“Sh-she was just divin’, huh…?” Kojou mused.
“Good grief,” replied Asagi.
Patting their chests in relief, Kojou and Asagi met each other’s eyes.
They both immediately yelped and hastily sank their important parts back below the waterline.
Even with bath towels wrapped over their bodies, it was a little too stimulating at such extremely close range.
Asagi’s back and shoulders were still exposed, however; the bath towel, drenched with hot bathwater, hugged the contours of her body. Just being in the same bath with a female classmate was an abnormal situation to begin with; Kojou’s nerves weren’t going to hold up to this.
Without any other choice, Kojou hardened his resolve and declared, “I’m gonna get out first, then. Sorry, could you close your eyes for a bit?”
But just as Kojou tried to get up, Asagi grabbed his hand and pulled strongly.
“Wait!”
“Wh-whoa—?!”
His balance wrecked, Kojou flopped into the bath with great force. As a result, the two of them were now all over each other. And as if in complete defiance, Asagi peered straight into Kojou’s eyes.
“This is a great opportunity, so how about you tell me right here, right now, exactly what you’ve been hiding from me?”
“Asagi…”
Attacked in so many unexpected ways, the inside of Kojou’s head was already completely blank.
He didn’t have anything left for coming up with an excuse. The only answers he had to her questions now were the literal truth. No doubt Asagi was well aware of that and thought she could interrogate him like this.
Looking like she had briefly sunk into thought, Asagi took a deep breath and voiced her question.
“Kojou, do you………like men?”
“…Huh?”
As Asagi awaited his reply with bated breath, Kojou stared back at her with a stupid look on his face. For a while, what she had asked him just wasn’t sinking into his brain.
“Wait a minute?! Where’d you get that idea?!”
Asagi’s cheeks burned red as she elaborated:
“I—I mean, I can’t think of any other reason you’d be buddy-buddy with a noble from the Warlord’s Empire! I mean, that guy is quite the pretty boy…”
Kojou wondered if this had been the burning question that she’d been agonizing over since before. This was the cause of her uncharacteristic nervousness—?
Kojou rubbed both of his arms as if feeling a chill. In all seriousness, he replied, “Even if it’s a joke, just stop… You’re givin’ me goose bumps here…”
However, Asagi’s lips pursed slightly, even so. “Yuuma’s got that boyish feeling going for her, too…”
“Er, Yuuma’s been my pal since we were little kids. Like or dislike ain’t the issue there.”
“It—it’s like you’re not interested in my body, though…”
The unexpected observation made Kojou grimace. “Hahh? Who the heck told you that?”
Perhaps it was Asagi’s surprise at just how vividly he’d taken the bait that made Asagi’s hands grasp the edge of her bath towel, holding the closure in front of her chest as her eyes twinkled.
“Wanna see?”
Even as Kojou anguished over why she was making him confess something so embarrassing in regard to her, his reply was rather blunt.
“W…well, of course I want to…”
Asagi tilted her head with a curious look like the matter concerned someone else and pressed further…
“Ah, is that so?”
“Yeah, it is! But I don’t want you to hate me for that kind of stuff! I mean, you’re, like, a special friend to me and everything—”
Watching Kojou raise his voice in such desperation, Asagi hummed.
“…Special, huh? I see…”
The teasing leer that came over her lips was her normal, everyday look.
“So that’s why you were keeping your distance from me after our kiss?”
Kojou replied in the bluntest voice he could come up with. “Well, excuse me. I mean, I had my own emotional stuff I had to put in order—”
As he did so, he felt an unexpectedly soft touch on his back. Asagi, wearing only a bath towel, was cuddled right up against him.
“A-Asagi?!”
“A freebie. Don’t look this way, though.”
“O-okay?”
This time, Asagi’s completely indecipherable behavior brought Kojou to a complete panic. What did she mean by “freebie”? He wondered if it wasn’t so much a freebie as a one-way ticket to a heart attack, when…
“…Kojou? What’s with these wounds?”
Asagi’s face grew grave when she noticed the wound on Kojou’s chest. It was apparent, even to a complete amateur, that it was no normal scar. There was no way half-baked excuses could fool her now.
Kojou sank into silence and made no reply.
