Strike the Blood, Vol. 7: Kaleid Blood Page 9

  “Ugh… If His Excellency didn’t command it, I would never serve as bodyguard for someone like you…!”

  Kojou suspiciously raised an eyebrow. Hmm?

  “Vattler ordered this…? What do you mean my bodyguard…?”

  “I have no obligation to explain it to you, fool.”

  As Jagan dragged his feet, a soft, androgynous voice gently rebuked him.

  “—Tobias.”

  A handsome, mild-mannered vampire—Kira Lebedev Voltisvala—intervened to defuse the explosive situation between Kojou and Jagan. He possessed gray hair and jade green eyes and was small for a boy, with a very refined appearance. He wore a hooded jacket, no doubt to avoid sunlight, but under it he, too, had a Saikai Academy uniform.

  “Kira? Don’t tell me you’re here at our school, too…?” Kojou said.

  “Yes. Please take good care of us.”

  Kira timidly offered his right hand. As Kojou shook it, he felt a light headache coming on.

  Certainly, he’d heard there were seven short-term exchange students from the Warlord’s Empire. If the five Oceanus Girls had simply tagged along, that made the original exchange students Kira and Jagan.

  Kira whispered in Kojou’s ear, “The Duke of Ardeal left written instructions; namely, should anything happen to him, we were to serve and protect you, Master Kojou.”

  “Written instructions? From Vattler?”

  As if taking pride in that for some reason, Jagan haughtily declared, “That’s how it is. At least try to behave and not cause us any trouble.”

  Kojou’s lips curled in annoyance.

  “Well, your being here is causing me trouble, you know—”

  At Kojou’s sarcasm, Kira lowered his long eyelashes, as if troubled. “I’m quite sorry.”

  “Ah, nah, you don’t need to apologize, Kira… Wait, Vattler’s not around? Did something happen to him…?”

  “I do not know. Just…this is hardly the first time the Duke of Ardeal has given commands on a whim.”

  Kira bit his glossy lip, concerned.

  Jagan announced, “We’re done here,” and stormed out to return to his own classroom. At some point, the five Oceanus Girls had disappeared.

  With half-lidded eyes, Asagi looked up at Kojou still clasping Kira’s hand.

  “So…just how long are you two gonna hold hands here?”

  Kojou didn’t even realize he was red in the face as he hastily withdrew his hand.

  “Oh, ah, right.”

  Asagi knitted her eyebrows in even greater chagrin and exhaled.

  4

  At the time, Yukina and her fellow classmates were in physical education class. It was girls’ volleyball that day. Once the basic preliminaries were complete, the class continued training for matches.

  Yukina, dressed in a gym uniform, mingled with her classmates and earnestly participated in the match.

  The serve from the opponents’ side descended like an avalanche. The rear guard received the serve at the very edge of the court. The ball danced up into the air, sailing toward the unguarded edge of the net. It’ll probably hit the sideline and be out, everyone thought, but that instant…

  “Geh… Yukina?!”

  “Yes!”

  Yukina ran under the ball and lunged lightly from the floor. Her small body effortlessly sailed into the air, gently touching the ball with her left hand and tapping it into the opponents’ court.

  She landed soundlessly. The opposing students just stared dumbly at the ball before them on the floor, unsure of what had just happened.

  Seeing what she had done, Yukina was a bit crestfallen.

  “Ah…”

  Raised and trained as a Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency, Yukina’s athletic ability was far above the norm for girls her own age, even without augmentation via ritual spells. She was able to hold back appropriately during individual events like track and field, but it was much harder to do so in a volleyball match.

  As Yukina stood rooted in place, a current member of the basketball club, Minami Shindou, aka Cindy, smiled and ran over. She was a sports prodigy in her own right, so maybe seeing Yukina’s crazy ability was no big deal to her.

  “See what I mean? You’re really cut out for sports, Yukina,” Cindy said.

  Yukina’s smile twitched a little as she took the praise in stride.

  “Y-you think so…?”

  Cindy gave Yukina a rather amused look.

  “You sure don’t look it, though, what with that ditzy, spaced-out look you have.”

