Labyrinth of the Blue Witch (20 page)

Kojou only realized the man was there upon hearing his sullen voice from behind. “I see… So LCO’s goal is to breach the prison barrier?”

“Kensei Kanase…?!”

The speaker was a middle-aged man dressed in a black suit that resembled a priest’s habit. Kojou knew very well who he was.

Though this was unexpected, it was not surprising. Kensei Kanase, former royal sorcerous engineer of Aldegia, was an acquaintance of La Folia’s. It took no special genius to guess that the princess had used him as her means to get to Keystone Gate.

“So that’s the prison barrier…?” Kojou asked.

Kensei nodded. “Apparently they have made the border between this world and that one sway. At this point it is not fully materialized, but—”

“So the seal hasn’t actually been broken yet?”

“Correct. It is as if we are looking at a ruin sunken to the bottom of the sea from the water’s surface. Even if you can see it, pulling it up from the seafloor requires greater work by an order of magnitude.”

Kensei’s words made Kojou go pale.

Vattler had said that an enormous amount of magical energy was required to materialize the prison barrier.

But that was something Yuuma already had in the palm of her hand. She merely needed to know its location. If she knew what part of the sea it had sunk into, then— Kojou moaned, suddenly feeling like his right hand was on fire.

“Urk…?!”

Yukina turned around in apparent surprise.

“Senpai?!”

But when Kojou flexed Yuuma’s light-skinned hand, it was unharmed.

The wound was borne by Kojou’s physical body—in other words, by the young man standing in the center of the magic circle.

The grimoire in Yuuma’s hand was burning.

“Huhhh… Looks like this one’s hit its limits.”

Bathed in the enormous magical power of the Fourth Primogenitor, its capacity had finally been exceeded. No longer recognizable, it burned out and turned into ash.

“Aah,” the black and scarlet witch sisters vainly cried out.

“No. 539 is…!”

They were members of a criminal organization established for the purpose of accumulating grimoires. No doubt the witch sisters found the loss of a precious grimoire to be unbearably sad.

But Yuuma, a leader of that very same organization, tossed the burned grimoire away without a second thought.

“This grimoire has already served its purpose. Sorry, but I must be off.”

The scene before Yuuma’s eyes gently warped. Space bent, much like a ripple spreading across the water’s surface. She’d opened a teleportation gate.

“Wait—Blue Witch!” the black witch called out to Yuuma in haste. However, Yuuma didn’t even look back.

“You two stay here and hold them off.”

This said, she seemed to melt into the void and vanished.

Kojou stood where he was, powerless as he gazed at a point on the surface of the sea.

“Yuuma…!”

He couldn’t stop Yuuma from moving by teleportation, but he did know where she was headed. She was on her way to the prison ward so that she could completely breach the seal.

La Folia turned to the sorcerous engineer in black.

“Kensei, can you follow her?”

Kensei calmly shook his head.

“Unfortunately I cannot.”

Unlike a witch who could control space at a subconscious level, spatial control spells like Kensei employed required careful calculation of coordinates before a jump. The method simply wasn’t flexible enough to be used to follow someone.

“However, I can open a gate near the prison ward.”

“Understood. Do that, then.”

The silver-haired princess turned a pleasant, bewitching smile toward Kojou and Yukina.

“Kojou. Please take Yukina and go. We shall deal with the witches over there. But La Folia…”

Kojou hesitated to move, resisting the idea of abandoning them in the face of the enemy. However, the princess shook her head with a brave look.

“There is nothing Sayaka or I can do against a witch who has obtained the limitless demonic power of the Fourth Primogenitor. The only ones who can resist are Yukina with her spear that nullifies magic and Kojou—the true Fourth Primogenitor.”

“Got it. Saving our skins here.”

“—You have my thanks, La Folia.”

Kojou and Yukina spoke words of thanks and looked at Kensei.

The sorcerous engineer in the black outfit nodded without a word, sprinkling water from a small bottle he held in his hand. The pool of water that formed at his feet displayed a place unfamiliar to Kojou. Apparently that was where they were being sent.

