Strike the Blood, Vol. 7: Kaleid Blood

by Gakuto Mikumo

  The young man was headed to a run-down tavern, a less than popular establishment making use of a condemned building. The number of patrons could be counted on one hand. The scent hovering inside came from a narcotic made from cactus extracts. It was a powerful hallucinogen, enough that a normal human taking even a small quantity would die from an overdose. It worked fairly well even on demons resistant to drugs.

  Behind the counter was a bartender who appeared to be the owner. He was over three meters tall, and beyond that, his physique was clearly not that of a normal human. He was a so-called Gigas, a race of giants low in number and rarely seen, even in Demon Sanctuaries or Dominions.

  The barkeep addressed the young man in a rumbling voice like a bass instrument.

  “Haven’t seen your face before.”

  Behind those words was a clear undertone stating, Now get lost. However, the young man calmly walked to the barkeep and put a stack of bills on the counter. It was probably more than a half-year’s worth of profits for the tavern.

  The blond young man quietly asked, his voice elegant yet acidic, “I’ve heard that a young female vampire has been hiding out here. Could you introduce us?”

  The barkeep took the stack of paper while bluntly shaking his head.

  “Haven’t heard one word about that.”

  “Hmph.” As he smiled charmingly, sharp fangs protruded from the gap between his lips. He casually realized that a pair of men who had been drinking inside the tavern had walked over to the counter, hemming him in on both sides. Like the owner, each was over three meters tall, likely weighing over four hundred kilograms each, forming an impressive and imposing wall of muscle.

  “—Get lost. This place is for Gigas only,” one of the giants threatened.

  However, the young man calmly disregarded the warning.

  “Not enough chips on the table? How about this?”

  He placed a few dozen coins known as Northern Imperial krones on the counter. They had to be worth over one hundred thousand Japanese yen. Special measures were employed to prevent counterfeiting of the North Sea Empire’s silver coins, and many were used for dealings among criminal organizations.

  Without thinking, the storekeeper stretched his hand toward the silver coins, but he stopped at the sound of patrons’ angry voices.

  “Hey, you have a lot of nerve ignoring us, brat!”

  The giant on the right wrapped his arms around the young man and lifted him in the air in a bear hug.

  “What, you thought you could walk all over a Gigas in the middle of a Sanctuary?”

  The young man probably weighed less than twenty percent of any of the giants. However, his expression revealed no panic. On the contrary, he gazed at the bracelets the giants wore as he used one hand to restrain the giant’s arms.

  They were demon registration bracelets issued by the Gigafloat Management Corporation—simultaneously serving as citizen identification and a monitoring shackle. When demons committed acts of violence within Itogami City limits, that information was conveyed to the Island Guard. However, in spite of the giants’ rage, the bracelets showed no response.

  The blond man calmly surveyed the area as he said, “Hmm, so the bracelet infrastructure doesn’t work out here?”

  Apparently, the erased district was outside of the operating range of the system, like an electromagnetic blind spot. In other words, even if demons ran riot in the district, no one would notice, not even if someone were to die as a result…

  “Even in a district that shouldn’t exist, it would be quite a problem if word of this got out.”

  “If you understand, then get the hell out right now. Or do you want me to suffocate you?” the giant to the right replied.

  “…What is making you so nervous, hmm?”

  The man’s chuckling comment froze the two giants’ faces.

  “What?!”

  He easily released himself from the vice grip. This was not a feat that his body ought to have been able to perform. And yet, it was the giant whose bones creaked against overwhelming strength.

  The young man’s eyes were dyed red as his fangs gleamed white once more. The giant staggered back as he was completely thrust away.

  “A vampire?! But that power…!”

  In the meantime, the man on the left drew a weapon from his back. To a giant, it was no more than a simple knife, but its blade looked like a great sword to human eyes.

  “You’re…Dimitrie Vattler?!”

  The eerie man—Vattler—smiled up at the knife-wielding giant in obvious delight.

  “And you turn your blade toward me, knowing this? I see. It seems you are not simple thugs.”