  “D-ditzy…?”

  The unanticipated change of direction gave Yukina a rude shock. Seeing herself as a very levelheaded girl, she couldn’t hide her consternation at her friend’s assessment.

  With Yukina’s match concluded, Nagisa and other girls came on to the court. Cindy remarked, “Ah, Nagisa there is pretty lively, too, huh?”

  Just as Cindy said, Nagisa was a trooper on a mishmash of a team. Due to her short height, she wasn’t good at spiking, but she more than made up for it with how she received serves. Somehow, she seemed like an adorable little animal.

  As they sat on a bench against the wall, Yukina asked Cindy, “I heard Nagisa was in the hospital a while back?”

  Cindy smiled fondly.

  “Yeah, she was. When I was in my first year here, she was away from school for almost six months. She was always watching from the sidelines in gym class, too. I’d say she’s been doing better since about autumn of last year… That’s about when she joined the cheerleading club, too.”

  “Autumn of…last year?”

  Yukina bit her lip and fell silent. Her Sword Shaman instincts told her something was odd about that.

  She’d heard that an incident had been the reason Nagisa Akatsuki came to Itogami Island. Heavily injured in a demon-linked terror incident, she’d needed treatment that could only be found in a Demon Sanctuary. No doubt the treatment had worked on her, and she’d been fully healed as of the preceding autumn.

  And a very short time later, her older brother, Kojou Akatsuki, suddenly obtained the power of the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire. It was too unusual to be mere coincidence.

  What further worried Yukina was the power Nagisa had used during the Wiseman incident just a short time earlier, and the mysterious spiritual entity that had possessed her—a sentient mass of enormous demonic energy capable of instantly creating a mass of ice several hundred meters across. As far as Yukina knew, only the Beast Vassals controlled by vampires could manage such a feat, and only those of Old Guard vampires, or even primogenitors, at that.

  She couldn’t understand how Nagisa had summoned such a thing. But if she truly had controlled a Beast Vassal, it was surely connected to Kojou obtaining the power of the Fourth Primogenitor for himself.

  Maybe Yukina had it all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t that the Fourth Primogenitor’s little sister just happened to wind up in a Demon Sanctuary hospital. Maybe it was because she’d been in the hospital that he’d become the Fourth Primogenitor to begin with—

  Yukina felt her entire body go cold when she realized what that frightening possibility would mean. Because of that, she didn’t realize what had been happening on the volleyball court.

  Someone had sent the ball off the court, right for the wall where Yukina was sitting. Another student was running after it, with her attention completely focused on the ball, not even noticing Yukina. They were just about to collide.

  From the court, Nagisa yelled, “—Yukina, look out!”

  Yukina moved subconsciously before Nagisa’s voice brought her back to her senses. She beat away the flying ball with the back of her hand and turned to face the charging girl. Dodging her would be simple, but that would guarantee the girl would get hurt. Instead, Yukina moved forward. She caught the lunging student’s arm in a lock and redirected her momentum.

  Direct motion transformed into centrifugal force. Before Yukina’s eyes, the girl floated up, flipped over once, and landed sof
tly on the floor in a near perfect cross-legged position, with virtually no force of impact.

  No doubt the schoolgirl herself had no idea what had just happened. After the two switched places, the ball fell down in front of their eyes. The Sword Shaman quietly caught it as if nothing had happened.

  Yukina suddenly paled when she realized just what she had done.

  “Ah…”

  The gym had gone silent as everyone in the class stared at Yukina. However, not a single one of the stares directed at her had any hint of fear. Ordinary schoolgirls couldn’t even grasp what a crazy-high skill level Yukina’s maneuver had involved. They might not have understood what was going on, but seeing that everyone was safe and sound, someone began a round of applause.

  Still clutching the ball Yukina couldn’t help but blush.

  Only Cindy, having witnessed the event from right next to Yukina, asked with some surprise, “What did you do just now…?”

  A thin bead of sweat trickled down Yukina’s forehead as she seemed somewhat dazed.

  “Er… It just, ah, happened?”

