The Amphisbaena (19 page)

That sword, extra-planar like the angel herself, prevented Kojou from healing, even as it caused Kojou’s body, which should have been immutable, to gradually waste away. Thanks to the divine energy flowing from the sword, at this rate, it would not be far off until Kojou vanished altogether.

“…What must we do to save him?” Yukina gave La Folia a serious look as she asked.

Properly speaking, Yukina, who was no more than the Fourth Primogenitor’s watcher, had no duty to save Kojou. However, Yukina could not even contemplate making the decision to simply watch him die.

La Folia, gazing at Yukina with great interest, shook her head.

“We cannot heal Kojou’s wound.”

“…Oh no…”

Blood drained from Yukina’s cheeks.

The Faux-Angel ritual was a secret ceremony of Aldegia. If La Folia said there was no way to break it, Yukina would be completely out of options.

However, the princess narrowed her trademark pale blue eyes in a mischievous look as she continued.

“However, we can awaken that which can save him. In the first place, being impaled by Faux-Angel’s sword should have already annihilated Kojou’s body. The fact that his body continues to exist despite that means that Kojou is subconsciously drawing upon that power.”

“Senpai’s power…?”

Prodded by La Folia, Yukina lowered her gaze to Kojou’s open wound once more. If she looked at the steady progression of Kojou’s annihilation from another perspective, it felt like
something
was holding the angel’s power in check.

“…You don’t mean the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals?!”

“I do. Kojou Akatsuki inherited twelve Beast Vassals from the Kaleid Blood, Avrora Florestina. It is likely that one of those Beast Vassals possesses the power to neutralize that of Faux-Angel.”

Yukina nodded, agreeing with the princess’s words.

Kojou still couldn’t use the majority of the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals of his own volition.

But several times in the past, a portion of the dormant Beast Vassals’ power ran amok in response to their host, Kojou, falling into danger. That was probably what was going on this time as well.

“But wake up a Beast Vassal how…? Right now senpai isn’t conscious; surely it is not possible for an external force to interfere with a vampire’s Beast Vassals?” Yukina asked in a brooding tone of voice. This time, La Folia nodded in complete seriousness.

“This is a first for me as well so I am a bit concerned if I can pull it off, but I have heard of the method from rumors among the maids. There is surely value in trying.”

Having spoken these words, the princess softly reached out to Kojou’s clothes. She stripped off the parka that the unconscious Kojou was lying on, unbuttoning his wrecked school uniform from the top down.

Judging from the shaking of his upper body, Kojou’s chest wound was painful indeed.

It looked like La Folia had forgotten how to breathe as she watched with a serious expression. Kojou had seemed gangly to her, but with his clothes off, he had an unexpectedly firm physique, no doubt due to being a full-time basketball player until just before he became a vampire.

“…So this is what your body is like?”

With an expression of deep interest on her face, the princess poked Kojou’s side, as if testing the elasticity of his abdominal muscles.

It was when she suddenly began to strip off Kojou’s pants that Yukina reproached her with a suspicious look. “Er… La Folia?”

La Folia lifted her face up as she pulled off Kojou’s belt. “My apologies. I fell victim to my curiosity; I’m taking mental notes for future reference.”

Yukina sighed. “Wait, why are you taking off
your
clothes, too?!”

As the princess began to suddenly take off her own clothes this time, Yukina rushed to stop her. Perhaps there were spells that required direct flesh-to-flesh contact, but even so, this was not something she could let pass.

However, the princess blinked and tilted her head as she asked her question. “I have heard that intimate relations between a man and a woman involve embracing the other while nude. Am I mistaken?”

“I-intimate relations…?”

Yukina’s face froze as she tried to process La Folia’s statement and failed.

La Folia gave Yukina a quite serious look in return.

“I believe a foolproof method of awakening a Beast Vassal is for a spiritual medium to offer her blood.”

“Th-that is certainly the case, but…,” Yukina weakly objected.