  Vattler’s tall body suddenly swayed. The concrete building’s floor warped as if about to collapse, but only in the area near him. Surely it was the air inside the tavern, groaning in agony from a sudden change in air pressure, causing innumerable cracks in the walls and pillars of the building.

  Utterly calm, Vattler endured the incredible pressure bearing down on his entire body.

  “A weapon of the Gigas, who control elemental power… I would expect as much from self-declared children of demigods.”

  The Gigas did not rely on the strength supporting their giant bodies alone. Perhaps their suitability for barren deserts, wastelands, and other harsh climates made their flesh especially compatible with elemental spirits. In other words, many Gigas were natural-born Spirit Mages. In addition, since ancient times, giants had been renowned for their mining, metalworking, and forging techniques. Weapons forged by them borrowed power from spirits to enable high-end sorcery for a variety of special powers. Indeed, the kingdom of Aldegia’s Völundr System had been developed from the study of Gigas weaponry.

  The Gigas man’s knife was one such magic weapon, a vile demonic blade able to manipulate gravity. At a hundred times normal gravity, Vattler’s body weighed several tons; a ten-centimeter fall had the same impact as falling ten meters to the ground. Furthermore, the super-gravitational area of effect was confined to where Vattler was standing. The two giants were unaffected by the magic blade’s effects and could attack him at will.

  But a moment after the giants became certain of their victory…

  “…G…wah?!”

  Thud came an impact with the force of an iron maul, sending both giants flying.

  Vattler had not yet summoned a Beast Vassal. He had merely loosened the reins holding the demonic energy inside his body for one brief moment. The explosive magical energy easily nullified the gravity attack and battered both Gigas.

  In the process, the surge of power blew away an exterior wall of the aging establishment, and fragments of the collapsing ceiling poured into the tavern.

  The bloodstained giant on the right side murmured ruefully, “Ugh…damned rabid dog…”

  …and promptly lost consciousness. The giant on the left was more gravely injured, the price he had paid for using the magic blade until the bitter end in the hopes of weakening the vampire’s counterattack even a little.

  Vattler stood alone amidst the thick dust, completely unharmed.

  The only other person in the tavern, the barkeep, simply stood behind the counter, dumbfounded.

  Vattler glanced at the two giants, satisfied by their will to fight to the end. Then he turned his crimson eyes toward the shivering barkeep and smiled cruelly enough to turn his blood to ice.

  “Now, if I may continue my questions…”

  A woman was standing on the roof of a half-collapsed building.

  She was a foreign girl wearing a white hood, and her graceful legs were as pale as a ghost’s. The unmoving figure staring at the sea resembled a beautiful piece of engraved glass.

  And at the dark bottom of the clear water lay a vast ruin. She was by herself, gazing at this submerged urban area.

  Vattler walked up a set of half-destroyed stairs as he spoke to the girl.

  “—Island Old Southwest, the tragic district that sank here a half a year ago.”

&
nbsp; His tone was as conceited as always, but his words were tinged with frigid bloodlust. The reason for his anger was not that he had been unexpectedly delayed in discerning her location. Rather, the fact that she was standing in that place at all rubbed Vattler the wrong way.

  The ruin of Island Old Southwest was holy ground that held a host of feelings for him. It was the gravestone of a particular group of girls and not a place for unrelated outsiders to tread.

  However, the girl in the white hood did not even turn her head as she murmured, “So you have come, Dimitrie Vattler…”

  His lips curled into a smile. The girl knew he was coming. In other words, she had prepared herself for the eventuality of combat.

  “Who are you? When did you sneak into Itogami Island? And what are you looking into here?” he asked quietly.

  She was not a legitimate citizen of Itogami City. She was an unregistered demon and an illegal visitor. But on the other hand, she knew about the erased district and the existence of Island Old Southwest at the bottom of the sea. She knew, then, a great level of detail about the happenings on Itogami Island.

