Labyrinth of the Blue Witch

by Gakuto Mikumo

  It was this icy Beast Vassal that had annihilated Vattler’s Beast Vassal and inflicted such grave wounds upon him.

  “This is insane… That’s Alessia Gracius… Avrora Florestina’s twelfth Beast Vassal. How are you employing its power?” Vattler’s body was still in tatters as he posed the question. However, the girl made no reply.

  Vattler glared with poorly focused eyes at the girl; finally, his shoulders shook as he laughed out loud.

  “No, I see… So that’s how it is… Ha-ha! That’s why you can use it—”

  As he continued to laugh, clotting blood poured out of Vattler’s throat, even as seething bodily fluids poured out of wounds over his entire body. Even so, his laughter did not cease. It was laughter that was equal parts clarity and madness.

  “So this is why Kojou Akatsuki consumed Avrora and gained the power of the Fourth Primogenitor…and you’ve been watching the whole time. Gwa-ha-ha-ha-ha…!”

  The cat-eared girl on top of the container sounded somewhat beside herself as she spoke.

  “…It seems your mood has improved somewhat, Master of Serpents.”

  “Oh yes… Thanks to this I’m in a very good mood. I mean, it’s quite obvious. There’s only one possibility as to why there is someone other than the Fourth Primogenitor who can employ the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals…”

  Having finally ceased his laughter, Vattler gently picked himself up.

  The bones broken across his entire body had largely finished mending; his lost internal organs and the right side of his body had finished regenerating as well. Even if vampires were immortal by their very nature, it was a shocking level of healing.

  The cat-eared girl spoke as she gazed at the revived vampire aristocrat.

  “I have one thing to tell you, Dimitrie Vattler.”

  “…And what would that be, twelfth?”

  Vattler’s reply came with a defiant look. For but a single moment, the girl who looked like Nagisa Akatsuki raised an eyebrow in displeasure. She then continued in a calm tone of voice…

  “Nothing is finished yet. Nothing—”

  Kojou Akatsuki opened his eyes in the dimly lit chapel.

  He apparently hadn’t been unconscious for all that long. Kojou could still feel the pleasant coolness of the floor against his back.

  But the white fabric touching his right cheek was slightly warm. Kojou had not yet realized that the fabric was part of Yukina’s dress as she cradled Kojou’s head on her lap.

  Even so, Kojou subconsciously turned his face over to feel more of the pleasant sensation when…

  “Have you come to, senpai?”

  Surprised to hear Yukina’s voice in his ear, he sat up in a great hurry.

  “—Himeragi…?!”

  The next moment, Kojou groaned in anguish from the intense pain racking his entire body. It was as if every nerve in his body had been tossed into a blender.

  “Man, my body hurts like I just died…”

  “…Just as we expected, then?”

  Yukina petted Kojou on the head as if taking care of a high-maintenance younger brother.

  Though embarrassed at how she was obviously treating him like a child, healing magic didn’t work on Kojou because he was a vampire; there was really nothing else that Yukina could do. He didn’t think any kind of sane treatment you’d get from going to a hospital could cure the aftereffects of being body-jacked by a witch, either. Going to one would be frightening just by itself.

  Having retaken his own vampiric body, Kojou could think of only one thing that would help.

  “Hey, ah, Himeragi…maybe some of your blood would…?”

  “You may not. You absolutely may not. The other times, it couldn’t be helped because of pressing circumstances!” Yukina pressed her lips together with a “muu” and pinched Kojou’s cheek. This put Kojou at ease. It seemed she was letting Kojou know what she really thought.

  Yukina had only offered him her blood twice so far. Both occurred after Kojou had already died. That’s why, when Yukina hesitated to use Snowdrift Wolf upon him, he’d told her to let him drink his blood like usual.

  He was telling her: It’s cool, even if I die from it I’ll come back.

  He wanted to think that Yukina’s finally using Snowdrift Wolf on him without mercy was just her following his good advice.

  “I’m glad you realized. Thanks.”

  “Please do not say that where others can hear ever again.”

  Yukina pinched Kojou’s cheek again as she spoke. So if no one’s around, it’s okay then? pondered Kojou, though he had his doubts.

  “Right… Yuuma?!”

  Yukina’s gaze shifted to Yuuma, who was lying right beside Kojou on her side.

  “She’s safe. The impact from having been severed from the connecting space was less than you suffered, but…”

  Yuuma’s cheeks were still pale, and there were signs of having bled across her entire body, but she didn’t seem to be in any mortal danger. Her breasts were rising and falling as they should, after all; her face was not twisted in pain. Looking at her from the outside, Yuuma’s face was most definitely lovely. Behind that whole boyish attitude was a style that was surprisingly feminine and totally worked for her. Looking back on it now, he felt like he’d wasted an opportunity. Surely changing clothes and showering one time while in her body wouldn’t have been any great transgression?