However, the reason for his silence was not his inability to come up with a suitable excuse. Rather, it was because Kojou had noticed that, distracted by his wound, Asagi leaned all the way forward, which allowed the edge of her bath towel to slip down—
“Sorry, Asagi. I’ve hit my limit…!”
Kojou thrust Asagi’s body away and rose up forcefully.
“Eh?! W-wait, Kojou?!”
Asagi, who fell into the bath and onto her rear, looked up in shock at the blood-drenched Kojou.
Kojou’s nose gushed out blood with a force one would expect from breaking it.
The fresh blood scattered all around the bath, dyeing the surface of the water so that it looked like some kind of crimson marble.
However, by that time Kojou had already leaped out of the bath, rushing into the changing room.
Asagi remained on her butt in the hot water, beside herself.
“Geez…what’s with him?!” she muttered.
However, in spite of her sigh, the look on her face was somehow pixie-like. She giggled as she thought back to the look on Kojou’s face.
Meanwhile, without a single word, Sana scooped up the bathwater with both hands and looked at it.
“…”
The water, dyed vivid crimson, drenched in the blood of the Fourth Primogenitor—
The cabin Vattler had arranged for Kojou and the others only had a single queen bed. It was a family suite through and through.
Kojou had expected it’d somehow turn out like this, so he flopped on the sofa against the wall without thinking any further about it. At any rate, it was the best arrangement for keeping Sana and Asagi safe.
Asagi hadn’t made any special complaints, either. She probably figured it was better to be with Kojou rather than on a strange vampire’s ship by her lonesome.
That very same Asagi looked down at Kojou, now lying on his side, as she asked in obvious concern, “Are you all right, Kojou? You looked like you were gonna keel over back there.”
Kojou sluggishly sat up and gave a frail smile with his crinkly lips. “Don’t worry about it…just a little low on blood here.”
Asagi slumped her shoulders in exasperation. “Well, that’s because you blew so much out of your nose back there…”
Asagi was now wearing a yukata in place of her filthy street clothes. Apparently, one of Vattler’s maidservants, unaware of the specifics of the Hollow Eve Festival, must’ve figured, It’s a festival in Japan so you should wear a yukata, and lent Asagi one from her personal wardrobe.
Asagi, lowering her voice so that Sana—currently jumping on the bed like a trampoline—wouldn’t hear, asked, “So, is Natsuki really the key to the whole prison barrier thing?”
That was a resident of a Demon Sanctuary for you. Asagi apparently had little trouble believing that it really was Natsuki in an age-reduced state.
“Probably. That’d be why the convicts are after her. Apparently, she lost her memory and got miniaturized because of this grimoire from a witch who broke out.”
Kojou thought back to the discussion between the escapees he’d overheard at the prison barrier. “She said she stole the time she’d experienced…”
Asagi raised her elegant eyebrows.
“The grimoire Personal History? That’s a Forbidden-Class Dangerous Object, isn’t it?”
“It’s probably because she used that thing that they were able to break out of the prison barrier to begin with.”
Asagi nodded grimly. “Yes, I see…”
It went without saying that an escape of sorcerous criminals from the prison barrier was a severe problem, not only for Kojou and his acquaintances, but also for every man and woman on Itogami Island.
“So you got wrapped up in this incident because of Yuuma, then?”
The matter-of-fact way Asagi asked the question made Kojou reply in all earnestness, “Eh? How did you know that…?”
“Sheesh,” Asagi sighed.
“Because I looked at records at the Gigafloat Management Corporation. Ten years ago, the witch Aya Tokoyogi was captured by Natsuki in the so-called ‘Black Bible Incident.’ Yuuma’s related to that, isn’t she? Tokoyogi is a very rare name, so it’s no coincidence is it?”
“That…so…”
Kojou bit his lip bitterly as he listened to the revelation.
Now that she’d said it, of course there’d have been a record left of the other battle between Natsuki and Aya Tokoyogi some ten years prior.
If that was so, Asagi surely knew all about the Black Bible and associated elements as well.
However, before Kojou could ask about that, a lisping voice called for Asagi.
“Mama…”
Sana, kneeling on top of the bed, gazed at Asagi, her eyes unable to focus.
Asagi was puzzled as she drew her face close to mini-Natsuki. “Sana? What’s wrong?”
“Sleepy.”
“Ah… It is pretty late, isn’t it…?”
