—”

  “Yes…the Key to open the lid of the coffin.”

  With that said, Veldiana moved to retrieve the stake from Yaze’s hand, but he deftly pulled it away.

  “Before I hand this back to you, could you tell me what this twelfth Kaleid Blood thing means?”

  For a while, Veldiana shot Yaze a resentful look but finally thought better of it and composed herself. Perhaps she saw Yaze as someone who’d cooperated with her, and was therefore due an appropriate gesture of thanks.

  Her calm expression had the grace worthy of a self-described noblewoman. He felt it prick at him like subtle perfume.

  Veldiana quietly asked him, “—Do you know of the Fourth Primogenitor?”

  Yaze scowled as he nodded.

  “The Fourth Primogenitor that shouldn’t exist, the World’s Mightiest Vampire, or something?”

  “Correct. Have you not wondered…if there are only three primogenitors publicly acknowledged to exist, why are there records throughout history of the emergence of a fourth primogenitor that shouldn’t exist, bringing chaos to the world? Why do even the other primogenitors acknowledge the Kaleid Blood as the World’s Mightiest Vampire?”

  Yaze made a low “hmm.” It was an urban legend he’d heard as a child. He hadn’t given it any deep thought, but that last question nagged at him in an odd fashion.

  Veldiana saw Yaze go silent and smiled, seeming a little proud of herself. She continued.

  “The truth is simple once you have heard it. The Fourth Primogenitor was produced artificially. The World’s Mightiest Vampire, designed by none other than the first three primogenitors themselves—and Kaleid Blood is the name of the project that gave birth to the Fourth Primogenitor.”

  Every hair on Yaze’s body stood up. The girl’s words didn’t sound like the kind of crazy talk he could just laugh off. After all, he’d seen the lightning lion at the armored girl’s command. It was a summoned beast with ridiculous might on par with a natural disaster. Wasn’t that exactly how the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals were described…?

  Yaze finally remembered. A kaleidoscope’s pattern was created by an object with three mirrors on the inside… Therefore, wasn’t the name Kaleid Blood symbolic of the Fourth Primogenitor’s role? The role of the World’s Mightiest Vampire, artificially born by the hands of the three primogenitors—

  “You said the Fourth Primogenitor is a weapon…?” Yaze asked in a low voice.

  If it was a weapon, mass production was far from out of the question. You could produce twelve of them, or even more. That wasn’t the problem.

  “Weapons exist to fight something,” he continued. “What the hell would make the primogenitors go out of their way to create the World’s Mightiest Vampire?”

  “That is obvious, is it not?”

  Then Veldiana Caruana fell into silence.

  The golden sun sank into the horizon, its rays silently illuminating the side of her determined face.

  “—The Cleansing.”

  OUTRO

  Motoki Yaze awoke on the slope of a coastal breakwater.

  The sky was already thick with twilight. He could feel the ocean breeze turning cool. The gentle waves echoed against the fiber-resin wave-reduction blocks, prickling his nose with the scent of salt. Even stronger was the smell of his blood-drenched uniform. He remembered being cut in his encounter with Meiga Itogami on a building in Island North.

  He’d used his control over the air to hurl himself backward, somehow evading a fatal injury, and by landing on a cargo truck that just happened to be passing through at the time, he’d escaped Meiga’s pursuit. However, that was all he could remember.

  As Yaze lay on his side, he heard a voice right beside him. There was a girl wearing a Saikai Academy school uniform, shutting the book she had been reading as she looked over her shoulder.

  “So you’ve come to, Motoki.”

  Yaze made a wry smile and exhaled at the girl’s ever-brusque demeanor.

  “You, huh?”

  Yaze sat up, letting out a yelp at the pain shooting thro
ugh his entire body.

  Paper Noise, Koyomi Shizuka, was unmoved by the anguished Yaze.

  “It is best if you do not get up just yet. I have reattached the torn flesh and blood vessels, but it is an emergency measure only. You will not be able to move normally until two weeks pass, I would imagine,” she calmly stated.

  “Seems like that’s about right.”

  Yaze lay prone on the breakwater again, furiously rubbing his disheveled hair.

  Koyomi watched him as he did so, not offering to wipe his sweat, let alone provide her lap as a pillow. She was acting as if she did not wish to touch him with her own bloodstained fingertips.

  Yaze haltingly murmured, as if to himself, “I had a dream about the first time we met.”

  She continued to watch him. A sad smile came across her face, and it seemed as fleeting as the snow.

  “It was only a year ago, yet it feels like the distant past, does it not?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  Damn straight, he thought, closing his eyes as if berating himself. Far too many things had happened since that day. A planned artificial island sank, and a great many humans perished. And Kojou came to bear a destiny that was altogether too cruel.

  Yaze sat up once more and looked at Koyomi.

  “You being here must mean Kojou and the others are safe?”

  Koyomi looked somewhat beside herself as she nodded in affirmation.

  “Yes. The Third Primogenitor, the Chaos Bride, has departed.”

  “The Chaos Bride, you say…?!”

  So that was it. Yaze stared at Koyomi in obvious discomfort.

  The Third Primogenitor, Giada Kukulkan—if it was all her doing, that explained everything, from the giant Beast Vassal down to Vattler’s confidants getting beaten down.

  Koyomi continued:

  “The MAR facility sustained heavy damage, but they will no doubt hold their silence concerning this incident.”

  “…That’s ’cause they’re up to shady no-good things themselves.”

  “No. They merely see greater profit in their Itogami branch office’s…rather, Mimori Akatsuki’s research, than the expenses required to pay for the damage.”

  Yaze scowled as he made a heavy, languid sigh.