Kojou’s being unable to use the power of his Beast Vassals was apparently tied to his having barely drunk the blood of others at all. Thanks to that, the Beast Vassals did not acknowledge Kojou as their true master, and thus, did not respond to his summons. Furthermore, his proud Beast Vassals required blood of a high spiritual grade to sate their appetites.

Surely, the blood of La Folia, princess of Aldegia, was of sufficient spiritual grade, but…

“But…drink blood, you say? Right now senpai isn’t even conscious…”

“That poses no difficulty. The trigger for vampiric urges is sexual arousal, yes? With proper physical stimulation, it is surely possible to trigger such a response even if he isn’t conscious. My maids say that what happens above the neck and below the belt is completely separate.”

“…B-below the belt?”

“
Heh-heh
, they say the body tells no lies.”

Yukina made a covert sigh as she watched La Folia’s innocent smile. She wondered if perhaps the Aldegian royal family should pay a little more attention to the sort of people it hired for domestic work.

“Do not be concerned, Yukina. I do not yet have any serious intention of having sexual relations with him.”

“Of course you don’t!”

Yukina’s cheeks were red as she shouted. She couldn’t help but be concerned at her use of the word
yet
. Yukina couldn’t nail down just how serious this free-spirited princess was speaking those words.

La Folia stripped off her dress jacket, calmly undoing the buttons of the shirt beneath it as well. From her collar down, her flesh was as white as the driven snow. Also, the swell of her breasts was unexpectedly large.

“Well then, Yukina. Would you close your eyes for a few moments? Naturally, I feel somewhat…embarrassed to be doing this kind of thing in front of someone else.”

Speaking these words, La Folia pulled Kojou’s body up into her arms. Yukina could not look away from how their bare flesh was pressing together. Pushing her silver hair up off her cheek, La Folia drew close to the sleeping Kojou’s face. And just as their lips were about to touch…

“…You mustn’t!”

Yukina shouted the words before her head thought them. The princess seemed a bit surprised as she raised her face.

“Yukina?”

“Y-you mustn’t, La Folia! I do not believe you need to do this!”

Yukina’s voice was shrill as she strongly pulled Kojou’s body in her direction, as if snatching it back. However, the princess had a composed look on her face.

“This is to save you, me, and Kanon Kanase. It cannot be helped.”

“That…might be so, and there might not be another way, but…”

La Folia made a casual, charming smile as she looked back at the unsteadily murmuring Yukina.

“Thank you for your concern. However, I am quite all right. Is it not natural to save one who can still be saved, such as Kojou?”

Yukina was a bit overawed by the gallantry with which the princess had put it.

Yukina had been thoroughly thrown off by the princess’s frivolous behavior, but La Folia’s words were proper and just. The course she was attempting was the best option to save everyone trapped there.

To her, offering her own blood to a vampire was nothing but another duty as a member of the royal family. This was how this beautiful princess of a foreign kingdom had borne many burdens all by herself and would no doubt bear many more to come.

But
this was different.

It was not the princess who needed to bear this burden.

“…I will do it.”

This time, Yukina completely seized the sleeping Kojou back from La Folia as she spoke.

The princess blinked her eyes in apparent surprise. “Oh?”

“Saving senpai is my responsibility. I-I am the Fourth Primogenitor’s watcher, after all.”

Yukina declared that it was so with a resolute expression. The twinkle
in her eyes conveyed without any need for words,
no matter what more you may say, princess, you may not have him
.

As Yukina did so, La Folia made a light nod—as if she’d been waiting for that moment.

“I understand, Yukina. Well then, I shall leave this in your hands.”

“…Eh?”

Yukina felt like she was being brushed off when, suddenly, a dumbfounded expression came over her.

The princess was watching her with a charming leer on her face. When Yukina saw her beautiful, smiling face, she knew she’d been had. She’d been in the palm of the princess’s hand from start to finish.