When he looked closer, he saw that the area around the pool of water was rimmed with a densely packed, detailed, chalk-written spell. Apparently he couldn’t control space as if a natural ability like Yuuma or Natsuki could, but this was wondrous spell casting in its own right.

Biting his lip as if hardening his resolve, Kojou plunged into the scene displayed on the surface of the water.

“Ugh!”

Yukina immediately followed him.

Remaining behind, Kensei fell to his knees, his strength apparently exhausted. High-level spell casting such as teleportation surely imposed a suitably heavy burden, even upon an accomplished sorcerer as himself. At the very least, however, Kensei had fulfilled his duty. The rest was up to Kojou and Yukina.

“She said they will take care of us, my sister.”

“The girl certainly has a sense of humor worthy of a princess.”

The black and scarlet witch sisters, left behind on the roof, glared scornfully at La Folia and Sayaka as they spoke. They did not feel pressed, even after having witnessed the might of the princess’s spell gun and Sayaka’s sword with their own eyes.

“We should be honored she has gone out of her way to remain and become our ‘sacrifice.’”

“Then as befits her, the branches of our Guardian shall rip her innards asunder from hole to elegant hole, making her into such a lovely pile of flesh!”

The two witches unleashed their taunts, following with haughty laughter in unison.

“Why you,” said Sayaka, furling her eyebrows as she poised her sword.

She, an expert in curses and assassination, always addressed her enemies with respect. To a Shamanic War Dancer of the Lion King Agency, enemies were to be treated with the same respect one used when pacifying angry spirits.

To the fastidious Sayaka, the witch sisters’ scornful behavior toward the princess was unworthy of even the most minimal approval. But the princess made a composed, pleasant smile and stepped forward, as if to stop Sayaka from venting.

“If you laugh too much, elder ladies, the bags under your eyes shall become more prominent. Ah, the sags of your flesh as well, little by little.”

The air around them might as well have frozen and audibly cracked. The two witches’ expressions were raw with indignation at the young, beautiful princess’s casual words.

However, La Folia spoke as if not noticing whatsoever that the witches were shaking with anger.

“At the very least, the fact your pacts with devils did not grant you long lives without any aging represents negligence of the basics, or perhaps an exceptional lack of talent. I am somewhat hesitant to inform you, but those who are more advanced in their years look rather ridiculous piling on makeup to look young. Don’t they, Sayaka?”

Sayaka’s face twitched as the ball was suddenly tossed into her court.

“I-I suppose they do.”

For some reason, the princess’s gentle, goddess-like smile was eerily frightening. She actually felt sorry for the witch sisters.

A couple of witches from the sticks should
never
have tried taunting a cunning princess whose razor-sharp wit was honed by the mind games in a royal palace full of intrigue.

Knowing they could never defeat her with words, the witches threw their pride to the wind and howled.

“G-grr… You little bitch…!”

“D-do you know how much we’ve been through… I hate this! I’ll rip new holes into you!”

Sayaka was dumbstruck all over again at the witch sisters’ consternation.

“Th-that actually worked…?!”

Apparently La Folia’s words had wounded them deeply without her laying a single finger on them.

Raising her golden gun, the princess called out to Sayaka like nothing had happened. “Let’s go, Sayaka.”

“R-right…”

I’m not sure who the real witch is here anymore
, Sayaka murmured on the inside as she raised up her blade.

Yuuma Tokoyogi stood atop a rusted bridge at the tip of the Gigafloat.

The prison barrier was several hundred meters away. The simple floating bridge connected Itogami Island to the small, rocky island upon which the cathedral rested. The prison barrier had still not fully materialized.

Yuuma looked at the surface of the sea from which the island jutted and gently extended her right hand.

The next moment, the space behind her wavered, from which emerged a blue knight phantasm clad in armor. Yuuma had named the faceless blue knight “Le Bleu.” The devil familiar was the witch’s Guardian.

The prison barrier was already right before her eyes. All that remained was to borrow the enormous magical power of the Fourth Primogenitor and drag it into her own world. Thus would the final seal be broken and her mission complete.

But before Yuuma could command her Guardian to do so, a voice called to her from behind. “Yuuma!”