  “You see? You are a ditz,” Cindy declared, clearly amused by that reaction.

  But the next moment, she suddenly paled. Yukina’s breath caught in her chest when she realized why.

  With the action on the court purportedly paused, someone there collapsed without a sound. It was a girl with a familiar hairstyle—a long ponytail. Lying prone on the court, she looked even smaller than usual.

  Yukina cast aside the ball she’d been holding and rushed to her side.

  “…Nagisa?!”

  Cindy immediately followed. The other students realized something was wrong, staring at Nagisa from a distance. Misaki Sasasaki, the gym teacher refereeing a match at an adjacent court, came running.

  “Hey, Nagisa, what’s wrong?! Nagisa—?!” Cindy yelled.

  But Nagisa did not respond. Even though she’d been moving fine only moments before, her breathing was heavily labored, and she seemed to be in great pain.

  When Yukina lifted Nagisa up, her friend’s entire body felt very cold, like Yukina was touching a corpse. And as soon as Yukina had touched her, she knew the cause of Nagisa’s deterioration.

  “Nagisa… It…it can’t be… How could this be…?” she murmured, but no one heard her pained whispers over the classmates’ loud voices.

  Nagisa’s still-sleeping body was surprisingly light. With her eyes closed, her profile resembled a fairy’s…

  5

  That afternoon, Kojou heard what happened and rushed over to the MAR laboratory.

  Magna Ataraxia Research Incorporated, or MAR for short, was a huge conglomerate based in Eastern Asia.

  It was one of the world’s few sorcerous manufacturing groups, handling everything from foodstuffs to military weaponry.

  Kojou’s mother, Mimori Akatsuki, was Chief of Research at MAR’s medical research and development laboratory on Itogami Island and the attached hospital. She was also the primary care physician for her beloved daughter, Nagisa Akatsuki.

  Yukina was sitting in a corner of a waiting room when she noticed Kojou rushing over.

  “—Himeragi! Is Nagisa all right?!”

  She nodded awkwardly. Apparently, she’d declared herself a next-door neighbor and half-forced herself on the ambulance that brought Nagisa to the hospital.

  “I believe she will be fine,” Yukina replied. “She hasn’t regained consciousness yet, but her breathing and pulse are completely stable.”

  “Is that…so…”

  She could almost hear the taut wire of tension being cut as Kojou squatted down, depleted. No doubt he’d heard that Nagisa was all right over the phone, but he had worried nonetheless.

  Yukina giggled with a little smile, her expression seeming to say, That’s his sister complex speaking.

  “Earlier, your m—Miss Mimori came and took Nagisa to the medical wing. I am waiting here because unrelated persons are not permitted to enter, but you are family, senpai, so—”

  “No, I’m not allowed over there, either… Well, they’re the experts, so I think it’ll be all right. It’s not like I can do anything by being there, anyway.”

  Yukina sent a dubious glance over Kojou’s shoulder and said, “I must say, though, you came with quite an entourage.”

  “Eh?”

  At Yukina’s comment, Kojou looked behind him and yelped, “Whoa!” like a complete idiot. A group of people in student uniforms was entering the waiting room through the automated doors. Kojou saw Asagi, Yaze, and the two so-called exchange students from the Warlord’s Empire—

  Kojou glared at the quartet that had nothing to do with any of this.

  “Wh-what the hell are all you doin’ here?!” he wailed.

  Yukina looked amazed as she muttered, “You had not noticed this whole time…?”

  Asagi averted her eyes with a somehow guilty look.

  “W-well, I was worried about Nagisa and all… And then these two guys were chasing after you, so—”

  Asagi had shifted responsibility to Jagan, but he grandly stuck out his chest without the slightest reservation.

  “We have not come to visit your younger sister. We are merely fulfilling our duty.”

  Beside him, Kira nodded in complete seriousness.

  “Yes. So please pay the two of us no heed.”

  Kojou, forgetting he was in a hospital, yelled out, “I do heed!!”

  He had little doubt Vattler had put them up to protecting him, so they were only faithfully carrying that out, but…

  “You’re exchange students! Why the hell are you skipping class on your first day?! And why are you here, Yaze?!”