Asagi gave a strained smile as she looked at a clock indicating it was nearly midnight. Asagi lay down with Sana, warmly embracing her, and gently stroked her head.
Sana rested her face against Asagi’s chest and closed her eyes in apparent relief. Soon she would be fast asleep, like any normal girl. It was a scene that somehow warmed the heart.
“Man, you look like a real mother and daughter there,” Kojou whispered, admiring the scene.
Certainly Sana was a very cute girl, but the way Asagi was taking such tender care of her surprised him.
What, you didn’t think I could handle it? replied Asagi’s posture, her cheeks reddening in a minor fit of pique.
“Let’s stop right there. I mean, if she’s my daughter, then that makes you the dad—”
“Eh?”
Kojou’s response to Asagi’s complaint was an incoherent grunt of surprise. Asagi, realizing that she’d slipped, stiffly amended herself. “I—I mean in this situation. That’s what it would look like to an impartial observer.”
“R-right. You’ve got a point there…”
Kojou desperately aided her attempt to stop the slippage into dangerous waters.
Even if she was tiny for the time being, Asagi was sleeping in the same bed as her homeroom teacher. It was best to avoid any question of inappropriate behavior to the greatest possible extent.
Thinking he’d best change the subject, Kojou voiced his honest thoughts on another matter.
“Come to think of it, that yukata looks surprisingly good on you.”
His little sister had drilled into him that girls wanted to be complimented on their clothing when they changed into something even a little different from their usual. However, Asagi glared back at Kojou in visible dissatisfaction.
“What do you mean, ‘surprisingly’? Of course it looks good on me! And why are you in a sports jersey, anyway?”
“Since Vattler didn’t send anythin’ proper over, Kira lent me something of his. He’s a pretty nice guy, you know. See? It’s a Boston jersey from when they were champs.”
Thus did Kojou explain about the sports jersey he’d borrowed. Apparently, Kira was a fan of the Boston Celtics. Asagi looked back with acute annoyance at the proud expression Kojou sported on his face.
“Hey, I don’t know anything about that stuff,” Asagi retorted. “And like, don’t stare at me so much. I’m pretty plain here at the moment.”
“Ah…? Guess you are…”
Only now did Kojou realize that she was giving off a different impression from the norm. As he agreed with her assessment, he abruptly gave Asagi a long, serious stare.
“You look pretty darn good in normal, mature-lookin’ clothes like that, so why do you always dress so flamboyantly?”
“HUH?!”
It sounded like something had snapped inside Asagi as her temples bulged with rage.
Without a word, Asagi took off the sandals she was wearing, holding both in one hand. With an uppercut-like motion, she smacked Kojou’s chin with them, hard.
As a dull thud reverberated, Kojou groaned in agony and pressed a hand to his jaw.
“That hurt! What’s with you all of a sudden? Do you always smack people with your sandals?!”
“You’re the one who said it way back, dammit! ‘You’re too plain, so you should pay a bit more attention to your appearance and stuff.’ That’s why I—!”
“I—I did…?!”
Kojou endured the pain of the sharp kicks to his back as he arrived at a vague memory.
Now that she mentioned it, he might well have made a throwaway comment like that back in middle school. He’d been of the opinion that she was putting such a nice face to waste by purposefully trying to blend into the crowd. Wow, she remembered that from way back, Kojou thought, admiring a part that was rather beside the point. Then…
At that moment, the supposedly sleeping Sana suddenly snapped her eyes open.
The little girl in the yukata slowly stood up. Her movements were unnatural and seemed to defy the laws of gravity.
The bizarre aura surrounding her threw Kojou and Asagi completely off. Sana was clearly not in her normal state. It felt like some unknown entity had taken possession of her body.
Then, as Kojou and Asagi watched her, the little girl took a deep breath.
“—Na—tsu—kyun!”
Making an adorable, decisive pose like some kind of idol singer, she shouted this from atop the bed.
Sana gave off a high-tension vibe that seemed bizarre to the point of incomprehension compared to before, scaring the living daylights out of Kojou and Asagi.
“The hell?!”
“Sana?!”
Sana still had her right hand raised high in a peace sign as her vacant eyes came to a stop.
Like a ventriloquist’s dummy, nothing moved but her lips as she began to speak in a robotic tone.
To put it bluntly, Kojou found the sight terrifying.
