The Amphisbaena (22 page)

“…You can’t mean…you’ve summoned a spirit…inside of yourself?!”

Beatrice’s bloodied tongue quavered.

La Folia narrowed her eyes as she smiled. Her blue eyes glowed with a pale white light…

“Yes. Right now,
I am the spiritual reactor
. Beatrice Basler…”

Drawing from the spirit within her own flesh, the princess controlled the enormous spiritual energy as she raised the blade high.

“For striking down not only knights, but noncombatants as well…in the name of La Folia Rihavein, I find you guilty. Now feel your sins against my people repaid.”

Thanks to the damage she’d sustained in her fight with Yukina, there was no way Beatrice could evade the attack. The pseudo–Holy Sword cleaved into the vampiress’s body from the shoulder down.

“Dam…mit all… Why is this happening to me…?”

Beatrice’s voice spat out curses as the radiant beam set her entire body ablaze.

That her body remained intact rather than burned to a crisp was because La Folia stayed her blade at the last possible moment. She was gravely wounded and on death’s door even so. After several fierce convulsions, the vampiress finally stopped moving.

No longer paying heed to the criminal she had punished, La Folia lifted her eyes toward the sky.

There, dancing in the sky, three-by-six wings spread, was Faux-Angel…

The pseudo–Holy Sword of the Völundr System would not work against an artificial angel protected by a divine aura. There was only one person who could save Kanon Kanase now…

“I believe in you, Kojou Akatsuki.”

La Folia made a charming smile as beautiful as any flower as she lovingly stroked the mark left on her own neck.

Affected by Kanon Kanase’s awakening, a sea breeze mixed with powdered snow began to rage.

Pillars of light broke through the cracks in the gray clouds, stretching to the ground.

Against those rays of light, Faux-Angel hovered high in the sky, gazing downward.

“Kyriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—!”

The angel’s visage of idealized beauty twisted as she cried out.

There was no longer any sign of the two Masked. Though unfamiliarity with the remote control had slowed Yukina down, she’d somehow
managed to shut them down and put them to sleep once more. The skies belonged to Kanon alone.

The eyeballs on the surface of the six-fold wings gazed upon Kojou with the countenance of a supreme being.

Calmly ignoring the frigid gaze that seemed capable of turning all in its view to ice, Kojou gazed at Kanon’s eyes alone. Even now, Kanon’s deep blue eyes were weeping, tears of blood pouring from them.

Kojou called out to Kanon in a soft voice. “Are you suffering, Kanase?” That voice disappeared amid the snowstorm and Faux-Angel’s cry. But Kojou was sure that his words were reaching Kanon.

“I know. You wouldn’t even criticize the irresponsible owners of all those abandoned cats, not even once…”

She didn’t know who her parents were; she’d lost the land of her birth, too. She was kinder to others than anyone because she’d tasted more loneliness and sadness than any of them.

He didn’t know if she was just born that way or if it was the result of the love with which she’d been raised by those around her. But Kojou thought that her sublime nature was indeed worthy of those who called themselves royalty.

There was no way Kanon wanted to hurt anyone.

Even if her opponent was a vampire Primogenitor cursed by the very gods…

“If the folks they call gods are arrogant, petty minded, and cruel enough they have to destroy everything that they don’t like, I ain’t gonna let you be their errand girl.”

The eyeballs on the surface of the angel’s wings shot out a sword of light.

But the attack was not of Kanon’s volition; it was the defensive reaction of her angelic body. An angel could no more choose not to attack demons than fire refuse to burn wood or acid refuse to dissolve metal. That fact made Kanon suffer.

An angel did not possess free will; she was a phenomenon, no different than heat or light.

Turning a person into an angel was the same as looking at life itself as a mere phenomenon and spitting on it.

No doubt some would call that salvation. Some would feel it was liberation from suffering.

But to someone who did not desire it, it was nothing more than eternal torment.

There was only one way to free Kanon from her suffering—

“I’m gonna drag you down from there, right this minute!”

Kojou wiped out the swords of light that poured down one after another as he yelled. The ominous aura gushing out from his entire body made the irises of the angel’s eyeballs narrow like those of a cat.