  “There’s some nasty stuff in this world… Not that I’m one to talk or anything…”

  After all, shady dealings for the sake of profit greatly resembled the activities of his own family—in other words, the Yaze conglomerate.

  Koyomi broke the momentary silence.

  “It seems that Meiga Itogami has realized your childhood friend’s secret.”

  Yaze’s face froze. The panic he couldn’t hide elicited seeming satisfaction on Koyomi’s face—an innocently cruel expression, like a child working to monopolize someone’s affections.

  Yaze forgot the pain of his wounds and glared at her.

  “Asagi’s secret…?! So that’s it! Shit, so that’s what it is…!”

  Koyomi appeared undisturbed as Yaze proceeded to chew her out.

  “If you knew that, why did you let him go?! With your power, you should have been able to stop him!”

  Bluntly dismissing him, Paper Noise declared, “Because it was not necessary. The Lion King Agency’s role is to protect the nation known as Japan from large-scale sorcerous disasters and terrorism. I have judged that Meiga Itogami’s conduct does not hinder our objectives.”

  “You really are a—”

  Though Koyomi looked expressionless, her slightly moist eyes wavered. She knew. She understood just how much future unhappiness and tragedy her decision courted. Yet even so, she, one of the Three Saints heading the Lion King Agency, had not stopped Meiga Itogami.

  Yaze looked at Koyomi directly. “Tell me this. What is Meiga Itogami trying to use this island for?”

  Meiga Itogami bore the same family name as Senra Itogami, the designer of Itogami Island. Surely it was no mere coincidence that he had been held in the prison barrier as a sorcerous criminal. Yaze had no doubt that Meiga’s crime had a deep relationship to some critical secret hidden within Itogami Island, as well as why he had taken an interest in Asagi.

  “Have you not realized it already, Motoki?” Koyomi said.

  “…Meiga wants to call him back?!”

  The Demon Sanctuary of Itogami City was an artificial island born from metal and sorcery, a symbol of civilization and strife.

  As an altar for calling upon “him,” it was surely a stage appropriate like none other.

  He, the exile from the land abundant in life.

  He, the First Sinner.

  He, the Father of all demons, and the mortal enemy of Man and Demon alike.

  He, the one who had laid waste to the surface several times in past “cleansings”—

  As Yaze became captive to despair, out of the blue, Koyomi quietly whispered…

  “It is all right—we shall win, for this Cleansing is not his battle alone.”

  Her whisper was like a prophecy.

  “Hmph.” Yaze smiled wryly as he slumped.

  For an instant, the back of Yaze’s mind held the images of Kojou, and cuddling beside him, a small-statured girl.

  Of course, Yaze had no spiritual power, so he could do nothing like Spirit Sight. Even so, the sudden rise of the image in his mind managed to make him feel stupid for worrying about them.

  Yes, it was different from back then. Kojou Akatsuki no longer had just one watcher—

  Koyomi had vanished at some point.

  Exhausted, Yaze sighed and collapsed on the spot, closing his eyes.

  He surely had just a little more time. Enough to immerse himself in memories.

  Then Yaze fell asleep.

  He had a dream. A dream of fondness and sadness. A dream of the girl called the Kaleid Blood…

  Afterword

  So Strike the Blood, Vol. 7, seventh in the series, finally made it. And with this volume, crucial information about Kojou’s past and the true nature of the Fourth Primogenitor is revealed. It is with enormous gratitude toward all of you who have stuck with this series to this point that I wrote my heart out with an as-yet-unrevealed episode, crucial secrets, new characters, and little spoilers. If you enjoyed it, I’m very happy.

  Readers have probably already noticed, but this volume is written in the somewhat irregular format of four years ago → present → (mostly) one year ago, jumping from one period of time to another. This is because the story is not about the past that is confined to the past, but previous events that have great importance to the present and future lives of Kojou and others. The individual episodes work just fine as is, and you could always read them in chronological order, though. Of course, enjoy reading them in whatever style you like.

  Incidentally, if immortal and unaging vampires did exist, I think historians and archeologists would have just about the crummiest jobs out there. You’d go through all that trouble to investigate an ancient ruin and make hypotheses, and then some vampire primogenitor who was there seeing things in real time would go, “No, you’re wrong,” and all your work falls to pieces.

  Actually, from the vampire’s point of view, archeologists might find some trace of the sins of their youth or some long-ago piece of dark history he or she would prefer left forgotten, making them mortal enemies in a sense. So that’s kind of how one character appearing in this volume, the suspicious middle-aged guy, came to be. I had fun imagining how he and Mimori must’ve gotten along. For that matter, it looks downright criminal. (There’s a ten-year-plus age difference and all…)

  On a personal note, I really enjoyed how I got to portray the underlying sentiments and emotions for Yaze, who normally hides all that. If the opportunity arises, I’d love to write about Kojou and Yaze in their middle school years again. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but Yaze seems to wind up in worse and worse spots the more time he gets in the story… Anyway, in one sense, Yaze is even closer to the center of events than Kojou, so I think it’s fair to expect him to get a l
ot of screen time from here on out.

  Once again, Manyako’s illustrations have been an enormous help. On top of publishing every other month, there are a number of new characters, plus changes to the designs of existing ones, so I think it is fine work indeed. I am extremely appreciative!

  Also, I am grateful as always to TATE-sensei for his handling of the comic edition. The girls are even cuter than in the original version, even Kojou looks dashing, and the combat scenes are very cool. I’m enjoying each and every issue. Keep up the good work!

  Beginning once again with Yuzawa’s editing, I thank from the bottom of my heart everyone involved with this work and its publication (especially for all the scheduling trouble).

  Of course, I heartily thank all of you who have read this book.

  I very much hope to see you next volume.

  Gakuto Mikumo

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.

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