  As Kojou lazily thought of such impure things, Yuuma suddenly opened her eyes and looked at Kojou. It seemed like she’d been conscious to start with. To Kojou, rocked by the eerie timing, Yuuma murmured in a flat tone, “…Looks like I failed…”

  There was neither anger nor sadness, only a hollow ring to her voice. She sounded like an old man who’d lost his reason to live who longed for death.

  Seeing his childhood friend like that, Kojou felt a fierce anger and, heedless of how his entire nervous system creaked, he sat up and glared at Yuuma.

  “No, that’s not it at all. You’ve been set free.”

  Yuuma blinked several times over in surprise. Then, a smile came over her like a flower in bloom.

  Kojou’s cheeks reddened as her smiling face took him by surprise. Apparently, in the last four years, that oh-so-handsome Yuuma had become able to display such a gentle expression.

  “Kojou.”

  “What?” Looking up at the obviously blushing Kojou, Yuuma teasingly asked…

  “How did it feel to be inside my body?”

  “Wha…?!” Kojou loudly cleared his throat by reflex. “Don’t say it like that, people are gonna get the completely wrong idea!”

  “Did you do anything dirty?”

  Kojou raised his voice as he felt backed into a corner.

  “I did not!”

  He knew full well he sounded like a liar in proportion to his desperation, but he couldn’t help it in a situation like this. The displeased look Yukina was shooting him from the side had him completely unnerved.

  That moment, Kojou heard a familiar voice behind him.

  “…Goodness, you certainly are taking it easy after kicking up this much of a ruckus.”

  The ever-so-slight lisp to it mysteriously gave the sound of her voice an odd charisma.

  Looking back, Kojou saw Natsuki Manamiya, whom he thought still asleep, standing there.

  He was certain that this moment, this was no clone created by a magic spell, but rather her real body, sealed away in the prison barrier. But Kojou had the impudent and rather silly thought that she was exactly the same as usual. In the end, Natsuki was Natsuki, be she clone or original.

  Yukina spoke in apparent relief. “So you have awakened, Ms. Minamiya?”

  If she, the key to the prison barrier, had awakened, they could reestablish its seal or create a new defense system altogether, picking from numerous available options.

  Kojou gazed up at Natsuki with a look rich in dissatisfaction. “Wait… don’t tell me you were pretending to be asleep. That’s dirty pool.”

  Sh
e pouted at him a little.

  “It’s true that I had to preserve my strength. Even I wouldn’t have gotten away lightly if I’d taken a square hit from one of your Beast Vassals… You have some nerve raising a hand against your honored teacher. I must grant you a suitable reward.”

  As she spoke, she suddenly smacked Kojou’s forehead right between the eyes.

  “Owwwwww! What kind of reward is that?! And it wasn’t me who did it anyway!”

  “Mm? What, here? Is here good?”

  “Guoa?! Shit… Well you sure seem well rested!!”

  Kojou tearfully moaned as he clutched his forehead. He felt like the ceaseless, nigh-unbearable pain all over his body had eased a little. Perhaps Natsuki had used a spell to heal Kojou somehow. If she did, couldn’t she find a nicer way to do it, Kojou sulked in his own head.

  Finally, Natsuki looked down at Kojou in exasperation and sighed.

  “Goodness…to have the day come when I’m saved by my own student. It’s not easy getting old.”

  Kojou was beside himself at the words spoken by Natsuki, who bore the appearance of a little girl.

  “I don’t really think you’re one to talk about that…” For her part, Natsuki’s expression suddenly turned serious as she turned to face Yuuma.

  “…What will you do, daughter of Aya Tokoyogi? Wanna go another round?”

  Yuuma calmly sat up and shook her head.

  “I’ll pass. That knocked all the stuffing out of me. Looks like I don’t have any reason to mess with the prison barrier anymore… Le Bleu is a total mess, too.”

  “Is that so?”

  Natsuki looked at the Guardian Yuuma had materialized and nodded.

  Thanks to the backlash of excess demonic energy and its battle with Yukina, the faceless blue knight was in a pitiable state with wounds over its entire body. Even if it could recover, Yuuma would require long months and years before completely regaining her powers as a witch. Kojou didn’t think Yuuma really wanted that anyway.

  She was finally free of the curse her own mother had set upon her.

  As it truly hit him, Kojou couldn’t stop a satisfied smile from coming over his face.

  And that was when it happened.

  Yuuma’s voice quivered with unease as she tried to release her Guardian from materialization.

  “…Le Bleu…?”

  The armor covering the faceless knight’s entire body rattled and shuddered. The clash of metal on metal produced a strange sound. It’s laughing, Kojou suddenly realized.

  The knight, wounded all over, made a laugh under its mask that seemed hollow, like a skeleton—

  “Le Bleu, stop!” Yuuma commanded it almost in a shrieking voice. But the blue knight’s movements did not cease.

  The blue knight reached to the sword on its hip, drawing it for the first time. The blade that emerged from within the scabbard was sharp and extremely polished, as if never before used.

  Kojou and Yukina leaped, each moving in front of Natsuki to shield her.