“Er, La Folia… You intended this from the beginning, didn’t you…?!”

Watching the outraged Yukina clutching Kojou all the while, the princess spoke without a hint of mischief as if speaking a prayer.

“I believe, Yukina. I believe that if anyone can save Kojou, it is you.”

The pillar of ice born from Kanon Kanase’s rampage finally stopped growing shortly after exceeding ten meters in diameter. The snow had already abated. But the majority of the island was encased in ice and was shrouded in a pure white frost.

The area above the narrow space Yukina and the others were in was encased by ice several meters thick, which made ominous creaks from time to time. Of course, they could not escape; indeed, the ice seemed just as likely to collapse under its own weight.

Amid this desperate situation, Kojou alone continued to sleep peacefully.

Even though his own body was slowly fading away, he had a peaceful look on his face as he slept.

“…You really are something else…”

As she gazed at Kojou’s sleeping face, Yukina made a sigh mixed with a strained smile. He slept without any hint of tension as if making sport of her pathetic resolve; it seemed rather ridiculous somehow.

“Are you all right, Yukina? If you are anxious, perhaps I really should do it instead?”

La Folia seemed amused as she asked. Yukina shook her head with an awkward look on her face.

A small part of her wanted to follow that suggestion, but there was no way she could ask her to trade places at this point. Besides, she didn’t want to see the princess embrace Kojou. For some reason it made her heart ache.

“No problem whatsoever. This is just like CPR, yes, like artificial respiration, you see.”

Yukina murmured in a tone that sounded like it was chiefly for her own benefit. La Folia made a nod of apparent admiration.

“Artificial respiration… Indeed, it is so. The mouth-to-mouth version.”

“U…rk.”

Yukina’s face went red as she unwittingly pictured the scene. Her effort not to think about it went up in smoke.

Yukina brought the tip of her spear, lying beside her, against the tip of her finger.

She registered a faint pain as she pressed the blade in very softly. Yukina took her fingertip, with fresh blood now dripping heavily from the wound, and pushed it inside of Kojou’s mouth.

Even as he continued to sleep like the dead, Kojou’s tongue made a faint quiver, like a convulsion.

The change was so small that it could barely be seen by the naked eye, but Kojou was indeed still alive. Even so, the amount of blood was nowhere near sufficient. He apparently needed a much larger quantity flowing into him.

“Kojou’s reaction is weaker than I expected. Perhaps you are not giving him enough stimulation?”

La Folia’s tone was uncharacteristically serious as she spoke. Yukina’s face went even redder.

“S…stimulation…?”

“The level of bare flesh in contact, perhaps?
Hee-hee
, shall I assist you?”

“No, that’s quite all right. I will do it… I’ll do it, so—!”

Swiping away the princess’s hand reaching out to her from behind, Yukina put a hand to the top of her uniform. At this rate, Kojou would never open his eyes again. She didn’t need to worry about him seeing her like this. Removing the ribbon, Yukina opened up the front of her uniform, gently pressing herself against the sleeping Kojou.

“That’s not enough exposure,” said La Folia in dissatisfaction, but Yukina ignored her, this time touching her blade to the inside of her wrist. She made a wound as deep as she could go and still heal it by ritual, causing her own blood to spurt out.

The fresh blood pooled onto Kojou’s cheek and flowed into his mouth.

His lips conveyed a corpse-like chill to her exposed skin. But there was a tiny bit of warmth left. As if trying to not lose sight of that warmth, Yukina squeezed her arm around Kojou tighter. Finally, with a small sound in his throat, she sensed Kojou swallowing down the blood flowing into him.

“…Senpai?! Senpai, can you hear me?!” Yukina called out to Kojou right into his ear. And in Yukina’s own ear…

“Please continue, Yukina. Kojou can feel you.”

“Wh-why are you watching this, La Folia?!”

Yukina’s voice was turned inside out as she met the eyes of the princess observing her from point-blank range.

