The Amphisbaena (23 page)

It was nearly Sunday evening by the time the coast guard ship docked back at Itogami Island.

The calm, mirrorlike evening sea reflected the golden color of the setting sun. Kensei Kanase was viewing the beautiful scene from a ship’s cabin when the sudden wafting scent of coffee aroused a suspicious expression as he looked back.

It was a cramped cabin meant for detaining criminal suspects. It was a drab room containing only a table and chairs, all bolted down. There was a coffee cup placed on top of the table with a lone man sitting behind it.

He was a young man, sixteen or seventeen years of age, his short hair combed back, with headphones hanging around his neck.

“Care for a drink?”

The young man slid the coffee in front of Kensei.

Kensei could not recall him entering the room, let alone how long he’d been sitting there. None of the young man’s actions had made any sound whatsoever: not opening the door, not closing it, not his footsteps.

“Who are you?”

“Motoki Yaze. Would you understand if I said I’m a classmate of Kojou Akatsuki?”

The young man made a leer as he answered Kensei’s question.

“That uniform… I see, you’re a Gigafloat Management Corporation spy monitoring the Fourth Primogenitor.”

“If that’s how you wanna take it, be my guest.”

“Mmm,” Kensei went as he made an indifferent nod. Either way, the young man’s identity was of no concern to him.

That moment, the one and only thing that mattered to Kensei was how Kanon would be dealt with.

As part of the Faux-Angel ceremony, Kanon had engaged in multiple bouts of combat in the skies above Itogami City. A number of buildings had been wrecked; a large number of people had been injured. The chances she’d stand trial for those crimes were quite high.

“You don’t need to worry about your daughter.”

Yaze bluntly spoke as if he could see straight into Kensei’s soul.

“She’s a minor, and you guys controlled her with neural bindings. If she should be treated as something, it should be as a victim, not a suspect. Besides, she has no less than the Aldegian royal family backing her up.”

“…I see.”

Kensei breathed a sigh of relief. He needed to hear no more.

Yaze shrugged his shoulders and scratched his face, like he didn’t find this easy to say.

“Well, you see, the problem is the position you’re in, actually.”

“I do not mind. I have made my peace.”

“Well y’see…instigating murder via illegal human experiments, violating a whole bunch of Holy Ground Treaty clauses, using explicitly banned forbidden curses… Normally, you’d get the death penalty for sure, but…”

At that point, Yaze suddenly narrowed his eyes.

“The problem here is your motive.
What do you know?
”

“…What are you referring to?”

Kensei feigned ignorance as he replied. But Yaze was unmoved.

“Your logic was, you wanted to send your daughter to heaven because you love her… I don’t think that’s a complete fabrication, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. You had a reason—reason enough that you used even your own daughter as a test platform for getting Faux-Angel good to go as soon as you could.”

“…”

Kensei fell silent.

Indeed. Kensei was not being used by Magus Craft. It was Kensei who
was using them to fund his research. If he could complete Faux-Angel, he didn’t care if it was used for military purposes. Kensei
had
to complete Faux-Angel regardless of what the consequences of that might be.

“And you ask me this why? Surely your people already realize the truth,” Kensei finally replied in a solemn voice.

“There
must not exist
more than three Primogenitors. The appearance of the Fourth Primogenitor means an enemy shall appear against which such power shall be necessary. It means that we are out of time.”

“…So that’s why you wanted to manufacture angels as weapons, is it? To destroy
him
.”

“Either way, a weapon that cannot defeat a
mere
Fourth Primogenitor cannot stand against him. Go ahead and laugh.

“After all, this means that my research was a complete waste.”

Kensei turned his back with a self-mocking laugh. He did not raise his face again. Yaze made an exasperated sigh.

“Well, no need to go tossing things out. Not your research, not Kojou.”