Kojou thrust his left arm out, aiming straight at them. What gushed from the end of his arm was fresh blood.

“I, Kojou Akatsuki, inheritor of the Kaleid Blood lineage, release thee from thy bonds…!”

The fresh blood transformed into an enormous surge of demonic energy; the surge condensed, changing and materializing into a summoned beast: a vampiric Beast Vassal covered in glossy, silver scales.

“…Come, Beast Vassal Number Three—Al-Meissa Mercury!”

It was a dragon that emerged. It had a slowly undulating serpentine body, four talons, and giant, ominous wings: a serpentine dragon covered in silver scales.

And there were two of them—

The two dragons that emerged simultaneously wrapped around each other’s body in a spiral, taking the form of a single giant dragon with one head on each end; in other words, the form of a two-headed dragon.

This was one of the Beast Vassals that Kojou had inherited from the previous Fourth Primogenitor, Kaleid Blood. Al-Meissa Mercury, the two-headed Beast Vassal, was really two beasts merged into one.

That was why it had not awoken from sucking Yukina’s blood alone.

Making them completely obey required consuming the blood of two different spiritual mediums at the same time. No doubt La Folia had allowed Kojou to suck on her blood because she’d perceived as much.

The body of the mysteriously materialized Al-Meissa Mercury was colored silver. This was both the color of Yukina’s spear and the color of La Folia’s hair.

“Kyriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—!”

Faux-Angel launched swords of light at Kojou’s Beast Vassal.

But the dragons opened their great maws, swallowing the swords of light into the unfathomable depths within. They were thus annihilated without a trace. The angel’s swords of light had been…consumed.

The irises of Faux-Angel’s six eyeballs opened wide in apparent shock.

With a thunderous roar, the giant two-headed quicksilver-colored dragon assailed her.

The golden light that enveloped the angel’s body grew in radiance. This was the light of the divine aura flowing in from the upper planes.

Enveloped in this radiance, Faux-Angel was simultaneously in the world, but not of it. Even the incredibly destructive might possessed by a Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals were unable to bring harm to an otherworldly angel…or so it should have been. But…

“It’s not possible…!”

Kensei Kanase raised his voice in horror at the impossible scene unfolding before him.

Kojou’s quicksilver-colored Beast Vassal was consuming the very golden light that enveloped the angel’s wings—wings it should have been unable to even touch. Faux-Angel cried out as light gushed out in place of blood.

“It…
consumed
Faux-Angel’s Extra-Dimensional Membrane?!”

Before Kensei’s shocked eyes, Faux-Angel lost one of its wings and fell.

But the two-headed dragon’s assault did not relent. From the front and back, top and bottom, left and right, its two maws assaulted, whittling the golden defensive membrane down.

As Kensei beheld this, he finally realized the true nature of Kojou’s Beast Vassal.

“That Beast Vassal… It’s a Dimension Eater! It can consume any space and the dimension along with it?!”

Indeed. It looked every bit as spectacular as the lightning lion, every bit as wild as the incandescent bicorn. But in pure fiendishness, the quicksilver-colored two-headed dragon was head and shoulders above them.

It was a Beast Vassal that consumed, so to speak, the very world itself, dealing unrecoverable damage. It was the mortal enemy of those beings of creation known as “gods.” Surely, it was the most horrible, most accursed of all Beast Vassals.

But at this moment, this very Beast Vassal was Kojou’s trump card for saving Kanon.

Now that Faux-Angel had lost its upper-dimensional grace, Kojou’s attacks would reach it. She was no longer invincible.

However…

As if to scoff at Kojou’s vain hopes, the divine aura flowing from Kanon’s body grew even more intense.

“G…wah?!”

Kojou groaned as an incredible beam of light burned into his retinas.

Kanon’s body was on fire. Divine aura flames gushed from her giant wings, completely at odds with her all-too-small limbs, before they burned out like candles.

“That’s right. She’s only fallen into the same dimension… She has not lost her flow of higher-planar divine energy.”

Kensei murmured with a voice of self-admiration, or perhaps one of relief.

Kanon’s gnawed-off wing regenerated. That wing launched countless swords of light indiscriminately.

