The Amphisbaena (8 page)

They were actual fireworks. The launch point looked like it was right in the opposite direction of where the Masked had appeared.

“Now the public’s eyes should be looking in that direction. That should gloss over a few extra explosions and the like.”

“I see… Wait, don’t tell me the night shopping you were doing was for this…?!”

Rather than admiration, Kojou was frankly shocked at the unexpected depth of Natsuki’s preparations.

Certainly, the great roar and dazzling flashes of a fireworks launch was ideal for hiding the existence of the Masked. Even if witnesses saw a number of flashes and explosions away from the show, they probably wouldn’t be especially suspicious.

But Kojou took from the mere fact that such an elaborate deception was necessary in a Demon Sanctuary like Itogami Island as proof that this incident was extremely serious.

“We’ll settle this while the public is distracted by fireworks before they can catch on. We’re jumping.”

“Huh? Whaddaya mean ‘ju—’” Kojou looked back as Natsuki’s abrupt call to him gave him a bad premonition.

That same moment, Kojou was assaulted by fierce dizziness. Shortly after, he felt an unpleasant sense of vertigo like he was in free fall. When that finally subsided, Kojou was in abject shock at the realization he’d been tossed right on top of a high, unfamiliar tower.

“…Whoaaaaa?! What the heck am I doing
here
…?!”

Almost losing his footing, Kojou hurried to a nearby girder poking out and clung to it for dear life.

This was the cell tower’s skeleton of girders painted red and white. They were directly under the Masked engaged in combat. Natsuki had used teleportation magic, a specialty of hers, dragging him along for the ride.

“Senpai, above you! Look out…!”

Yukina, brought along for the ride with Kojou, shouted sharply as she looked above her head.

As Kojou lifted his face in response to her voice, he sucked in his breath as he unexpectedly found himself looking at the Masked at very short range.

Both Masked had the forms of little girls.

But the girls had hideous, bloodstained, mismatched wings sprouting from their backs.

The surface of their bare arms and legs bore ghastly geometric shapes, with countless ghoulish eyeball symbols on the masks that covered both girls’ heads.

As the girls spread their wings, they launched undulating, warped swords of light, shooting down one shimmering, mirage-like wall after another.

When the swords of light fell out of the sky, they turned into incandescent flames, setting the buildings and streets below on fire one after another.

The battle between the two intensified, instantly increasing the damage to the shopping district.

“…I see. Certainly creepy. I do not know that type of magical formula,” Natsuki murmured in the casual tone of an irresponsible observer. “Yes. Rather than sorcery, it is more like…the divine possession that we employ…”

Nodding at Natsuki’s words, Yukina drew her silver-colored spear from its guitar case.

The spear’s shaft slid to its full length; the sheathed blade deployed, extending side blades to the left and right. It was a beautiful, all-metal spear that looked the part of a glossy, modern weapon.

“A ‘Schneewaltzer’…perfect. Lend me a hand, Yukina Himeragi. We’ll knock them out of the sky.”

Without warning or waiting for Yukina to reply, Natsuki made a wave of her right hand.

That instant, the space around her seemed to warp with a ripple. Then, a giant, silver-colored chain shot out of thin air like an arrow, wrapping around the Masked soaring in the sky.

The next moment, Yukina kicked off from a steel girder, leaping into the air.

Kojou merely held his breath and watched.

Yukina sailed until landing on top of a chain stretched across the sky. Paying no heed to the dizzying height, she sprinted along the chain.

“…Snowdrift Wolf!”

Responding to the prayer Yukina invoked, her spear became enveloped in a dazzling, holy light.

The spear she had been granted, dubbed Snowdrift Wolf, was a Mechanical Demon-Purging Assault Spear Type Seven, aka “Schneewaltzer,” a secret weapon of the Lion King Agency. It was their trump card for anti-demon combat, able to neutralize magical energy and rend through any barrier. No ward sorcery could defend against its attack.