As she looked back, she saw a very familiar body standing there—her own. In other words, Kojou Akatsuki, with whom Yuuma had switched bodies. The girl with the silver spear was standing beside him, too.

Yuuma called out to them, honestly impressed.

“You’ve caught up to me already?”

Right now, Kojou was just a normal human being without any power whatsoever. There shouldn’t have been any way for him to pursue Yuuma after she’d relocated via a leap through space; at the very least, not through his power alone.

“You’ve made some good friends, Kojou.”

Kojou twisted his lips in anguish as he replied, “—Don’t say that like it’s got nothing to do with you. You’re one of ’em, you know?”

Yuuma blinked like she’d been slapped in the face and looked back at him.

“That makes me so happy. You still think of me as a friend?”

Kojou pointed beside him to Yukina as he spoke.

“I told you, I’m used to seeing witches already so I don’t think nothing of that. I’ve been getting to know one weirdo after another coming to the island, so you’re just one more.”

“That’s rude,” complained the girl holding the silver spear as she glared back at Kojou, eyes wide open.

It was natural she didn’t want to hear the World’s Mightiest Vampire complain about getting to know
weirdoes
. But she didn’t actually refute Kojou’s words, either. Kojou was dead serious as he asked Yuuma…

“Why are you helping people bust out of prison?”

Yuuma’s reply was brief.

“Because my mother made me for this.”

“…
Made
you?”

“My mother is Aya Tokoyogi—former head of the criminal organization LCO. She was captured on Itogami Island and has been locked away in the prison barrier since ten years ago. She had a tool prepared so she could escape from prison—me.”

Yuuma laughed at her own expense as she pointed at her own body, currently controlled by Kojou.

“I’m a test-tube baby made to grow at a rapid rate. I was born ten years ago, looking like I was six. It was just a little before you met me, Kojou. Mother programmed me to break Itogami Island’s prison barrier from the very beginning.”

Kojou’s expression grew grave as he pressed the point.

“Was it part of your mom’s plan to get to know me, too?”

Yuuma shook her head without hesitation.

“No, Kojou. That was the only choice that was mine. I told you, you’re all that I have. Besides meeting you, there’s not a thing in this world I can call
mine
.”

“That’s not…!”

Yuuma stopped his objection with a hand and turned her back on him.

“The plan changed a bit when LCO found out you’d gained the power of the Fourth Primogenitor. Actually, we expected we’d be sacrificing the lives of a hundred thousand or so of Itogami Island’s residents to break the prison barrier’s seal. But thanks to you, that’s no longer necessary… Thank you, Kojou.”

Before Yuuma had even finished her words, Yukina lunged at her, spear glimmering.

“Snowdrift Wolf—!”

She moved at incredible speed worthy of the title of Sword Shaman. But before she arrived, Yuuma had already warped space to shift to a location dozens of meters removed. Having lost its target, Yukina’s spear sliced only air.

The faceless blue knight floating up from Yuuma’s back raised both arms aloft as its armor creaked.

A golden light emerged from the gap between the Guardian’s hands. It was dazzling electricity accompanied by a roar.

Kojou’s and Yukina’s faces froze over, no doubt realizing the light’s true nature.

It was an enormous mass of demonic energy taking physical form. A golden lion enveloped by lightning…

“Regulus Aurum…?!” Kojou shouted. Yukina was equally in shock.

“A Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassal?! That’s not…?!”

Yuuma smiled under the strain of the uncontrollable surge of magical energy.

“I haven’t stolen his right to command the Beast Vassal. I’ve just warped time and space to call up a tiny piece of the past when Kojou used his Beast Vassal. All for the sake of this one brief moment—”

Even having taken over Kojou’s body and drawn out the magical energy held within his flesh, she could not call the Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor, for a vampire’s Beast Vassals were summoned beasts from another world with wills of their own. There was no way Yuuma, lacking authority over them, could control one.

However, by mixing the Fourth Primogenitor’s nigh-inexhaustible magical energy with her own power as a witch, she was able to control one through such irregular magical means. She was borrowing the memory buried within Kojou’s flesh when he’d used that Beast Vassal in the past, linking it to current space-time—

The result of her efforts was a rip through space through which flowed a cascading torrent of incandescence.