The Amphisbaena (21 page)

“Like I care about royal family or spirit medium stuff! Kanase and La Folia are both ordinary girls, dammit! Making ’em into angels, making clones of ’em, talking with all these big ideas of yours…!”

Kojou’s eyes were dyed red. It was the color of incandescent rage.

If you followed the logic, it was really all quite simple.

Beatrice wanted to turn Kanon and La Folia into weapons and sell them to militaries: the mightiest sorcerous weapons in existence able to defeat even a Primogenitor…

Kensei was trying to make Kanon into an existence greater than human. That’s why Kanon needed an
enemy
capable of forcing her to use her spiritual nodes at full capacity. That’s why they’d targeted Kojou. He was the underdog offered up to make Kanon evolve…

Yes, it was quite simple.

If Kanon couldn’t defeat Kojou, their plan ended then and there. If he just made clear that no Faux-Angel was going to defeat the World’s Mightiest Vampire, the Fourth Primogenitor, that alone would…

“Get this into your thick skulls. I’m saving Kanase and smashing your stupid plan to bits! From here on, this is
my
fight!”

Kojou gave off an ominous aura as he howled.

Responding to the Primogenitor-level magic power, the Masked shot bent, warped swords of light at Kojou.

It was a silver-colored spear that lashed out, knocking the swords of light out of the air.

Both were weapons surrounded in an artificial divine aura. Just as the Masked were able to defend against Yukina’s spear, Snowdrift Wolf was equally capable of beating their swords of light away.

Yukina smiled as she poised her spear at Kojou’s side, practically snuggling up against him.

“…No, senpai. This is
our
fight.”

Kojou trusted her with his back as he silently looked up into the sky.

The pillar of ice had been shattered. Kojou stood on the ground as the eyes of Kanon Kanase’s unfolded three-by-six wings gazed pitilessly down upon him.

“
Whew
… What a pain! You’re really making this take more time than it needs to, Fourth Primogenitor!”

Beatrice manipulated her remote control to dish commands out to the Masked. She was surely betting that even if an unstable Faux-Angel could not be relied upon, she could defeat Kojou with the Masked alone.

The two Masked on standby descended from the sky and launched a countless hail of swords of light at Kojou and the others. There were far too many for Yukina to block single-handed. But…

“…Outta my way.”

Without even turning his head, Kojou easily fended off the flying swords with his right hand. That was all it took to annihilate all of the crooked swords of light. It was as if they’d been consumed, along with the very space they’d occupied.

“…Hey, BB, what the heck’s going on?!”

The look on Kirishima’s face changed completely as he watched.
That wasn’t in the script
, he seemed to want to say as he looked up at the vampiress beside him.

But Beatrice said nothing in reply. Her face simply grimaced in humiliation.

“…Senpai, you take care of Kanase. I’ll handle the Masked.”

Yukina conveyed her message while standing with her back against Kojou’s.

“Got it… What about La Folia, though?”

La Folia returned Kojou’s look of concern with an elegant, charming smile. “There is no need for concern. Fight to your heart’s content, Yukina.”

Yukina knew that she wasn’t the sort of person who’d say that out of bluster and pride. “I will,” Yukina said with a firm nod, sprinting toward Beatrice and the others. With ritual magic augmenting the power of her legs, she accelerated with the speed of a bullet.

“Jagra!” Noticing Yukina’s approach, the vampiress clicked her tongue and poised her Beast Vassal spear.

That spear, an intelligent weapon, could freely alter its shape, length, and angle of attack to strike down foes from a variety of ranges. Its
reaction speed was well beyond human limits; even Yukina’s martial skill put her on even footing at best. All this had already been amply proven.

That was why Beatrice had an annoyed look on her face as she thrust her spear forward with ease.

“You can try and try, but it won’t change the outcome, Sword Shaman! Your spear can’t cut it against my Beast Va…

“Hngg.” Her words of triumph changed into an anguished groan.

Slipping past the Beast Vassal and lunging right at Beatrice, Yukina delivered a ferocious elbow strike to her defenseless flank. Beatrice’s face twisted from the fierce pain of ribs shattering.

“…Young Thunder!”