“—Main personality shift to sleep mode confirmed. Blocking non-REM sleep. Connecting latent consciousness to backup memory block. Initiating restoration of accumulated personal time. One minute fifty-nine seconds until restoration complete.”
“Wh-what the heck is that?” Kojou wondered aloud.
Asagi, too, spoke in bewilderment as they looked up at Sana, dumbfounded.
“Maybe Natsuki’s memories…came back?”
When Sana heard this, she suddenly spun her head around and grinned buoyantly at the two of them. It was a splendid, picture-perfect smile the real Natsuki wouldn’t have made if her life depended on it.
“Sorry. I am actually Natsu-kyun Minamiya’s backup personality.—Kyun!”
Sana stuck her tongue out, another mysteriously adorable pose.
Unsurprisingly, even Kojou was slowly getting used to the bizarre situation. “Er, I don’t think this is really a ‘kyun’ moment…?”
“To think Natsuki had a latent personality like this she kept deep down,” Asagi murmured, exhausted. “I’m not sure whether I’m surprised or totally unsurprised…”
Apparently, the current Natsuki was some kind of emergency backup she’d prepared in advance.
She’d probably cast a special spell on her so that, should an enemy rob her of her memories as had happened here, a temporary backup would emerge and work to restore her memories.
Leave it to a first-rate Attack Mage like her to be so prepared. The only miscalculation was the fact her backup personality had a few little…quirks.
Kojou was faintly hopeful as he asked, “So if you restore from the backup…Natsuki’s gonna come back?”
However, the backup twirled around on top of the bed for no apparent reason.
“Sorry! That might not be possible! Memories are one thing, but I don’t think this body can take the strain of using spells! In the first place, there’s not enough magical power!”
“…I see. So this really ain’t gonna work unless we destroy Aya Tokoyogi’s grimoire, huh?”
“Totally. Or you could wait ten years for me to grow up like I was before, kyun?”
“There’s no way we’re waitin’ that long!”
Kojou sighed, aggrieved, at the backup’s completely unconcerned manner of speech.
It was a moment later that the flat-screen TV nestled into the wall of the cabin came on unbidden without anyone touching the remote control. What now? Kojou thought as he looked over dubiously.
A badly made CG teddy bear floated up onto the screen.
“—Finally got a connection. You hearin’ this, Li’l Miss?”
Asagi shrieked at the teddy bear on the TV. “M-Mogwai?!”
Kojou knew the name. This was the avatar of the five supercomputers that administered Itogami Island—Asagi’s AI partner.
“…What are you doing popping up in a place like that?”
“’Cause your smartphone ran out of juice. I used the broadcast signal to hack in. Sorry, but there’s more trouble on the way. I’d like you to give me a hand, but…”
“Oh, really. I don’t wanna.”
Asagi turned off the TV without the slightest hesitation. However, the TV turned back on again instantly, to a display of Mogwai on its hands and knees.
“Please, I’m begging you!”
“I said NO. How much do you plan on making a normal high schooler work here? Thanks to you, the first day of the festival’s a complete write-off.”
Asagi tapped the power button on the remote control, rapid-fire, as she spoke. When she saw that wasn’t going to do any good, she moved her hand toward the TV’s power cord. Mogwai desperately shook his head in alarm.
“Wait, wait, wait, this problem totally affects you, too, Li’l Miss!”
“Hah? How so?”
“There’s a weird spatial distortion popping up with Saikai Academy’s campus at the center of it. Any device using magical power is inoperable inside it, and it seems to cancel all spells in operation, too.”
“…You’re saying it neutralizes spells?” Asagi asked skeptically.
Mogwai nodded gravely. “That’s the short version.”
“Sounds nice and peaceful.”
“If this wasn’t an artificial island, I might agree with you—”
“Ah…!” Asagi exclaimed, finally grasping the gravity of the situation.
Itogami Island was a man-made island, a city floating on the Pacific Ocean constructed from Gigafloats linked together.
Of course, normal technology could not make a giant city with over five hundred thousand souls float on water. The Demon Sanctuary of Itogami City was a city reliant on magical spells.
“You don’t mean the spells reinforcing the Gigafloats are being canceled, too?!” asked Asagi.
“Yep. Hardening, mass reduction, spatial stabilization, ghost repellers…every kind of spell you can think of is losin’ power. Right now it’s still only affecting the area around Saikai Academy, but if the area of effect increases at this rate, it’s gonna get…a bit rough.”
