Right Arm of the Saint Page 4

  “Snowdrift Wolf—!”

  The girl drew something out of the guitar case still on her back.

  It was no musical instrument, but a silver spear with an icy sparkle.

  In an instant, the spear’s shaft slid longer, and at the same time, the main blade stored within thrust out as a spear tip. Side blades extended to the left and right of the main blade like the wings of a variable-geometry fighter plane. Its appearance was that of a weapon refined for modern times.

  But there was no doubt this was a primeval thrusting weapon. He didn’t think it could oppose the Beast Vassal scattering tremendous flames all about. Indeed, he had his doubts a girl of such small size could even swing the thing around. However, the girl’s alert eyes glared coldly at the Beast Vassal as it pressed near.

  Whew. A quiet exhale escaped the girl’s lips.

  The girl easily controlled the beautiful spear’s nearly two-meter length, thrusting it toward the flaming ghost horse running amok. However, the ghost horse did not halt its charge.

  A vampire’s Beast Vassal was a sentient mass of magical power so ultradense as to take physical form. In other words, it was magic itself. Once released, there was no way to stop a Beast Vassal except by smashing it with an even more powerful magical force.

  For the girl to attack it would be like turning a single spear against an overflow of lava.

  The man laughed because he knew as much. It was not a laugh confident of victory. It was a straightforward laugh of relief. He was simply afraid of her. Afraid of the unknown Attack Mage girl who’d blown away his pal with a single blow—

  But, in a single instant, the man’s laugh of relief was drenched in fear.

  “Wha…?!”

  For he saw his Beast Vassal had stopped, impaled by the silver spear.

  The girl had wordlessly thrust her spear in a flash. The ghost horse’s giant body warped, ripped apart, and vanished without a trace.

  It had been as quick as snuffing out the flame of a candle. The form of the Beast Vassal had completely vanished. All that remained was the scorched asphalt.

  “N…no way! Wiping out my Beast Vassal in one shot?!”

  The man gave a much-delayed shudder at the loss of his familiar. However, the girl’s expression remained a grimace.

  She glared at the man with anger-filled eyes, poised her spear, and charged his frozen, unmoving form. And, just as the silver spear was about to impale the man’s heart—

  “Whoa there!”

  The spear’s tip suddenly veered up, changing course.

  “Huh?!”

  The girl’s eyes, brimming with cold rage, widened in surprise.

  It was Kojou who stood there.

  Kojou leaped in from parts unseen, deflecting the spear just in the nick of time, halting the girl’s attack. He hadn’t wanted to get involved in a fight between a vampire and an Attack Mage, but he couldn’t just stand back as a life was taken. Surely the vampire didn’t want to die by impaling just because he’d made an unsuccessful pass at a junior high schooler.

  “Kojou Akatsuki?! Stopping Snowdrift Wolf with your bare hand…!”

  The Attack Mage girl leaped back with a shocked expression. As she put some distance between them, wary of the suddenly appearing Kojou, she landed on the roof of a station wagon parked nearby.

  “Hey, you. Grab your pal and get out of here,” Kojou yelled in an agitated tone to the man, still rooted in place behind his back. “And learn your lesson already. Don’t pick up junior high schoolers. And don’t use Beast Vassals irresponsibly, either!”

  “Y…yeah… S-sorry… I owe you one!”

  The man nodded, his face pale, then carried off his pal’s unconscious body. The girl glared at their backs with hostile eyes. Kojou made an exasperated sigh.

  “You, too… I don’t know what you meant to do, but it’s too much. Just let it go.”

  When she heard the seemingly tired Kojou’s words, the girl’s shoulders shook with surprise. Alertly keeping her spear’s guard up, she gave Kojou a sullen glare. She spoke with a scolding tone.

  “Why did you interfere?”

  Kojou’s expression became even more languid.

  “‘Interfere,’ huh? I think it’s normal to stop a fight that’s happening right in front of you. Why do you know my name, anyway?”

  “…To turn demon in a public place, and furthermore, use a Beast Vassal in an urban area, are flagrant violations of the Holy Ground Treaty. Surely no one would question it even if they were killed.”