From point-blank range, Yukina thrust further up, her elbow infused with ritual energy. In spite of Beatrice’s superior size, the vampiress was lifted several centimeters off the ground, coughing up blood in the process.

“Wh…what are you…?” Beatrice moaned, her mind in chaos. But Yukina’s attacks did not cease. Practically glued to her, Yukina stomped on Beatrice’s instep and thrust the base of her palm up at her chin. Then Yukina struck her flank with another elbow.

“Gbah,” Beatrice gasped, her oxygen blown out from her lungs.

“You’re…kidding. A little girl like this, taking me in hand to…”

Yukina’s expression revealed nothing as she looked up at the still-confused Beatrice.

Yukina was a Sword Shaman: an expert trained for the sole purpose of combat against demons. Using ritual power, a Sword Shaman struck her foe, inhibited demonic regenerative abilities, and soundly robbed them of their combat strength.

Only trained soldiers on the level of Kristof Gardos could stand against Yukina in hand to hand. Demons reliant on their ability to use Beast Vassals had no hope of keeping up with Yukina’s movements.

“Certainly your Beast Vassal was strong…but that is all.”

The causal murmur of Yukina’s voice could no longer reach the vampiress’s ears.

Beatrice herself was an amateur at combat. That was why her Beast Vassal fought independently of its host’s will. In other words, she left the timing of both attack and defense to the spear’s own arbitrary judgment.

Properly speaking, the spear is an all-purpose weapon.

However, so long as Beatrice was in control, there was a momentary time lag when moving between offense and defense, for the simple reason that Beatrice herself couldn’t keep up with the spear’s reaction time. Once you knew that, slipping past it was a trivial matter.

Yukina used Snowdrift Wolf as a decoy while attacking Beatrice with her own bare hands.

What Yukina was doing was simple. But Beatrice could not block such basic attacks herself.

With a Sword Shaman able to control her spear at will on one side, and a vampiress led around by the nose by her spear on the other, the outcome of the conflict had been obvious from the start.

As the Beast Vassal spear flew at Yukina from behind, Snowdrift Wolf, which she had left behind her, struck it down. Then…

“…Distort!”

From extremely close range, she delivered a palm strike to the dumbfounded Beatrice’s head. The jolt, directly delivered to her brain, knocked Beatrice out cold. Seizing the opportunity, Yukina took the remote control from her hand.

It was the remote control for the Masked. With it, she should have been able to put the Masked to sleep, rendering them powerless.

“
Tch
… That ain’t good…”

Seeing their rematch end in the little girl utterly crushing Beatrice, Kirishima was ready to make a run for it. As he looked around, searching for an escape route, he noticed La Folia, left behind and defenseless, and made an aggressive flick of his tongue. Leaping right off the top of the cliff, he landed right before the princess’s eyes.

La Folia deftly drew her pistol as if she’d been saving it just for Kirishima.

“You’re thinking, you can get out of this if you take me hostage?”

“Well, that’s how it is. I’m up against the wall here. Resist and I’m gonna make it hurt.”

As the princess made a strained, sagacious smile, Kirishima lowered his posture.

La Folia shot without warning. Unsurprisingly, Kirishima calmly brushed aside the pistol bullets, fired at full auto.

“I told you, nine millimeters ain’t gonna do crap!”

“Is that so? I wonder, then, if you can take this, beast man?”

Discarding the out-of-ammo pistol, La Folia drew her other pistol from behind.

This was her large-size, sparkling, gold-plated spell gun. The trigger guard had been beautifully adorned, and a bayonet about fifteen centimeters long had been fastened under the pistol’s long barrel.

“A spell gun, huh? That’s an interesting bluff. Heh,” chuckled Kirishima in a scornful laugh.

A spell gun was a special gun firing cartridges of precious metal with ritual power sealed within. Extremely few had ever been made; you could probably count all of the fully functional ones in the entire world on your fingers. They were better suited for a museum than a battlefield.

The firepower was huge, but the cartridges were very costly; furthermore, each round had to be handloaded. The guns were intended for wealthy royals and nobles going big-game hunting. In a certain sense, it was a highly appropriate weapon for La Folia, but it wasn’t something you could call well suited to combat.

“Better aim real well, Yer Highness.”

Kirishima made a taunting smile as he charged straight at La Folia.

