Strike the Blood, Vol. 11: The Fugitive Fourth Primogenitor

“Hmph.”

However, Natsuki was slightly taken aback, perhaps not really believing Kojou would voice his gratitude so easily, when she twisted her lips and said:

“Well, fine. Incidentally, Kojou, where is your father right now?”

“…Huh?”

At Natsuki’s sudden question, it was Kojou’s turn to get suspicious.

Kojou’s father, Gajou Akatsuki, was an archeologist. Due to the nature of his work, he spent most of the year overseas, rarely returning to Itogami Island. Of course, that left few opportunities to come into contact with Natsuki.

“Natsuki, why do you know about h…? Wait, don’t tell me…”

The first word to emerge in the back of Kojou’s mind was adultery. Natsuki might have looked like a little girl, but apparently, she was twenty-six years old. That meant she was more than old enough to have an old flame or two.

But the moment those thoughts came to mind, Natsuki violently pinched Kojou’s cheek and said, “Those are the eyes of a man picturing something quite rude, Kojou Akatsuki.”

“Ow! Ow! —Hey, I didn’t even say anything yet!!”

“Enough about that. Answer the question already.”

“He’s not on Itogami Island right now. He took my little sister and went off to Grandma’s place in Tanzawa!” Kojou blurted out while he sustained Natsuki’s merciless punishment.

Natsuki let out a “Hmm” and slackened her grip on Kojou as she sank into thought.

“So for once, that man actually told the truth about something…”

“How the heck do you know him anyway, Natsuki?” Kojou asked, putting a hand on his aching cheek.

Natsuki gave an annoyed sigh as she replied, “I know Gajou Akatsuki from his numerous unwelcome interruptions in my side business. Well, I do grudgingly concede that he has been useful on very rare occasions…”

“Your side business…? What the heck’s that shitty dad of mine been up to…?” Kojou muttered. A bad feeling came over him.

Natsuki was a teacher, but her side business was as a federal Attack Mage with the right to capture sorcerous criminals. Educational facilities within a Demon Sanctuary were required to have a certain proportion of staff on hand with Attack Mage certification. Therefore, an Attack Mage doubling as a teacher was by no means rare. In point of fact, Saikai Academy had one for each grade; in other words, it employed five additional Attack Mages as teachers in addition to Natsuki.

However, Natsuki occupied a special role that set her apart from her peers, for her might as an Attack Mage was so exceptional that she continued to aid active criminal investigations.

Therefore, Gajou had come into contact with Natsuki in the course of that business. In other words, Gajou was on the scene where sorcerous crimes were taking place. Kojou couldn’t help but be concerned about that.

“Can you get in touch with Gajou Akatsuki?”

Natsuki continued her line of questioning, paying Kojou’s unease no heed.

“That might be a little tough. Cell phone signals don’t reach that area, y’see.”

Kojou didn’t know Gajou’s cell phone number in the first place, but he kept quiet about that.

“The place your grandmother lives in is quite the backwoods, then?” she asked with a serious tone.

“Pretty much, yeah.” He gave a heavy nod.

“So what is this all of a sudden? You need to talk to him ’bout something?”

“No… There was just a little something on my mind,” she replied vaguely, not helping his current doubts.

He shuddered involuntarily as he said, “Hey—cut that out. Now you’re making me worried. I already told you Nagisa’s with him and everything.”

“Nagisa Akatsuki… You did say something like that, didn’t you…?”

Natsuki’s brows furled, as if she liked how things were unfolding less and less. Her murmur alarmed him further. It seemed Natsuki really had come into contact with Gajou in the recent past.

Maybe it really is adultery. When Kojou seriously entertained the suspicion, Natsuki suddenly glared at him with half-lidded eyes.

“Well, setting all that aside, Kojou Akatsuki, what is with this score?”

“Huh? Did I completely bomb it?”

A perplexed expression came over Kojou as she thrust the marked answer sheet toward his face. The number written in red pencil was sixty-six out of one hundred—not a great score, but not terrible, either.

“I can hardly believe you achieved a score this high through your own ability. You couldn’t possibly have slipped some cheating method past my supervision, could you…?”

Natsuki spoke these words while staring at Kojou in utter seriousness.

“Umm, no way this score is high enough to suspect cheating, and even I can do this well if I study hard, y’know.”

Kojou, fully understanding the reason for Natsuki’s doubts, desperately tried to refute them. Compared to his previous tests, chock-full of red marks, you’d think this one was so good that it came from a different person, but no casual observer would consider that score to be worthy of praise. They were the grades of a student dead set to repeat a year. The fact that this kind of score was enough to make her suspect cheating was a harsh blow to Kojou’s pride.

But he could understand Natsuki’s feeling of surprise. Since becoming a vampire, Kojou had no time to study—a situation that hadn’t really changed.

“To think you would actually study for extra lessons. What’s gotten into you?”

“Umm, I just thought that, well, you know… I really should take my classes more seriously…”

For the one who can’t take them at all, Kojou continued to himself.

For an instant, the side of a blonde girl’s face, always making a small, trembling smile, flashed before his eyes.

Avrora Florestina. The twelfth Kaleid Blood.

Ever since he’d regained fragments of his memories of her, Kojou’s mental state had undergone subtle changes that even he didn’t understand. That didn’t mean the situation he was placed in had changed very much, but when he thought about what he could do, he thought he could at least put in the effort on short tests, but—

“It’s not like an education has any downsides. Besides, gotta think about the future, right?” Kojou said earnestly, almost saying it just for his own sake.

To be blunt, he still had little appreciation for his status, but in name, at least, Kojou was the vampire known as the Fourth Primogenitor; furthermore, vampire primogenitors were granted a life span that was nigh eternal.