  However, the blue knight’s next action went against all of their expectations.

  After one wave of its giant sword, the blue knight plunged it into Yuuma’s chest. Into Yuuma, the very person he was supposed to protect.

  Kojou beheld the scene in horror.

  “…Yuu—ma?!”

  With a gurgle, fresh blood spilled out of Yuuma’s mouth.

  Yuuma reached out toward her own Guardian as she let out a despairing voice.

  “…Mother… This is how…badly you want it…?”

  The blade had thrust deeply into her chest. But the tip of the sword, which should have passed right through her, did not appear on the other side. It had used Yuuma’s body as a teleportation gate to transfer the sword somewhere else.

  A broken, rusted voice came from the faceless blue knight.

  “Long have I awaited this moment…the moment when even one as sly and capricious as you let down your guard.”

  It was the voice of a woman, with the tone of an adult wicked witch.

  Natsuki suddenly let out a scorn-filled murmur.

  “A booby trap… To think you would use your own daughter as a decoy… Inhuman.”

  When he scented blood wafting up with her breath, Kojou’s face froze over as he looked back.

  A malevolent, raw mass of steel was protruding from the beautiful lace adorning Natsuki’s chest.

  It was the tip of the blue knight’s giant sword—

  “Ms. Minamiya!”

  “Natsuki?!”

  Yukina and Kojou could do nothing but gape at the all-too-twisted sight.

  As Kojou lost himself to shock, Natsuki glared at him in mild anger and made a weak laugh.

  “Fool… Don’t…call your homeroom teacher by her…given name…”

  The small, doll-like body of his homeroom teacher slowly collapsed onto the floor.

  He continued to hear the never-ending, ghoulish laughter of the faceless blue knight.

  He picked up the all-too-light body of his homeroom teacher… Kojou could only shout until his voice grew hoarse.

  “Uooooooooooooo—!”

  The roar of the Fourth Primogenitor echoed within the crumbling, dimly lit cathedral—

  Afterword

  And so, Strike the Blood, Volume 4 goes off to the presses.

  With the fourth volume, this series has hit its second year. As the author, I feel like I’ve been sluggish every day like usual with no sense of growth whatsoever, but the product (and only the product) seems to be coming along fine, so please hang in there with me. It actually feels like the publication pace has increased. A little. Somehow.

  Now, I feel like I have to come out right away and say I’m sorry, mainly for the treatment of Natsuki here. Actually, I intended to give Natsuki a crucial role back in the planning stage, but when it came to her actually getting her turn to lead… I mean, what in the world happened there?

  Of course, I think everyone who has read until the final page can tell that it was really a simple matter of page count. Often, parts of the current episode are used to set up developments in future ones, so she’ll be playing a much larger role in the next volume and beyond. I’m still very sorry for all the people who saw our plans in the mail magazine, etc., and who had their hopes built up for Natsuki to do more here. Incidentally, it was the editor who flatly turned down my suggestion that “It’s okay to make Natsuki the cover girl for the fourth volume” so please direct any complaints to the editorial department.

  This time, I received more criticism that Kojou was getting too many lucky scenes, so next time I’ll put him through the wringer (by company standards)—it’ll feel like it’s physically impossible for him to even flirt.

  Maybe this is a reason why people don’t feel like enough happened, so just think of the next volume and after as being everyone’s revenge.

  Now, just as touched on even in the text of this book, Itogami Island’s Hollow Eve Festival uses Halloween motifs. Maybe it’s not quite the same of late, but until I moved to a certain city a few years back, Halloween had a very fictional air to it; it didn’t really feel like an event you actually experienced in real life. It’s hard for single men to imagine any event existing in the entertainment world on the same level as Valentine’s Day.

  Now in spite of all that, this city really made a big deal about Halloween, with Halloween season bringing an army of cosplayers parading through and occupying the center of the city, with little boys and girls in costumes (for children’s events) wandering around the shopping districts trick-or-treating every year like it was a normal thing, and it hit me: Whoa, this thing is real.

  So, I’ve revived quite a bit of the impact of that moment with this, the Hollow Eve Festival arc, and that will continue. More to the point, next volume is the main event, so stay tuned.

  So this ended up being last, but to Manyako, who decorated yet another volume with alluring illustrations, you truly have my thanks. Even though I hit you with overly cl
ichéd requests like “How ’bout everyone in costume” and “Make it feel cute,” you really outdid yourself and I’m truly grateful. Let me also thank Yuzawa the editor once more and everyone who was involved in getting this work into circulation.

  Finally, my deepest thanks to all of you who have read this book.

  I very much hope to see you for the next volume.

  Gakuto Mikumo

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  Copyright

  STRIKE THE BLOOD, Volume 4

  GAKUTO MIKUMO

  Translation by Jeremiah Bourque

  Cover art by Manyako

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  SUTORAIKU ZA BURADDO

  ©GAKUTO MIKUMO 2012

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS

  First published in Japan in 2012 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2016 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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