With the Masked bewildered by the unexpected intruders, Yukina poised her spear and thrust its shining, glimmering blade into one of the warped wings… But…

“Eh?!”

The moment they clashed, Yukina sucked in her breath at the bizarre feedback to her hands.

The ominous light covering the Masked had grown brighter. That radiance had repelled a direct hit from Snowdrift Wolf.

Sparks ferociously scattered as the blade that was surely able to rend all barriers bounced off the invisible wall.

The black, mismatched wings spread as the Masked cried out. The chains that bound them were blown off; Yukina, caught up in the shock wave, was sent flying as well.

“…Himeragi?!”

“They severed Laeding…?!” Kojou and Natsuki shouted simultaneously.

Yukina, thrown into the sky, swung her spear, using the reaction to control her direction, and landed safely upon the cell tower once more. It was a beautiful, supple martial arts technique worthy of a hawk. However, she wore a steely expression. Her Schneewaltzer, able to slay without fail even a Primogenitor, was ineffective against the Masked.

“Are you all right, Himeragi?!”

“I’m all right. However…”

Nodding back to Kojou as he rushed over, Yukina looked up at the now-free Masked.

Both of the Masked had stopped fighting each other out of vigilance against Kojou’s group’s attacks. One of the two escaped to higher altitude while looking down at Kojou and the others; the remaining one trembled with anger as she charged the tower. Below her mask, her lips burst open into a shrill cry as her entire body emitted a red light.

“No!”

The attack by the Masked gouged a hemispheric hole out of the cell tower’s base. Natsuki’s expression froze over as she beheld the sight.

No longer able to support its own weight, the cell tower leaned and slowly fell, girders snapping and scattering along the way. It was falling toward a thoroughfare brimming with traffic and a gaggle of buildings on the opposing side. At this rate, great disaster was unavoidable.

“Akatsuki, I’m leaving them to you! Don’t hold back—you’ll die if you do!”

Leaving behind a one-sided declaration, Natsuki teleported, all sight of her vanishing.

“Huh?! Wait a…”

Kojou was dumbfounded as he watched the ripple in space left behind her.
That’s a lot easier said than done
, thought Kojou; his hands were literally full from clinging to the collapsing tower to not be thrown clear of it.

But as the steel tower’s tilt reached some thirty degrees, its descent suddenly came to a halt. Without fanfare, countless chains stretched forth from the ground, entwining around the tower to protect it from destruction.

Though its tilt made it look less stable than the Tower of Pisa, the steel tower somehow regained its balance and remained aloft in the sky. This was no doubt Natsuki’s doing. However, it seemed that even she could not hold up a steel tower weighing several hundred tons and take on the Masked at the same time.

The berserker Masked plunged down toward the cell tower once more.

Looking up and seeing that, Kojou’s eyes were tinged red in anger and fear.

“Ah, crap! C’mon over, Beast Vassal Number Nine, Al-Nasl Minium…!”

Responding to the call of its master, the Beast Vassal materialized from the enormous magical energy Kojou released.

It was huge and ferocious, a two-horned horse: an incandescent bicorn, shimmering like a mirage.

Vampires were served by the Beast Vassals within their very own blood. They were destructive magical energy given form. The otherworldly summoned beasts consumed their host’s life force from the mere act of emerging in this world.

Only vampires, bearing unlimited “negative” life forces, could employ those Beast Vassals… It was for this very reason, vampires were the most feared among all demonkind.

Even the weakest Beast Vassal possessed striking power rivaling that of a cutting-edge fighter plane, whereas the Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor, the World’s Mightiest Vampire, were menaces no different from natural disasters. If Kojou lost control for even a moment, worst case, the entirety of Itogami Island might be burned to a crisp.

It was such a malevolent Beast Vassal that glared and roared at the onrushing Masked.

The roar transformed into a shock wave cannonball, assailing the Masked straight from the front. The oscillations it gave off made the cell tower creak and shudder and shattered glass windows of buildings all around them. But…

“What…?!”