  “Since you’re gonna put it like that, weren’t you the one who struck first?”

  “That’s not—”

  The girl went silent midway as if calmly reflecting on the matter. She seemed to be recalling how the dispute with the men had began. See? thought Kojou, giving the girl a strong stare.

  “I don’t know who you are, but waving that thing around and trying to kill people over having your panties seen a little is a bit much. Just because demons are concerned…”

  As he spoke to that point, Kojou realized he’d slipped up. The girl poised with the silver spear glared at Kojou with a disgusted look.

  “Did you see them, by any chance?”

  “Ah, er, that’s…”

  Kojou’s lips fumbled for an excuse. Surely she thought he was a guy who’d not only abandoned a girl getting hit on, he’d arbitrarily saved demons running wild in an urban area. And as that was in fact the case, all he could do was try to explain it away.

  “Hey, now, it’s not anything to get that worked up over. It’s not like I’m interested in a junior high schooler’s underwear, and they were kinda cute and all, so it’s not like having them seen should get you all bent out of shape. I th…”

  “…”

  As she gazed at Kojou making excuse after excuse, the girl made a deep sigh. However, the scornful look she made toward Kojou remained. And that instant, as if he’d chosen it that way, the strong wind characteristic of isolated islands blew across the seaside shopping mall.

  As she stood on top of the station wagon’s roof, the girl’s skirt casually soared upward, leaving her defenseless.

  Kojou’s posture stopped moving then and there. His gaze was unconsciously sucked in, leaving him unable to move.

  An oppressive silence fell.

  “Why are you looking at them again?”

  The girl asked, keeping her spear poised with both hands.

  Her voice finally caused the completely frozen Kojou to regain his senses.

  “Er, wait. You can’t blame me for that just now. It’s because you’re standing in a place like that—”

  “…It’s fine.”

  The girl said that in a sobered voice, gazing down icily at the flustered Kojou.

  She released her posture, sheathed the extended blade, and returned the spear to the size of a guitar once more. The girl replaced it inside the guitar case, dropping down to the ground without a sound.

  “Ah, wait a—…” As she withdrew without a word, Kojou somehow managed to call out to her.

  “Pervert.”

  The girl glanced at Kojou, leaving that word behind, and this time she was the one to turn her back on Kojou, running off.

  “…”

  Whew. Having been left alone, Kojou thrust his hands into his parka’s pockets and leaned against a nearby wall, exhaling.

  He felt he’d been arbitrarily and severely slighted, but for some reason, he just didn’t feel angry with the girl.

  That was probably because the girl’s face had been beet red just before she’d run off.

  However calm she pretended to be, she was still just a kid, he thought.

  Having detected the magic power of a Beast Vassal, the Island Guard would surely be here in no time. They were armed Counter-Demon Agents charged with maintaining law and order on the island. Even if he felt a bit guilty, staying here any longer would bring nothing but trouble.

  “Hmm…?”

  His eyebrows rose as he bela
tedly noticed something that had fallen onto the street.

  It was a simple wallet, with a red border around a white background.

  It was split into two parts, one for bills and one for small change. The part for bills held several one-thousand-yen bills, and one ten-thousand-yen bill. It was a large enough amount of money to make Kojou jealous, but not enough to make anyone’s eyes dizzy.

  The card holder had a single credit card and a student ID inserted into it.

  The student ID had a photo of an awkwardly smiling girl’s face, and a name inscribed—Yukina Himeragi.

  4

  Finally, the sun set, and the night grew late. And morning approached.

  The bell continued to ring. The bell that he seemed to hear from far away in the past.

  The Fourth Primogenitor dreamed.

  The moon peering from the broken sky was crimson. The sky illuminated by the moon, as well. The flames of the ground that enveloped the old castle shone crimson as well. A small shadow stood against that crimson sky.

  The shadow bore hair as scarlet as the surging flames, and blazing red eyes.

  Victory is yours, the shadow announced. White fangs drenched in blood peeked out from her lips.