Asagi clutched her head and sighed hard. “…This is the worst.”
The cause of the magic nullification was not yet clear, but sooner or later, the city would become unable to support its own weight, and Itogami Island would collapse. It certainly wasn’t something she could just ignore.
“So y’see, we’re gettin’ everyone we can on deck to work on strength calculations and reinforcement plans and evacuation guide programs. We’ll pay good money.”
“Well, I understand where you’re coming from now…but it’s pretty tight on this end, too, so I can’t just run to the Management Corporation at the drop of a hat. The monorails are still down, right?”
“I get ya. I’ll get something whipped up on this end to g—”
The television screen upon which the teddy bear avatar was displayed suddenly blacked out.
“…Mogwai?”
Above Asagi and Kojou’s heads, the sound of a giant explosion reverberated, fiercely rocking the hull of the Oceanus Grave II.
Kojou let loose a shout as he tumbled onto the bed from losing his balance.
“What now?!”
At some point, the ship had lost its regular lights, switching to emergency lamps instead.
They already had Sana’s sudden change and the anomaly affecting Itogami Island to worry about. Those two were trouble enough, but now Kojou and Asagi had to switch their attention to the one remaining problem. Kojou remembered what that was as impacts continued slamming against the ship.
The backup looked out of the window as she stated, “It’s an escaped prisoner, meow. Looks like he’s coming to board the ship from the front, mew.”
Kojou sighed as he shot the backup a frosty look.
“…That’s fine, but you’re massively out of character, y’know. Well, if it’s no worse than this, Vattler’ll take care of it. He got us here just so he could draw ’em to this ship, after all…”
But the backup had a somber look about her.
Kojou saw the crimson flames in the nighttime sky reflected in the young girl’s pupils. The air was thick with intense demonic power: a powerful surge of energy far surpassing the norm. It might well have been Vattler calling a Beast Vassal.
The next moment, a single, searing beam assaulted the ship, creating a large explosion in its wake. A portion of the ship was engulfed in flames as debris scattered and broke all about. Something had hit the deck of the Oceanus Grave II with tremendous force.
In the center of the explosion was a young blond man wearing a white coat. Flames burned around Vattler as he lay on his side, blood covering his whole body.
Vattler had tried to counterattack against the assaulting escapees, but he’d been the one that got blown away—? Him, an Old Guard vampire—?
The backup knocked her knuckles against her own head and stuck out her tongue.
“This doesn’t look so good…kyun.”
Even as her needlessly overdramatic pose annoyed him, Kojou grabbed her and Asagi’s hands and rushed out of the cabin.
A little before the prisoners’ raid set the Oceanus Grave II aflame…
…There were two girls on the great pier of Itogami Harbor.
One was a tall girl wielding a long sword. The other was a girl in a nurse outfit, carrying a silver-colored spear. They were Sayaka and Yukina, following in Kojou’s wake.
Sayaka seethed with rage as she looked up at the extravagant cruise ship floating atop the nighttime sea.
“What are you thinking, Kojou Akatsuki?! Staying in the same room as a girl in your own class, with a d-double bed in it…that shameless pervergenitor…!”
The girls couldn’t see the interior of the gigantic luxury yacht from the wharf they stood upon. However, Sayaka had sent a shikigami made out of thin metal plate to keep an eye on Kojou and the others. For Sayaka, well educated in the arts of curses and assassination, using ritual magic for reconnaissance was part of her specialty.
Technically, Yukina could use the same spell, but Sayaka was far more skilled with it. Of the two of them, only Sayaka the Shamanic War Dancer could penetrate the anti-magic ward deployed all across Vattler’s ship to peer within.
“Sana is with them, too, isn’t she? So they’re not alone,” Yukina countered.
“Now that you mention it, I think so, but those two get along really well! Right now Asagi Aiba is smacking Kojou Akatsuki with a sandal.”
“That’s…getting along well?” Yukina murmured.
Relying on Sayaka as an intermediary, Yukina had a thin grasp of the current situation aboard the ship. As a result, Yukina’s mental image inflated on its own; in her head, something major was going on between Kojou and Asagi.
For her part, Sayaka continued to concentrate her mind on her shikigami, tilting her head with a thoroughly mystified look.