  “Er, well, it looked interesting so—I mean, of course I’m worried about Nagisa, too.” Yaze deliberately affected a serious expression as he spoke with obvious delight at the unfolding spectacle.

  “Geez.” Kojou roughly clicked his tongue.

  He hadn’t thrown the lot of them out yet because he had a faint grasp of Asagi’s and Yaze’s real feelings. It wasn’t that they were worried about Nagisa; Kojou was their true source of concern.

  Yukina, still sitting on a little bench in the waiting room, slumped her shoulders in dejection.

  “I’m sorry… I was right there with her, but I didn’t notice that Nagisa wasn’t well…”

  Apparently, she felt responsible for Nagisa’s collapse right before her eyes.

  Kojou sat down beside her and shook his head tiredly.

  “If anyone should be saying that, it’s me. The fact she overslept should’ve been enough to make me wonder if she was sick. It’s not like this is the first time she’s had a weak body.”

  Her waking up late, her tumble when getting to school… There’d been any number of chances to deduce that Nagisa hadn’t been well. It was Kojou, part of her own family, who was responsible for not noticing. He knew well enough that Nagisa never complained about anything—she only increased the number of words flying out of her mouth.

  Asagi spoke out of concern for Kojou. “Then Nagisa’s injuries…weren’t completely healed?”

  Kojou made a weak smile with a sigh.

  “Nah. It’s nothing that stops her from living a normal life, but they said she still has to get regular checkups. They’re still trying different drugs and stuff.”

  “Oh… That’s rough.”

  Kojou gazed at the familiar sight of the waiting room and mused aloud, “She hasn’t collapsed much since she got out of the hospital, though…”

  During middle school, he’d been in that very room numerous times, waiting to see Nagisa.

  Yukina sent Kojou a serious look. “Senpai, about the reason Nagisa was hospitalized—”

  Kojou shrugged his shoulders slightly. Even if it was technically private, there was no point hiding it from Yukina, who’d gone with Nagisa all the way to the hospital.

  “Demons made a terror attack in Rome four years ago. They set a bomb on a train. You know about it, right?”


  “Yes…”

  Yukina’s eyes narrowed in surprise for some reason. Kojou paid no heed and continued, “Nagisa and I just happened to be there at the time. Neither of us can remember much about what happened before or after…but Nagisa’s had a fear of demons ever since. I think it’s probably leftover fear from back then.”

  “…Is that so.”

  Yukina then fell into silence. Kojou felt faint unease watching the side of her face as she considered this information. The attack four years earlier was a slaughter, with numerous casualties, but it was in the past. All the assailants had been shot and killed, and the organization behind it had been wiped out. He didn’t think there was anything left for her to ponder. That incident no longer had anything to do with Kojou’s and Nagisa’s current lives—

  Kojou looked up at the waiting room clock. “Sitting here won’t solve anything, so how about we get some dinner?” he suggested.

  Since they had run off from school as soon as lunch break began, Kojou and the others hadn’t had dinner. Given the fact Kojou had missed breakfast, too, it was small wonder that he was famished. A full stomach clears up a lot of worries, he thought. Then…

  Asagi responded with a buoyant voice that was completely out of place. “Eh?! Dinner?! You’re going to treat me, Kojou? MAR’s employee cafeteria is famous. It’s listed as a hidden gem in Itogami Island’s Gourmet Guide!”

  “Why you…”

  Looking back at Asagi’s twinkling eyes, Kojou rued his verbal slip. In spite of her slim appearance, Asagi was a glutton. She could eat four or five servings’ worth of a family restaurant’s lunch plate and still have room to spare.

  If she went to a “hidden gem” she wouldn’t normally get to visit—on someone else’s tab, no less—she undoubtedly meant to order without mercy.

  “Ah, well. I’ll just bill it to Mom anyway,” Kojou said defiantly.

  Besides, it would calm the general mood. After all, the odds of Asagi making a huge fuss out of it probably weren’t zero.

  “Hmph. I have no intention of playing nice with you,” Jagan said bluntly. “We will go our separate ways.”