Leaving the cup of hot coffee behind, Yaze stood up and reached toward the door. Just before leaving the room, he looked over his shoulder and informed Kensei, “You are now in corporation custody. Sorry, palace sorcerous engineer—we’re gonna make you work a little longer.”

Since Natsuki and Sayaka had taken over wrapping things up after the incident, Kojou and Yukina were permitted to go home with surprising ease. With some three hours having passed after the coast guard ship arrived at Itogami Harbor, Kojou and Yukina appeared on deck, illuminated by the scorching rays of the setting sun, their preparations to go home complete.

It’d taken so long for them to prepare to disembark because Kojou had been delayed getting a change of clothes. He’d had to look for replacements for the clothes that had been shredded in the fight with Faux-Angel.

As a result, Kojou acquired old, cheap clothes given to him by the coast guard ship’s captain. They were an extremely showy Hawaiian shirt and a lively pair of Bermuda shorts.

“…Couldn’t they have given me something just a little better for clothes?”

Kojou sighed heavily as he looked over how he was dressed: as a tourist or more likely a street punk. As Kojou dragged his beach sandals, Yukina looked up at him, seeming barely able to hold back laughter.

“They suit you very nicely, senpai.”

“I can’t say I’m happy to hear that…but they’re a gift and beggars can’t be choosers.”

Shaking his head in annoyance, Kojou looked over his shoulder. It wasn’t that he expected someone to see them off; he was concerned about the people he didn’t see.

“Kanase?”

“It seems she’ll be hospitalized for a little while. She was severely weakened as an effect of the sorcerous ritual…”

Yukina spoke with a look of concern for Kanon.

If you thought about it logically, it made perfect sense. She’d been forced to evolve into an other-dimensional life-form. There was no chance Kanon’s body wouldn’t be affected.

The one saving grace was that Snowdrift Wolf’s power had canceled out even the backlash from being forced out of her angelic form. Had that not been the case, Kanon might well have not survived.

“I wonder if she’ll be all right. I mean, all the stuff besides her body.” Kojou’s face grimaced as he spoke.

Even though it was because she’d been used for an experiment, Kanon had still gravely wounded a number of human beings. On top of that, her father had been arrested as a criminal. It had to be a lot of stress for the already-weakened Kanon to take.

But Yukina’s expression brightened a little.

“You have a point… But apparently Ms. Minamiya will be her guardian until her father’s trial is completed.”

“Natsuki will? I see, nothing to worry about, then…”

Kojou sighed with relief and slackened his shoulders as he recalled the cherubic face of his homeroom teacher.

Behind the blunt attitude, Natsuki was an unexpectedly good caretaker. Kojou knew that better than most. The fact a nonsensical being like the Fourth Primogenitor could attend high school as a normal
student was all her doing. Surely giving a member of a foreign royal family a place to stay was a trivial matter by her standards.

“Princess La Folia was a little disappointed, though.”

Yukina’s words, which seemed a little surprising somehow, made Kojou remember the princess’s objective in coming to Itogami City.

“Ah, right… That princess wanted to bring Kanase back to Aldegia, didn’t she?”

“Yes. But Kanon apparently declined, saying that she did not wish to live as royalty.”

“…Well, if that’s what she said herself… Kinda feels like a waste somehow…

“That’s the kind of girl Kanon is, though,” Kojou murmured with admiration, unintentionally airing his true thoughts out loud.

Yukina made a faintly pained smile as she nodded.

“The Aldegian Queen Mother seems to have been greatly dismayed as well. Apparently she’d been looking forward to meeting Kanase.”

“The Queen Mother? Not the previous king?”

Kojou dubiously raised his eyebrows.

The Queen Mother would be La Folia’s grandmother, but Kanon not only had no blood ties to her, but also was her husband’s love child. Surely she had no reason to go out of her way to meet Kanon.

“Apparently, Kanase’s mother had been the Queen Mother’s personal friend to begin with. Now that she knows the circumstances of Kanase’s birth, the Queen Mother apparently became quite concerned for her.”