“Aiba Asagi’s such a beauty. Why doesn’t Kojou Akatsuki act like he’s aware of it?”
“Um…I don’t really think you are one to talk, Sayaka…,” Yukina reprimanded gently. Her senior from the agency was also somewhat known for her lack of self-awareness.
And then, before she could say any more, she spun the tip of her spear toward the darkness behind her.
“—Incidentally, are you not the one who forced Akatsuki-senpai and Aiba upon each other, Duke Ardeal?”
A voice with a snobbish echo to it floated down from the dark air.
“Oh, you noticed, did you? There’s a Lion King Agency Sword Shaman for you.”
A golden mist riding the wind coalesced into the form of a young man wearing a white coat—Dimitrie Vattler.
Apparently, he’d been watching them while they’d been observing the ship. It was only Yukina’s extremely sharp spiritual senses that allowed her to notice the vampire’s aura while transformed into mist.
“…Do you want Akatsuki-senpai to drink Aiba’s blood?” Yukina demanded. “Why are you going out of your way to offer a sacrifice to the Fourth Primogenitor?”
Vattler smiled casually as he replied.
“Because I thought it was more amusing that way. The fastest way to get Avrora’s Beast Vassals to awaken is for Kojou to drink the blood of a qualified spiritual medium. I think that girl has an excellent chance to make the grade.”
“Why do you intend on granting the Fourth Primogenitor that much power?”
As Yukina asked her question, the expression she gave Vattler was one of dead seriousness.
To Vattler, a blood relative of the First Primogenitor, the Lost Warlord, the Fourth Primogenitor, from a cost-benefit perspective, was an enemy. For Vattler to engage in conduct beneficial to Kojou multiple times was very odd indeed.
Even Vattler’s lust for combat—how he craved to fight opponents more powerful than himself—was not a sufficient explanation. After all, the other nobles and elders of the Warlord’s Empire silently approved of Vattler’s conduct; Vattler having been named ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary was proof enough.
Vattler replied to Yukina with a question of his own in an apparent effort to deflect hers.
“Yukina Himeragi…I wonder if you realize the true reason you were chosen to be Kojou’s watcher?”
Yukina knitted her brows in annoyance, suspicious of a trick.
“What do you mean by that…?”
Yukina had been told that she’d been chosen to be Kojou’s watcher because she was the only Sword Shaman similar in age to him who could stay close without arousing suspicion. She didn’t think there was any other reason.
Vattler gazed with apparent delight at Yukina’s reaction.
“Allow me to change the question, then. What is the Fourth Primogenitor to begin with? If only three vampire primogenitors, the pillars of the race, ought to exist, why is there a fourth?
“If Kojou becomes a complete Fourth Primogenitor, we might learn the reason why a fourth came into being. Also, fighting and consuming Kojou in that state sounds very amusing.”
Vattler laughed as his vulgar thirst for battle finally revealed itself in full. It was a full-throated laugh he normally kept well under wraps.
Yukina subconsciously regripped her spear as she glared at the man. “Duke Ardeal…you are such a…”
Sayaka, having silently listened to their back and forth all this time, poised her sword with a similar level of enmity naked to the eye.
Looking at both of them with a highly satisfied smirk, Vattler abruptly turned his back to them.
“You don’t need to make such scary faces. It’s quite all right—that is for well into the future. Having found my beloved after all this time, I simply must draw out the enjoyment. Besides,” Vattler murmured, “Kojou is not tonight’s guest of honor—”
A malignant aural wave rolled off Vattler’s entire body. He was glaring at a large, unfamiliar silhouette standing at the tip of the pier.
It was a man wearing black armor from the neck down, with a huge sword slung over his back. His unkempt, gray hair resembled the mane of a wild beast. His skin had the color of steel. He didn’t have any obvious demonic characteristics, but he certainly didn’t look like a normal human being.
“An escapee from the prison barrier…!” exclaimed Yukina. She and Sayaka immediately turned their weapons toward the new arrival.
There was a silver manacle covering the gauntlet on the man’s left forearm. He, too, was one of the jailbreakers chasing after Natsuki Minamiya in search of complete freedom from the prison barrier.
He reached toward the giant sword at his back. However, before he could draw it, Vattler unleashed his attack. Without warning, Vattler’s Beast Vassal appeared in the sky and spewed a sickly green beam, striking the man dead center and enveloping him in an enormous explosion.