La Folia had a mystified look on her face. “I have heard nothing from you to the effect of ‘Don’t watch, I’m too embarrassed’ or ‘Don’t look at me’…”

“I-I didn’t say it, but I believe it is just common sen… Nn?!”

During the time her attention was occupied by the princess’s behavior, Yukina was suddenly embraced and shaken by a powerful force. Kojou, who was surely still unconscious, touched Yukina’s tongue, as if lured by the lingering scent of blood.

Yukina’s body startled and froze as she felt the unfamiliar sensation transmitted by the tip of her tongue.

She felt a numbness climb up her spine, as if strength was being drained from her entire body.

Even so, Yukina lifted her head in earnest.

“S-senpai?! Are you awake?! Where are you touching…? Wa…!”

Kojou’s fingertips, guided by instinct alone, gently ran up Yukina’s back.

Rigid, Yukina gasped audibly. La Folia covered her mouth with a fiery twinkle in her eyes as she leaned forward.

“Oh my…”

“Senpai! The princess is watching, so… No! …Th-that’s my…?!”

Yukina arched back heavily as Kojou’s fingertip touched the sensitive flesh on the inside of her uniform.

As if drawn to Yukina’s slender, white, defenseless neck, Kojou sank his fangs into her skin. “Urk,” went Yukina, biting her lip as if to gird herself against the pain. However, she offered no resistance as Kojou, unconscious even now, gently embraced her.

“…”

Neither of them moved as La Folia turned her back, seemingly out of consideration.

Then, the princess suddenly lifted her face—for she sensed Faux-Angel’s divine energy, still ceaselessly pouring into Kojou’s open wound, disappear.

The chest wound that had seemingly been eating away at Kojou’s body gingerly grew shallower and vanished.

“The angel’s sword has been…consumed?”

La Folia murmured as she glanced over her shoulder.

“As I expected of you, Kojou… With such a Beast Vassal serving you…you really can do it…”

Still holding up the unconscious Yukina, Kojou yawned. The princess nodded as she watched him before shifting her gaze up above her head.

The man-made angel continued to sleep within a white, gleaming world of ice and snow.

“Gwa…!”

Kojou awoke to ferocious pain, like every cell in his entire body was being ripped apart.

He’d experienced this pain previously. It was characteristic of having revived after sustaining injuries severe enough to cause instant death.

“Kojou, are you awake?”

As Kojou groaned in anguish, he opened his eyes; La Folia was looking down at him with a calm expression as their eyes met. He beheld the graceful features of her face, like those of a serene statue, and her silver hair. Against the backdrop of a transparent wall of ice, her beauty seemed unreal; he felt like he was still seeing a dream.

“La Folia? Where am I? So I’m still…alive…?”

Kojou was perplexed at the sweet, lingering taste of blood in his mouth and the soft, warm sensation against his flesh as he awkwardly sat up.

He felt something odd from his slightly numb left arm.

There was a supple weight in it that felt nice, like the feel of cradling a kitten in your arms.

He could feel smooth skin; a charming fragrance filled his nostrils. There was something magnetic about the lovely suppleness. The silky hair that lightly brushed down against him tickled in a pleasant way. Yes, this was Yukina’s hair brushing against…

“…Wait, what the heck is thiiiis?!”

This time, the realization that Yukina was sleeping within his arms woke Kojou up for real. He was shocked beyond words. Kojou had no idea when, but his clothes had been stripped off; he was currently naked from the waist up.

With Kojou like that, here was Yukina, sleeping soundly in his arms. Her sleeping face felt even more youthful than usual, making her cute to a truly amazing degree. She looked as pretty as a budding flower.

But that was not something Kojou was in any position to appreciate.

“H-Himeragi?! Why is she?!”

“Please calm down, Kojou.”

La Folia spoke as if exasperated from watching Kojou become so very flustered.