  On top of that, she had co-conspirators concealing her even at the risk of their very lives. He very much doubted members of the proud Gigas race would offer their loyalty to a simple vampire girl.

  But the little girl casually blew off Vattler’s doubts.

  “Pay me no heed… I am very generous tonight, so as a special exception, I shall let you go. Leave, Master of Serpents.”

  A joyful look came over Vattler.

  “How lovely. Snuck in on a boat, did you? All the more amusing for me…!”

  Behind him, the vacillating shadow of a giant Beast Vassal floated up into the air. If the opponent was a fellow vampire, there was no reason for Vattler to refrain from summoning his Beast Vassals.

  The girl waved with a sleeve of her robe as she slowly turned around. “Hmm, so you disregard my warning? Just as well.”

  “Quick and to the point.” Vattler laughed. Apparently, the girl meant to fight him head-on. A combat maniac such as himself couldn’t ask for a better situation. Worst case, he would consume the girl and extract his information that way.

  Vattler summoned two Beast Vassals.

  “—Nanda! Batsunanda!”

  He merged both of these together to create a new Beast Vassal, its magical power amplified several times over. Together they became a steel-colored dragon engulfed in incandescent flames. The vast magical energy, on par with a Beast Vassal from a primogenitor, made the abandoned artificial ground shudder and created turbulent ripples on the surface of the surrounding seawater.

  The girl exhaled in admiration.

  “Ohh…!”

  Vattler had two reasons to use a Fusion Beast Vassal at the outset. First, to rob his enemy of the will to fight with a display of the overwhelming superiority of his might; second, to unleash maximum power against an opponent of unknown caliber, faithfully adhering to the fundamentals of tactics.

  Even if the opponent was a little girl, Vattler did not underestimate his enemies—his pure combat instincts had always saved his life in the past.

  “So this is your much-rumored Fusion Beast Vassal? Certainly, its strength is impressive.”

  The instant the mighty creature attacked the girl, she raised her right hand, fending off the attack with the greatest of ease. The fused Beast Vassal was annihilated in the shock wave of its own attack.

  Vattler groaned from the ferocious backlash. “Ugh?!”

  Unable to maintain its physical form, the fused Beast Vassal split apart, returning to the alien world from whence it came.

  The girl had not blocked Vattler’s attack—quite the opposite. In the instant the Beast Vassal had collided with the girl, it had barely managed to nullify the incredible demonic power she released. Even the stalwart Fusion Beast Vassal had been unable to withstand the girl’s attack.

  “That’s crazy… How could you…?”

  The girl looked back at the shaken Vattler with delight. “Why are you surprised? I am the World’s Mightiest Vampire. Is my blocking your attack so unexpected?”

  A surge of wind blew back the girl’s hood, revealing her face. She was around fourteen or fifteen years old with fairy-like beauty. The hair that reached her hips was blond, but in the light of the sun, it reflected all the colors of the rainbow. Her large eyes glimmered like blue flames.

  She continued, “What is wrong, Master of Serpents? Have you forgotten my face? Or do you find it mysterious that I am here when I should be dead?”

  Vattler’s teeth ground deep inside his mouth.

  “Flaming eyes… Avrora…Florestina…?!”

  The density of the destructive magical energy flowing from his entire body was on a completely different level than before. He summoned three serpents at the same time, merging them into a single, four-legged golden dragon. The miasma it released was enough to turn the nearby air into poison. The vegetation in the surrounding area turned brown, withering and crumbling away.

  The girl let out a small giggle, smiling with childlike innocence.

  “Triple fusion… How amusing. To be so frenzied at the mere sight of me—there is an adorable side to you, young Vattler.”

  “—Since you have shown yourself in that form, surely there is no need for restraint. Apologies, but I will make you pay an appropriate price,” Vattler said coldly.

  It was not possible for Avrora Florestina, the previous Fourth Primogenitor, to be standing before him.

  It couldn’t be her because Kojou Akatsuki had already inherited the power of the Fourth Primogenitor. Avrora no longer existed. There was a reason why she could not exist.