Yukina stood in shock as she watched the head of the pier collapse.
“D-Duke Ardeal—?!”
The Old Guard vampire’s blow hadn’t held back even a little. She didn’t think anyone could endure a hit like that. Surely it had been a surprise attack, leaving no opportunity to put up a defensive ward.
However, Vattler shot the smoke-enveloped remains of the head of the pier an expectant look.
“I have no need for an opponent who’d die from just that. There’d be no need for me to trouble myself.”
“—Then I shall repay thy words with interest, Dimitrie Vattler!”
A silver-colored light sliced through the hovering cloud of smoke.
Kicking off the ground and leaping high, the armored man drew the massive great sword from his back and pounded it home into Vattler’s Beast Vassal. The monstrous, deep green serpent was dozens of meters long, yet its entire body shuddered with an anguished roar; beams of light scattered from it as it exploded in every direction. Then, the armored man sliced toward Vattler, defenseless with the loss of his Beast Vassal.
“Gwah?!”
Sustaining a merciless slashing attack from the flank, Vattler’s tall form was blown away. He sailed all the way to the Oceanus Grave II, colliding with it, scattering rubble that also buried him and hid him from sight. Fragments of the ruptured Beast Vassal poured down upon the ship, causing explosions and fires in multiple locations.
“Duke Ardeal!” Yukina exclaimed.
“He cut…a Beast Vassal?! No way…?!” said Sayaka, her eyes wide in astonishment.
A vampire’s Beast Vassal was a summoned creature from another world, using vast magical energy to take physical form.
By their very nature, being masses of magical energy themselves, they could only be defeated by slamming even greater magical energy into them.
However, the armored man had felled one with a single blow of his sword. Even though Yukina and Sayaka had just witnessed this with their own eyes, it was still a hard sight for them to easily believe.
The armored man leaped toward the deck of the ship in pursuit of the wounded vampire.
Yukina and Sayaka hastily pursued the man in turn. Kojou and the others were inside the burning ship. They didn’t think Kojou, in his present state, could do anything against an opponent who’d defeated the likes of Vattler with one blow. Protecting Asagi, an ordinary person, or the age-reduced Natsuki seemed an utterly impossible task for him alone, but…
A new man suddenly stood before the girls. He had red hair, a small stature, and an inappropriately bright, wide smile on his face.
“Ooh…he really went in big. Tch, I’m late to the party, dammit!”
He spoke in a voice of ready admiration at the sight of the ship ablaze; perhaps his appearance reflected a so-called fiery personality.
Yukina stopped where she stood and raised her spear.
“Who are you…?!”
As she asked it, she remembered the man’s face. He was the prisoner called Schtola D.
The corners of his lips rose as he looked back in amusement at Yukina, now in a combat stance.
“What’s this…? In this Demon Sanctuary, even nurses work as Attack Mages?”
“Eh?”
“Well, fine. I owe you one for stepping on my pride, little nurse—!”
Yukina didn’t have the time to retort, I am not a nurse!, but it was apparently a trivial matter to Schtola D. He raised his right hand high above his head, swinging it down at once.
Yukina bit her lip. It was his invisible slash, the mysterious attack that even Snowdrift Wolf, able to nullify all types of magical energy, could not completely block. Since she couldn’t nail down the timing or distance, deflection seemed the better option—
Yukina raised her spear, relying on intuition alone. She couldn’t dodge an attack when she didn’t know the enemy’s striking range. She had no choice but to block it.
But just before Schtola D’s attack came at her, a silhouette danced right before Yukina’s eyes.
“—What are you trying to do to my Yukina, you little shrimp?!”
Sayaka’s long hair swayed as she lashed out with her long silver sword.
One of the abilities of Sayaka’s sword, Lustrous Scale, was to nullify physical attacks.
Through severing space itself, the area sliced by Lustrous Scale became a momentary barrier that was utterly invincible against physical attacks.
And so, Schtola D’s invisible slash slammed into the invisible wall before Sayaka’s eyes, bouncing off and petering out.
Schtola D’s face twisted in malice.
“…That’s a nice trick you’ve got, bitch!”
He had absolute confidence in his own attack; seeing it blocked had really gotten his blood flowing. It was quite a troublesome personality trait.