  I shall fulfill my promise, the shadow announced. I shall grant thy wish.

  Now it is your turn, the shadow announced. Her eyes were wet. Her shining crimson eyes were wet with tears.

  It was a nightmare seen many times over.

  Kojou Akatsuki had a dream.

  He passed the night in shallow sleep. And morning came.

  The bell continued ringing in his ears.

  The time-honored bell of an anachronistic alarm clock.

  With an anguished sigh, Kojou Akatsuki fumbled around, silencing the clock.

  And as he tossed back into bed, just about to return to tranquil sleep once more…

  “Kojou, wake up. It’s morning. You set your alarm because you have another make-up exam, right? I made breakfast, so eat it quickly! And laundry’s not done. Your futon’s all sweaty, so move already.”

  The rapid-fire babble was punctuated by the theft of his bedsheet, and Kojou, at his wits’ end, rolled right off the narrow bed. As he looked up with unfocused eyes, there stood the familiar form of his little sister.

  She was an expressive girl with impressively large eyes.

  The way she wore her hair up made it look like her long hair suddenly came to a halt, giving her what looked like a short-cut style at a glance.

  Though her looks and physique gave her a somewhat childlike impression, she surely wasn’t that far off from average for a junior high schooler. This morning she was in casual attire—short pants and a tank top—with an orange apron on top of that.

  Looking down at her older brother, who had not moved since falling on the floor, Nagisa put her hands on her hips in exasperation.

  “Hey now, wake up. Still sleep-deprived? Did you study for your test till dawn? You mustn’t make so much trouble for Ms. Minamiya. Don’t slack off on extra lessons. If I see your name posted on the staff room billboard again, it’s going to be so embarrassing! Ah, geez, and I told you to get those uniform trousers off and put them on a hanger!”

  As Kojou listened to his little sister’s ceaseless complaints, he rose sluggishly.

  Perhaps he was biased in his thinking, but Nagisa was a capable little sister. Her looks were quite adorable, and her grades were up there, too. She was skilled at all varieties of housework.

  But there were flaws of course. One was that she was a clean freak to the point of illness, a demon of disposal. The other was the avalanche of words.

  Anyway, Nagisa spoke a lot. It wasn’t that she did it to everyone, but against family with forgiving hearts, she showed no mercy. He didn’t feel like he could win a verbal spat with her, ever.

  The one saving grace was because of Nagisa’s guileless personality, she rarely had an ill word to speak about others, but when she was angry it was quite terrifying. Back in junior high school, when Yaze had inadvertently let her see he had a porn video on him when coming over to play, Nagisa gave him enough of a tongue-lashing in her fit of rage to turn him gynophobic for a while.

  As Kojou was remembering that, absentmindedly gazing out of the window…

  “—Hey, Kojou-kun, are you listening?!”

  Nagisa switched to rapid-fire yelling. Kojou hurriedly corrected his posture.

  “Yeah, sorry. What’d you say?”

  “Geez…! I said, a transfer student.”

  Nagisa pursed her lips, perhaps out of annoyance that her older brother hadn’t heard her story.

  “…Transfer student?”

  “Yeah. Our class had a transfer student come since the start of summer break. A girl. Yesterday, Ms. Sasasaki introduced her when I went to school for club activities. She came for formalities before transferring, Ms. Sasasaki said. She’s this really cute girl. There’ll definitely be rumors about her even in the high school, really soon, I think.”

  “Huhhh…”

  Kojou ignored that with a cold shoulder. However cute she was, she was a middle schooler. And his little sister’s classmate. Totally outside of Kojou’s field of interest. However…

  “Hey, Kojou. Did you do something to this transfer student?”

  “Huh? What the heck?”

  Kojou asked back incredulously at Nagisa’s sudden question.

  What could he have done to a transfer student before she’d even transferred? However, Nagisa seemed displeased somehow, looking back at her older brother with a serious expression…

  “I mean, she asked about you. Once I introduced myself, she asked me if I had an older brother. What kind of person he’s like, and stuff.”

  “…Why?”