“Er, no, you can say to calm down all you want, but I don’t remember doing anything like…”

“I know. Yukina provided you with her own blood to revive you. If she had not, you would already have been annihilated via Faux-Angel’s power.”

“Himeragi…did that for me…?”

Kojou shifted his eyes to the still-sleeping Yukina once more. Even now, there were still puncture marks from fangs on Yukina’s pale neck. He wasn’t seeing things; Kojou had inflicted this wound upon her.

Kojou touched the pit of his own stomach and exhaled heavily.

He thought it was strange to have revived so easily after sustaining that Faux-Angel attack, but it hadn’t been the case at all; indeed, Yukina had saved him once again.

Kojou couldn’t put into words the gratitude he felt toward the tiny girl in his arms.

Though he was reluctant to part with the pleasant warmth against his flesh, Kojou gently laid Yukina down on the ground. He averted his eyes from her open uniform.

“Anyway, would you dress Yukina back up? Even you can’t just leave her like this.”

La Folia made a pleasant smile as she nodded.

“I understand… Though it feels rather late for such sentiments after such an intense, intimate encounter,
hee-hee
.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!”

Kojou was shaken once more at the notion he’d committed wicked deeds while unconscious. The fact he couldn’t remember made him all that much more uneasy. What in the world had he and Yukina done right before the princess’s eyes? His pants half off and Yukina’s uniform was open like that. Why…?

Unintentionally looking up while tormented by unease, Kojou’s expression suddenly grew grave, for he had noticed Kanon sleeping within the ice.

“Kanase…!”

The midday sun shone straight through the transparent, spiraling pillar of ice. Kanon was curled up within that golden light.

The wings on her back were folded, with no hint of those dreadful eyeballs. Perhaps they, too, were asleep.

“Right after she impaled you, she lost control of herself and went berserk,” La Folia stood beside Kojou and explained.

Hearing that, Kojou gasped while glancing at the side of her face.

“You mean Kanase’s still in there?”

“Yes. However, this unstable state surely cannot continue for long. At this rate, her consciousness will eventually dissipate.”

“…So we’ve gotta save her before that happens.”

Kojou groaned from the back of his mouth. Gazing at him, La Folia narrowed her eyes in apparent joy.

Kanon Kanase was an opponent who’d already tried to kill him. In spite of that, Kojou thought only of saving her—as if that was perfectly natural. “Hmph,” went the princess, her lips forming a broad smile as she drew close to Kojou’s face.

Seeing the princess get oddly close, Kojou’s heart thumped harder as he backed up.

As Kojou did so, La Folia grabbed both of his arms and drew even closer. That was when Kojou finally realized that the princess only had a thin shirt over her.

How did things get like this?
thought Kojou in a panic. La Folia was completely composed as she looked at him.

“…Even after such passionate conduct, I still do not sense a new Beast Vassal awakening…”

“Y-yeah, that’s right, come to think of it.”

Now that you mention it
, thought Kojou as he tilted his head a bit. Setting his sense of responsibility for what had happened aside, Kojou certainly was feeling the aftereffects of sucking on Yukina’s blood. However, he didn’t feel that he had gained control of a third Beast Vassal.

So sucking blood from the same human won’t awaken another Beast Vassal…?
thought Kojou, gripped by doubt.

“This Beast Vassal… I see, so that’s how it is?”

For some reason, La Folia made a pleasant smile as she seemed to grasp something all by her lonesome. Then, she abruptly got on her tiptoes and touched her own lips to Kojou’s cheek. It was a light kiss, like a peck from a tiny bird…

“Wha…?!”

Kojou reeled from the unexpected onslaught.

Watching Kojou’s innocent reaction, La Folia’s voice let out a giggle and smiled. The smile stayed on her face as she brought a hand to her shirt and began unfastening the remaining buttons.

Kojou hastily put up a hand to stop her.

“The heck are you doing?! Have you lost your mind?!”

“Why are you nervous? You have seen all of me once before, have you not?”