The Beast Vassal’s attacks continued. The two-headed dragon swallowed the outpour of divine energy and the revived angelic wing whole. The lost higher-planar divine energy membrane did not recover. Kojou’s attacks were effective upon her. But so long as Kanon herself remained unharmed, upper-planar divine energy continued to flow into her.

“Kanase, stop this!” Kojou desperately called out to the still-wailing Faux-Angel.

There was no way to defeat the infinitely regenerating angel other than to destroy the spiritual nodes inside Kanon’s body…

But that was a choice he could not make. Kojou was fighting to save Kanon. If victory could only be obtained by wounding her, that was the same as defeat.

This was all the more so because Kojou’s all-too-powerful attacks would surely kill the now-defenseless Kanon.

Kojou could not defeat her. He could not win against her.

“That’s right. Even against a Primogenitor’s Beast Vassal, Faux-Angel will not be defeated. We will prevail, we
must
prevail…!”

“Shit! Why?! Even this isn’t enough, Kensei…?!”

As Kensei made a satisfied laugh like that of a martyr, Kojou’s face grimaced in despair.

That moment, Kojou heard a sharp metallic ring and the echo of a clear serene voice.

“No, senpai. In this fight, victory is ours.”

A small girl in a school uniform appeared before Kojou gripping a silver spear.

A brilliant smile came over the girl as she kicked off the earth, leaping.

“—Himeragi?!”

Kojou stared dumbfounded at the sight of her fairylike back.

Yukina did not flinch as she plunged forward into the battlefield as the artificial angel unleashed swords of light upon the giant, wildly raging dragon. And without a sound, she soared into the air.

“—I, Maiden of the Lion, Sword Shaman of the High God, beseech thee.”

Responding to Yukina’s solemn chant, her silver spear began to emit a glow.

That dim, white light was a divine oscillation wave that could rip apart any barrier. It was a purging light that could nullify all magical energy.

“O purifying light, O divine wolf of the snowdrift, by your steel divine will, strike down the devils before me!”

Yukina’s spear traced a beautiful silver arc.

Faux-Angel, her upper-planar divine energy membrane having been consumed by Kojou’s Beast Vassal, no longer possessed the strength to repel the attack.

Yukina didn’t need to run Kanon through.

All she needed was a scratch—to slice but a single, thin layer of her skin.

From that alone, the magical runes drawn upon Kanon’s flesh dissipated.

With one blow from the magic-nullifying Snowdrift Wolf, the spiritual augmentation mystic formula Kensei Kanase had engraved upon his daughter was wiped away. This meant Faux-Angel had lost the power of the spiritual nodes that had sustained it.

“Wha…?!” Kensei beheld the scene in abject shock.

Kanon, freed from her sorcerous curse, returned to her proper human form, with the three-by-six wings falling from the nude girl’s back. The eyeball-shaped spiritual nodes, no longer under control, were running amok…

…or the moment it seemed they would:

“…Chow down, Al-Meissa Mercury!”

The two giant flying maws swallowed the eyeballs whole. The glittering radiance dissipated; the gushing divine energy petered out.

As if its hunger was finally sated, the giant two-headed dragon made a final roar before it, too, vanished.

Yukina supported the unconscious Kanon as she fell back. Seeing this, Kojou breathed a sigh of relief; he glared at Kensei, standing behind him. The fingers of his right hand squeezed together, hardening into a fist.

“…It’s over, old man.”

Kensei nodded, looking like he’d been robbed of his very soul. “Yes, so it would seem.”

Watching the completely lost look in his eyes, Kojou made an exasperated sigh, lowering his poised fist without a word. Kojou had meant to smack him, but he no longer had the urge, for behind the tint of disappointment in Kensei’s eyes, Kojou was certain he felt concern for Kanon…and love.

Even if it was an illegal experiment, even if he’d ignored her wishes in the worst possible way, he was still acting out of love for her in his own fashion. Therefore, it was not Kojou’s place to punish him. It was not Kojou’s duty to decide whether to smack him or forgive him.

“Kanon…,” the black-suited sorcerous engineer weakly murmured.

The silver-haired girl once called an angel now slept on Yukina’s lap, her back curled like that of a kitten.