Even sustaining a frontal attack from the bicorn able to rend the very atmosphere, the Masked calmly continued dancing in the sky. Its flesh was completely unharmed. Even the attacks of Kojou’s Beast Vassals were ineffective against the Masked.

“Oh no… It can withstand even attacks from a Primogenitor’s Beast Vassal?!”

Yukina’s voice trembled as she watched, dumbfounded, as the Masked spread its misshapen wings. Having seen the destructive power of a Beast Vassal up close several times over, she was, in a sense, even more shaken than Kojou was.

Glaring at the enemy that had impudently withstood its attack, the
incandescent Beast Vassal moved decisively, launching a direct blow. However, the result was the same; the bicorn’s charge, surrounded by a ferocious oscillation wave, slid right over the Masked like water off a duck. Even if Yukina’s spear was capable of nullifying a Beast Vassal’s magical energy, this did not mean the two were equivalent in power.

Yet even this buffeted the Masked no more than a gentle breeze.

Just like how throwing a pebble into a lake could not harm what was reflected upon its surface, Kojou’s Beast Vassal could not touch the Masked. That fact shocked Kojou to the core. Then…

“Not good…!”

Realizing the Masked was forming a gigantic sword of light, Kojou’s entire body froze over. He couldn’t even calculate the casualties that releasing an attack like that in the middle of an urban area like this would cause.

Yukina raised Snowdrift Wolf in a hurling posture, aiming to strike her foe down in midair. However, it had already been proven that her spear was ineffective against the Masked. Kojou instantly began trying to summon his second Beast Vassal. But if Al-Nasl Minium couldn’t touch his opponent, would his other Beast Vassal, Regulus Aurum, fare any better…?!

Fighting off premonitions of despair, Kojou raised his right arm to the sky. It was the next moment when…

“Wha—?!”

…a beam of light flew through the sky above him, going right through the Masked, reading its sword of light.

The beam of light was actually a small silhouette with misshapen wings—the other Masked that had been watching their battle from above.

The first Masked let out an anguished cry as she was struck by the surprise attack from the blind spot behind her.

The “beam” having shot through her, she crashed right into the guts of the cell tower. She writhed around as fresh blood splashed all around her.

The second Masked pounced on her from above, using her talon-tipped arms to mercilessly gouge out her wounded comrade’s body. Ribs snapped, bare flesh rent; the misshapen wings were torn right off.

The first Masked continued to fiercely resist, but victory and defeat had been determined by the first blow. The heavily wounded Masked inflicted only light injury upon her comrade before she herself stopped moving.

“Was she…protecting us…?” Kojou murmured as he stared at the side of the blood-splattered face of the Masked.

What she did couldn’t be written off as a mere surprise attack, with her picking her timing through careful assessment of the combat situation. It felt clear to him that she’d acted with the goal of saving Kojou and the others from their predicament.

Even Yukina, keeping her guard up as she held her spear, had a faint look of bewilderment come over her.

Right before their eyes, the plate that covered the head of the Masked came off. The metal mask was cracked all over from the attacks of her comrade.

Symbols on the surface of her bare skin, resembling electrical circuits, illuminated her uncovered face.

“…That’s crazy! That face… She’s…?!”

“It can’t be…”

The instant they beheld her beautiful, too-young visage, Kojou and Yukina were at a loss for words.

She had silver hair reminiscent of a snowy plain and pale blue eyes that glittered like a glacier…

Bearing misshapen wings, her bare flesh covered with bizarre symbols, it was Kanon Kanase. The middle school schoolgirl, who loved animals and who always had a gentle smile on her face, was completely drenched in blood spatter as she looked down at her fellow Masked.

“…Kanase, stop…!”

Realizing what she was about to do, Kojou let out a disjointed cry.

Kanon’s beautiful visage twisted as her mouth opened wide. Growing in her mouth cavity were countless fangs like those of a great white shark. Kanon’s fangs bit into the bare, exposed neck of her comrade, lying upon the cell tower…

“Kanase……!”

As Kojou yelled, an incredible amount of blood gushed out before their eyes.