  However, these were trivial concerns to Vattler. Whether the girl before his eyes was the real Avrora Florestina or not mattered little. His reasoning was straightforward: If she was the true Fourth Primogenitor, she would survive Vattler’s attack, and if she was an imposter, she would perish then and there.

  Without a single moment of hesitation, Vattler made his decision amid the chaos.

  The girl’s fangs protruded as she grinned, pleased with Vattler’s judgment.

  “Indeed.”

  He charged at the girl with the giant Fusion Beast Vassal. He was enveloped in incredible demonic energy well surpassing that of a vampire noble. His reputation as a man who had butchered several Wisemen above that rank wasn’t for nothing. Surely, only the true primogenitors themselves could stand against Vattler now—any one of the three primogenitors occupying the thrones of their Dominions, or the Fourth Primogenitor, whose very existence was in question—

  Then the girl narrowed her blazing eyes with delight as she noted to herself, “Eliminating you first was indeed the right decision, Master of Serpents.”

  The next instant, he saw the girl move away from him at incredible speed.

  No, it was not the girl who was moving away. Vattler and his Beast Vassal alone were cut off from the real world. Darkness obscured his vision, leaving him unable to see anything. Sound, scent, and even gravity disappeared. Finally, he was even doubting his own existence.

  “…Spatial control… No, this space itself is a Beast Vassal?!”

  It was Vattler’s abundant wealth of combat experience that enabled him to grasp his current situation. The girl had landed her attack on Vattler before he managed to strike her.

  The space itself, a world of infinite darkness, was a materialized Beast Vassal. Her weapon now comprised the entire world around him.

  Unsurprisingly, even Vattler could not contain his shock. She had to be a real primogenitor to control a Beast Vassal of such a scale.

  Imprisoned by darkness, Vattler heard the girl’s voice speaking directly to the back of his mind.

  “Do not think I shall take your life. You will remain on the sidelines here until I have concluded my business.”

  He could detect no hostility in her words or in the wry laugh that accompanied them.

  Vattler exhaled and then mur
mured, “I see—So this was your objective from the beginning. To cut Kojou off from the Warlord’s Empire surveillance…”

  Somehow, his expression looked like a pout, something he would never display under normal circumstances.

  The girl abruptly altered her tone, sounding amused yet somehow sincere.

  “This is not personal, Dimitrie Vattler. I understand why you are attached to the Fourth Primogenitor. However, it is not the Lost Warlord alone who takes an interest in him.”

  “You will pay dearly for this—” he threatened, still floating in darkness.

  “I shall remember, Dimitrie Vattler—my good, old friend,” she teased.

  With that, the girl’s presence grew distant, leaving the vampire aristocrat in darkness, alone.

  2

  Thursday, near the end of November—

  It was late autumn on the calendar, but on the tropical Itogami Island, the rays of the sun still streamed down in force.

  That morning, the slumber of Kojou Akatsuki, the World’s Mightiest Vampire, was disturbed by his apartment’s doorbell. The melodic electronic chime stubbornly echoed throughout the household several times.

  Kojou had pulled up his sheets in an attempt to ignore it, but this, of course, could only do so much.

  He sluggishly sat up, reaching toward his bedside alarm clock.

  “A guest…huh?”

  The sunbeams filtering through the curtain burned Kojou’s defenseless skin. Well, not that it dealt any actual damage, but it was uncomfortable and distinct unpleasant. His mind felt like it was covered in cobwebs, still vague and nonfunctional. Now that Kojou was a vampire, he was decidedly not a morning person.

  “Who the hell is it on a normal morning like this…? Do they even know what time it is…?”

  Kojou grumbled to himself as he peered at the face of the clock. A moment later, he was unable to control the idiotic-sounding cry from his throat.

  “Nuoooooo!”

  The small arm of the clock was at an impossible angle, displaying that it was a full hour past his normal wake-up time. At this rate he’d be late for sure. He didn’t even know if he’d make it if he left the apartment right that moment—