“That’s not the point! And there was mist all over the place back then…!”

Kojou desperately excused himself as La Folia looked up, her lips in a pout.

The image of the princess bathing in the spring arose from the back of his mind, reviving the insistent throb from his canine teeth. It was
an extremely bad sign that his vampiric urges were returning with a vengeance.

“Am I indeed not as charming as Yukina?”

La Folia spoke as a forlorn expression suddenly came over her. It was a look completely unsuited to her usual self, brimming with confidence.

“No, that’s not the case at all, but… Wait, what’s it to you, anyway?!”

The princess smiled charmingly, seeming quite satisfied as she looked up at Kojou as he objected with a mysterious sense of guilt.

“Is that so? I’m quite relieved.”

“About what?!” Kojou replied with a question, for this greatly increased
his
unease.

The princess bashfully lowered her eyes as she made a pained, seemingly fleeting smile.

“I know nothing about this. I thought that this might be an opportunity to learn the basics on how to behave in such a situation should my marriage be arranged as a member of the royal family. But thanks to my father insisting that he shall let no one marry me…”

“Won’t let you marry… Huh, he must love you an awful lot. Sounds like a nice dad.”

Kojou spoke while awkwardly scratching his face. Kojou, who’d lost it when he mistakenly believed someone had confessed his love to his little sister, was in no position to judge her father.

And for a princess like La Folia, who could be packaged and sent off for a political marriage at the first false move, surely in that sense, the only thing he could call it was kindness toward her.

But La Folia tapered her lips in a pout.

“My father has declared any man insolent enough to lay a hand on
his
daughter should be prepared to have all of the knights and the army pound him into the dirt.”

“…Sorry, can I take what I said back?”

Seeing Kojou’s lips twist, La Folia giggled and smiled once more.

“You ruling a Dominion of your own without a single kinsman… Perhaps you would be able to stand up to my father…”

The silver-haired princess gently put a hand around Kojou’s shoulder as she whispered.
What are you saying?
wondered Kojou with a frown.

Looking at Kojou from a distance so short that the tips of their noses
could touch, she commanded in a clear tone. “In the name of the eldest daughter of the royal house of Aldegia, La Folia Rihavein, I command you, the Fourth Primogenitor, Kojou Akatsuki: Suck on my blood.”

As Kojou moved to say,
What kind of nonsense are you…?
he suddenly noticed the look on the princess’s face. Her blue, gemstone-like eyes had an earnest light in them, like she was praying. She wasn’t kidding around.

“This is something we need to do to save Kanase, right?” Kojou asked into the princess’s ear. “Of course it is,” she replied with a sigh.

With a delicate sound, Kojou touched La Folia with his hand and exposed her white neck. The princess gently closed her eyes. Her slender shoulders made a faint shudder.

“I’ll take on your dad. You better not regret this, La Folia…”

“Of course I won’t. Do prove that I have not lost my senses, Kojou Akatsuki.”

From the tone she made her declaration with, the princess somehow seemed amused. Kojou embraced her thin body.

Under the light that shone down through the pillar of ice, their breaths converged and became one.

Within the pillar of ice, Kanon Kanase saw a dream.

In the dream, she was surrounded by beautiful ice and snow.

She had laid eyes upon the scene but once, right after she was born.

It was a silent, lonely, beautiful world built for a single person.

It was the landscape of Kanon’s very heart. This was her world, which Kanon had brought into being herself. Having thrust outside loneliness, sadness, despair, and all other emotions along with “the world” itself, there was now nothing left inside Kanon. Eventually, this consciousness, too, would completely fade away.

In that moment, Kanon did not even have anything left to feel sadness about it. The single boy who had tried to stop her until the very end—when Kanon herself tried to annihilate him, that was when she lost everything.

Six layered wings, six eyeballs, six spiritual nodes drew from the
outside. Through them, divine energy from a higher plane flowed into Kanon. Surely this power would guide her to an even higher existence.