He was well aware that the princess’s spell gun wasn’t loaded. After all, the spell gun was a single-shot design; all Kirishima had to do to see if it was loaded was to look straight down the barrel.

La Folia had the gun pointed straight at Kirishima. But he had no reason to fear a gun without a bullet.

As Kirishima drew near to shoulder tackle the defenseless princess, a searing blue-white ray of light screamed into his field of vision. As ferocious pain ripped through his chest and fresh blood spurted everywhere, Kirishima made a bitter smile.

“Ha…ha-ha… The hell is this…? Dammit, you totally tricked me.”

Still keeping the spell gun in firing position, the princess coldly looked down at Kirishima.

A blue-white light enveloped the bayonet fastened to the gun’s barrel. It was that light that had seared Kirishima’s field of vision and impaled him through his chest.

“I am quite offended to hear you employ the word
tricked
. I never said a single word about shooting you.”

The princess casually filed her objection. But Kirishima had already lost consciousness and tumbled to the ground and thus had been unable to hear her rebuttal.

“Lowe…! You piece of shit, you can’t even hog-tie one sow…!”

It was Beatrice who shouted at the sight of her blood-soaked subordinate, somehow having recovered from the damage inflicted upon her. Yukina, having prioritized neutralizing the Masked, had not inflicted the finishing blow.

Perhaps she had simply judged correctly that it was unnecessary.

Yukina’s final blow had not been meant to
destroy
the body, but rather, to
throw the body’s functions off
. A vampire’s regenerative ability was meaningless if its cells hadn’t been destroyed to begin with.

In matter of fact, Beatrice, whose sense of balance had been thoroughly wrecked, was still unable to walk straight. If she continued to resist even so, no doubt Yukina could finish her off with a single blow this time.

However, La Folia met Yukina’s eyes and shook her head. It was as if to say,
There is no need, I shall dispose of Beatrice personally
. Therefore, Yukina simply stood back and watched…

“You really got us good, you little bitches. Shit…this is so lame!”

Beatrice spat out blood, indignant at La Folia’s confident demeanor.

“Fine…forget about business. I’m killing all of you!”

The crimson spear appeared in the vampiress’s hand. Perhaps it was reflecting its master’s anger, but her spear-shaped Beast Vassal had transformed into a more malevolent form than before, with talons and spines along its length.

“I take it you have made your peace?”

Even with the ghastly Beast Vassal spear before her eyes, La Folia’s pleasant, charming smile did not falter. Then, she turned the tip of her bayonet toward the wounded vampiress.

“You think you’re going to stop my Beast Vassal with that puny little knife? Don’t mock me…!” Beatrice shouted. Her Beast Vassal instantly swelled up to nearly double its previous size, forming a number of jagged protrusions in the process, and rushed toward the princess.

“Jagra! Gut her like a fish!”

Beatrice smiled triumphantly. But what her ears heard was not La Folia screaming, but rather, the sound of her singing a beautiful hymn.

“…Children of the gods dwelling within me, guardians of the host, thou who bring victory in the time of the sword, ye who carry the departed!”

A flash of light enveloped La Folia’s bayonet before she completed her chant. The blue-white light illuminated the area around her like it was the sun before taking the shape of a great blade some ten-odd meters in length.

With one flash of the sword of light borne by the princess, the spear Beast Vassal was bisected, burning away in the blink of an eye.

“…Huh?”

Beatrice stared blankly at the dissipation of her Beast Vassal. She knew what the attack La Folia had unleashed really was. But it simply should not have been possible.

“A Völundr System pseudo–Holy Blade…?! That’s crazy, you can’t use one of those unless you’re close to a mother ship with a spiritual reactor…!”

“You’ve certainly done your homework. Knowledge gained from Kensei?”

La Folia nodded with a look of honest admiration.

The Völundr System was wielded with pride by knights of the Aldegian royal family. It was a tactical support system that used an enormous flow of spiritual energy to turn a mundane weapon into a spiritual one.

It was a mighty system, even said to be the mortal enemy of demonkind, but the fact it could not be employed without a link to a mother ship, such as the armored airship
Ragnvald
, limited its use.

“But surely you are well aware that the women of the Aldegian royal family are powerful spirit mediums?”