“Huh… She’s a good person, especially since Kanase’s dad ran for the hills when his affair got exposed. Big difference between the two there.”

Kojou spoke with honest admiration.

As Kojou did so, Yukina looked up at him with a neutral expression. Then, in a frosty voice low on intonation, she murmured. “I really can’t forgive irresponsible people like that.”

“Y-yeah…”

For some reason, Kojou had a disjointed sense of impending crisis as he nodded vaguely. He subconsciously averted his eyes away from Yukina, even though he was sure he hadn’t done anything particularly wrong.

“I take my eyes off you for a few moments, and you’re making nice with other girls… Not one care about whose friend it is or how high
above your station she is… And no matter how urgent the situation, to think you’d engage in such behavior right beside someone while she’s sleeping…”

“Ah, er…Himeragi? We were talking about La Folia’s granddad…right?” Kojou replied with a question in an awkward tone of voice.

Yukina made a very pleasant smile. “Yes, of course. Did you think I was referring to someone else?”

“E-er, that’s, how to put this…?”

The words of her casually posed question made Kojou feel like the walls were closing in.

The next moment, Kojou heard light footsteps from inside a corridor on the ship, and the silver-haired princess appeared. Following behind was Sayaka, looking every bit the faithful knight as she performed her escort duty. It was a sight fit for a painting.

“…Ah, so this is where you were, Kojou. And Yukina, too.”

“La Folia? Heading back already?”

Kojou wiped the nervous sweat off his cheeks as he asked, sounding like he’d just been rescued.

La Folia made an elegant, charming smile, even as she gave Kojou a suspicious look in return.

“I’m heading to a hospital. Apparently there are survivors of the crashed airship who’ve been rescued.”

“So they managed to save some of them?”

“That’s very good news,” Kojou said with a bounce in his voice.

“Yes. I’m heading to Tokyo next. I’d meant to make this an unofficial visit, but thanks to all the excitement, that simply will not do at this point.”

“Diplomacy, huh…? Not easy being royalty, either, is it?”

Not only had she been adrift at sea for days and involved in multiple combat engagements, but she’d offered Kojou her own blood, too; there was no way she wasn’t tired. The pain of the loss of numerous subordinates had to be hurting her deeply, too.

La Folia having declared she would return to her public duties even so, Kojou sent her a look of concern.

As he did, the princess gave a mystified look up at him; then, she smiled with the charm of a flower.

“…Regretfully, we must part. Thanks to you, I was able to reach this land safely. No doubt the connection between us shall someday bear yet greater import.”

Speaking with a very dignified tone, the princess walked before Kojou and Yukina. Then, she embraced Yukina, planting kisses on her left cheek, then her right. Yukina received the kisses with a somewhat startled look on her face.

Even knowing it was a simple greeting, Kojou could not be helped but be somewhat moved by the grace with which she performed it. He felt like he was watching a scene straight out of a movie.

Next, the princess took a step closer to Kojou, bringing her face to his in the exact same way. Her eyes contained a glint of mischief. Then, as the tense Kojou froze, she pressed her own lips against his.

“…!”

For everyone in that place, save the princess, time simply stopped.

Yukina’s and Sayaka’s eyes bulged wide and stayed that way. Their expressions said that neither of them could comprehend what was taking place before them.

Kojou was too floored to move very much. This suited the princess just fine; she indulged in the kiss to her heart’s content, only belatedly releasing Kojou.

“Well then, have a pleasant evening.”

La Folia waved, smiling with the face of an angel, and walked down the gangway.

“Ah… Princess, wait for… Hey, Kojou Akatsuki! You will provide me with a full explanation for this later! And by the way, turn to ash…!”

With a gasp, Sayaka regained her senses and hurried after the princess, but for just a moment, she looked over her shoulder at Kojou, shooting him a look of burning rage. “Give me a break,” Kojou said in an unwitting prayer to heaven.