  “That’s what I wanna know. I was sure she must’ve met you somewhere before…”

  “No, I don’t think I have any younger acquaintances, but…”

  Kojou crossed his arms and sunk into thought. He had a vaguely unpleasant premonition.

  “So, what’d you tell her?”

  “Well, I did kind of properly explain things, some true and some not.”

  “What?!”

  “Kidding, I spoke only the truth. Like about the city we lived in before moving here, your school grades, what foods you like, the gravure idols you’re into, about Yazecchi and Asagi-chan, and then about your big heartbreak story from middle school…”

  “Geez… Why’d you have tell all that to someone you’d just met?”

  “Er, well, she’s cute?”

  Nagisa said it with an unapologetic tone. It was the answer he’d expected. Even under normal circumstances Nagisa was tempted to speak to anyone at all, which made the protection of secrets a nearly impossible undertaking. Her habit of saying exactly what it was she wanted to say, and her difficulty in not doing so was her personality, too.

  “Well, a girl having an interest in Kojou-kun’s such a rare opportunity. I thought I’d be as helpful as I could.”

  “Liar…you just wanted to talk, didn’t you?”

  Kojou exhaled at her fire-and-forget attitude. That moment, an ominous thought floated up into a corner of his sleep-deprived, slowly operating head. Though he wouldn’t call her an acquaintance even by mistake, there was one, and only one, name that came to mind: that of a certain junior high schooler who might be checking into Kojou.

  “Wait a sec. What’s the transfer student’s name?”

  “Mm, her last name’s a bit odd. Err… Right, it had a flutter to it, like the name of a queen.”

  “‘Flutter’? Himeragi, by any chance?”

  Kojou bitterly asked back, his ominous premonition swelling larger and larger. Nagisa’s expression brightened.

  “Ah yes, that’s it! Yukina Himeragi-chan.”

  “…She’s…the transfer student…?!”

  “That’s right. So you really do know her? Hey, hey, how do you know her? Explain it to me! Hey, Kojou…!”

  Nagisa continued shout
ing something, but Kojou wasn’t listening.

  All he could think of was the spear-using girl who’d tailed him all over the place and finally annihilated a vampire’s Beast Vassal with a single blow.

  So she’d transferred to the same class as Kojou’s little sister. But why? For what purpose? Such tortured thoughts made an unpleasant sweat break out, drenching Kojou’s entire body.

  Somewhere along the way, Kojou’s sleepiness had entirely vanished.

  5

  Natsuki Minamiya was Saikai Academy’s English teacher.

  She claimed her age was twenty-six, but she actually looked considerably younger than that, enough that, the terms beautiful girl and lovely child suited her better than beautiful woman.

  The line of her face and shape of her body were both on the small side, almost doll-like.

  On the other hand, maybe she’d inherited noble blood from somewhere; she was oddly dignified and charismatic. Thanks to that, she was a highly capable teacher, with high regard among students as well.

  “Er… Aren’t you hot there, Natsuki?” Kojou asked, his loose uniform disheveled amid the oppressive, sweltering heat. Kojou was the only student in the classroom for the make-up exam. Of course they didn’t permit the use of a civilized invention like air-conditioning.

  Against the hellish backdrop of the pouring midday rays of the sun, an incessant hot wind blowing in through the window, Kojou was translating the suspicious English text “Researching the Shape of Mythology in Post-Primitive Man” under the supervision of a teacher who looked younger than he was. This was no longer an exam; a better term for it might be discipline, or perhaps torture.

  “I’ve told you before. Don’t address your teacher by her first name.”

  He heard Natsuki’s haughty voice from the center of the platform as she sat atop the luxurious, velvet-covered chair she’d brought in from somewhere on her own, drinking hot black tea.

  She wore a lace-heavy, black, one-piece dress. Except for the frills from the cuffs and the front of the neck, her hip proportions were being flaunted by a laced-up corset. For so-called goth loli, it was rather high-end, but that didn’t make it seem any less stifling in this heat. However, as Natsuki elegantly fanned herself with a black lace folding fan…