A single snowflake gently fell upon her cheek, but bathed in the tropical island’s powerful sunrays, it melted without a sound.

It was but a short time later when the coast guard patrol ship arrived.

They could make out Natsuki Minamiya and Sayaka Kirasaka on the deck of the patrol ship. Kojou did not doubt that the unexpected speed of their rescue was thanks to their hard work in investigating their whereabouts.

“Yukina!”

Sayaka, landing via an inflatable rubber boat with a trolling motor,
paid the horrific sight of the scorched island not even a single glance as she embraced Yukina, who had gone to greet her arrival. Sayaka proceeded to press her own cheek to Yukina’s and rub against it.

“Ahh, Yukina, I’m so glad you’re safe, Yukina, Yukina, Yukina! All you all right? A…are you wounded?”

“S-Sayaka?! Th-that tickles…!”

Yukina twisted her body, looking a bit confounded by the intensity of Sayaka’s excitement. But Sayaka’s sudden release from anxiety had apparently set her lust ablaze. Breathing heavily through her nostrils, she moved her face right up to Yukina’s neck and pushed a hand up under her school uniform with very suggestive movements.

“Sayaka… Wa-wait, that’s…?!”

“Hey.”

Unable to watch Yukina being violated any longer, Kojou karate chopped the out-of-control Sayaka.

“Ow!” cried out Sayaka, looking over her shoulder with tears in her eyes. Taking advantage of the opening, Yukina fled, put her disheveled clothes back in order, and hid behind Kojou’s back.

“I-I’d rather you not touch me so casually!” Sayaka protested to Kojou while pressing down on the back of her ponytail.
I’m having a déjà vu feeling here
, thought Kojou with a sense of annoyance.

“Can we leave it at that? Everyone’s watching.”

“Ah!” Sayaka, having finally calmed back down, nervously looked around the area. Realizing all eyes were upon her, she cleared her throat with an “ahem,” as if that made it better.

After that, she glanced up at Kojou with what seemed like a questioning look.

“S-so you’re still alive, too, Kojou Akatsuki. Well, that’s nice. I was worried for nothing.”

“Sorry to make you worry. Totally saved our bacon by coming to pick us up, thanks.”

“Sh-sure. You’re very welcome… Wait, it’s not as if I came here for
you
! You just happened to be here! There’s no deeper meaning to it! Really!”

Sayaka’s face was bright red as she made her retort.
High-maintenance girl as usual
, thought Kojou, brusquely waving her off.

“Yeah, yeah, right. Gotcha already.”

“Ugh… What’s with you. Geez. Die already.”

For some reason, Sayaka’s look turned resentful as she grumbled her complaints. Yukina covered her eyes, as if just
watching
Kojou and Sayaka go at it was giving her a headache.

Then, La Folia called out to Kojou. “…Kojou, would you lend me a hand?”

Beside her, lying on the ground, were the unconscious Kirishima and Beatrice.
Come to think of it, I’d forgotten all about them
, Kojou reflected.

As registered demon criminals, they would no doubt be tried and sentenced according to the laws of the Demon Sanctuary. But for now, they’d just have to bring the two along on the ship.

“They still alive?” Kojou asked with concern on his face as he picked up the two tattered souls. There was no sign they were regaining consciousness, even though they’d been down for the count for quite some time now. Kojou was concerned that this was bad, even for demons. But.

“I held back. But these are wounds inflicted by a spiritually blessed pseudo–Holy Sword; even demons cannot heal them without appropriate treatment.”

La Folia’s face was nonchalant as she spoke. This beautiful, doll-like princess was the very person who’d put both demons in this state.
Note to self: Don’t make that girl angry
, Kojou secretly vowed in his heart.

Then, Sayaka’s eyes widened at the sight of the two of them walking side by side and getting along very nicely.

“Princess La Folia…?!”

Her lips quivering as she murmured, Sayaka hurried to grab Kojou’s arm and drag him away. She glared at Kojou with an expression resembling a scold as she asked in a shrill voice… “Wh-who do you think you’re flapping your lips to so casually? Do you know who this is?”

“Yeah… Well, kinda.”

Kojou made a vague nod.
Come to think of it, Sayaka was supposed to be La Folia’s tour guide to begin with.

The circumstances of their having met had somehow inured him to it, but if he had to pick, he’d have to say Sayaka’s reaction was the proper reaction to have to a princess. But Kojou somehow thought that La Folia wouldn’t be pleased if he changed how he was treating her at this late stage.

“Sayaka Kirasaka, is it? It seems you have gone through quite some trouble on my behalf.”

La Folia gave Sayaka a charming smile. Sayaka regained her poise in a hurry.

“I’m very sorry, Your Highness. I will severely lecture this idiot later, so please…”

“It’s quite all right. Kojou is special to me… He is my, ah, my first you see.”

La Folia lowered her eyes slightly with a look of sudden embarrassment. Blood rushed to Kojou’s face at the princess’s statement, an open invitation to misunderstandings.

“Y-your first? What do you mean by that…?”

Sayaka’s face stiffened as she asked. The princess lowered her face as her cheeks reddened.

But Kojou did not miss how the corners of her lovely lips formed a faint smile. La Folia clearly found this
very
amusing. She apparently meant to have fun at Kojou’s expense.

And to further add to his peril, Natsuki, appearing out of nowhere, stared hard at Kojou and La Folia.

“Hmph. I see, it would seem you had a very enjoyable evening, Akatsuki.”

“Wai… Natsuki?! Can you please
not
say totally over-the-top stuff like that…!”

His homeroom teacher’s words, clearly spoken in malice, made Kojou unintentionally shout. “Enough with the first name,” replied a puffed-up Natsuki, but to Kojou, it was no time to pay attention to a trivial thing like that.

“Enjoyable…? Wait, those marks Yukina and the princess have on their necks, you don’t mean that’s…”

Sayaka’s face went pale as she moaned. Even now, Yukina and La Folia’s necks both had little marks remaining that resembled hickeys. They were the traces left by Kojou’s vampiric actions.

“It—it’s not like that, Sayaka.”

Yukina hurried as if to soothe her former roommate.

“This wound is a mark from something like artificial resuscitation; it is absolutely not a mark of unseemly behavior. Th-that’s right, isn’t it, senpai?”

“R-right. That’s how it is, so there.”

Kojou instantly went along with Yukina’s explanation to try and somehow clear up Sayaka’s misunderstanding. Their perfectly synchronized excuse made Sayaka stare at them in silence for a while.

Then, Sayaka smoothly drew her silver long sword out of the instrument case she carried in her left hand. The sword transformed into a bow as she notched a sharply tapered arrow.

“Kojou Akatsukiiiiiiiiii…!”

“K-Kirasaka? W-wait, calm down! That bow, it’s, um, it’s dangerous, right…?!”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t move, foul beast! I take my eyes off you for one minute and you do
this
!”

“Gah! Listen to what people say, would you?!”

Kojou desperately fled from the berserk Sayaka’s attacks. Yukina was trying to stop Sayaka somehow. La Folia smiled in apparent amusement at the interaction between the three.

Then, the princess walked over to Kanon Kanase, who’d been laid down on a rescue team stretcher. She’d noticed that Kanon had regained consciousness, her eyelids having opened a crack.

“Have you awakened from your bad dream, Kanon?”

La Folia asked the question as she leaned over the girl who resembled her very much, like a little sister.

“Dr…eam…”

Kanon murmured in bewilderment, looking up at the princess with a dazed look. Then, she nodded back; she seemed to think she was still dreaming.

“That’s right. My father said he would save me… I…hurt many people…”

“It’s all right, Kanon. Kojou and the others saved you.”

La Folia made a gentle, charming smile at Kanon while pointing in the direction of Kojou and the rest.

“…He…did?”

“Not just him. I was with him as well, Kanon.”

La Folia gently held Kanon’s hand.

Kanon looked back at the princess with a mystified look. Perhaps she thought that even the actual touch of her hand was part of her dream.

“Who…are…?”

“I am your… Yes, I’m part of your family.” La Folia spoke after a slight pause for reflection.

Kanon repeated the word with her own lips, as if it was a very precious thing indeed.

“Family…”