The issue causing Kojou a much greater deal of concern was picking a career.

Even vampires needed to put food on the table, and clothes and a place to stay required money. If one was born a commoner and not an aristocrat, they worked, or they starved. He wasn’t like Dimitrie Vattler or Giada Kukulkan, both possessing vast territories. All that said, he didn’t think the stupid title of World’s Mightiest Vampire was worth much on a résumé.

And so, having agonized over the matter, Kojou made an honest attempt at getting an education. Surely, academic knowledge had no downside for an undying, ageless vampire; if it qualified him for gainful employment and let him get his hands on a trade, all the better.

Kojou hadn’t actually intended to explain things to Natsuki that far. If some other vampire primogenitor said I’d better study seriously, so I don’t go hungry down the road, Kojou would make fun of him, too.

“I see.”

However, Natsuki flashed a charming smile, almost as though she could see right through to Kojou’s feelings. This was not her usual smile, the cold one that made her seem like she was looking down on the entire world. This was a gentle smile, the sort one gave to a younger brother. Natsuki’s soft expression, one Kojou was seeing for the first time, made it hard to pay attention to anything else.

“…Natsuki?”

When Kojou murmured without thinking, Natsuki silently delivered a sharp blow to his forehead. In the meantime, the beautiful, charming smile from before had vanished like an illusion.

“Well, fine. I suppose I will give you a passing grade for today’s lesson.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“Do try to greet the New Year on good terms.”

“Gotcha.”

Kojou lobbed his curt reply as he pressed a hand to his stinging forehead. Natsuki returned to the armchair, elegantly sipping her iced tea. Just as before, Astarte was sitting reverentially before the electric fan, saying “Weee aaare…” like some kind of alien from outer space.

Then, when Kojou, who felt a brief sense of liberation, tidied up the writing supplies and gently opened the classroom door, a new person emerged. This was Misaki Sasasaki, the physical education teacher.

“All done?”

Dressed in sporty attire, the female teacher confirmed with Natsuki that the lesson was done before she shifted her gaze to Kojou, who stood frozen in place. Of course, Kojou’s egregious number of absences meant English was by no means the only subject he needed extra classes in.

“Sorry to spoil things when you’ve neatly wrapped up, but after English is gym. We’re doing a ten-kilometer marathon, so get changed and meet me out on the grounds, ’kay?”

Misaki smiled at Kojou as she spoke in her oddly tense tone.

Kojou stared at the brightly glimmering midday sun; then he shifted his eyes to the sports field scorched by its rays. Itogami Island, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, was an island of eternal summer with a tropical climate. Even on New Year’s Eve, the temperature close to noon was butting against 30 degrees Celsius.

And Kojou was a vampire, weak to direct sunlight.

“…Seriously?”

A frail murmur escaped Kojou’s mouth as the fear of impending death coursed through him.

Astarte’s serene voice echoed toward the electric fan as it was seemingly sucked into the blue sky.

2

Kojou, finally freed from his lessons some two-odd hours later, headed toward the monorail with a wobbly gait.

Walking beside him was Yukina Himeragi, carrying a black guitar case on her back. She’d been waiting the whole time for Kojou to finish his lessons so she could resume her duty as watcher of the Fourth Primogenitor.

“Umm… Are you all right, senpai?”

Concerned, Yukina looked up at the hollow expression on Kojou’s face.

“Yeah, somehow… Jeez, I seriously thought I was gonna shrivel up like a prune…”

Kojou shook his head violently, apparently to get his head back in the game, and formed a smile with no strength behind it. Thanks to overusing his brain cells on the test and walking what seemed like a ten-kilometer marathon beneath the scorching sun, Kojou was completely and utterly drained. Both mind and body were at their limits. The road to the station was less than a fifteen-minute walk, but it felt impossibly far.

“First, please rehydrate. Then, have this. It’s a lemon dipped in honey.”

“Ahh, thanks.”

Appreciative of the ever-reliable Yukina, Kojou accepted the sports drink and the lemon.

Technically, Kojou was the World’s Mightiest Vampire, and Yukina was Kojou’s watcher, dispatched by the Japanese government. However, no one looking at them that moment was likely to believe that. They looked like nothing more than an athletics club member right after a match and his shrewd, quick-witted manager.

“Sorry for making you come with me to school on New Year’s Eve like this, Himeragi.”

As soon as he recovered a bit of stamina, Kojou expressed his appreciation to Yukina all over again. Kojou hadn’t asked for Yukina to follow him around, but it was a simple fact that she’d helped with lots of things.

“It is no trouble at all. After all, it is my mission to watch you, senpai,” she replied with her usual all-business expression.

Kojou unwittingly made a pained smile at Yukina’s stereotypical reply as he said, “Somehow, this takes me back to right after I met you, Himeragi.”

“Oh…?”

Yukina’s face stiffened, seemingly put on guard by Kojou’s sudden declaration. She pressed a hand to the hem of her skirt, inching backward as if to avoid his gaze.

“Wh…what are you remembering?! Did I not ask you to forget about that?!”

“…Huh?! Ah!”

Kojou panicked as he saw the explosion of redness on Yukina’s cheeks. He remembered that in the place he’d first bumped into Yukina, he had seen her panties—not once, but twice in quick succession. It was a most unfortunate accident upon their first meeting.

“No! Not that time!”

“Which is ‘this’ time and which is the ‘other’ time?!”

“I meant school! I met you when I was heading to school for extra lessons, right, Himeragi?”

“…I suppose so, now that you mention it…”

Yukina finally lowered her guard somewhat. The first time Kojou and Yukina had a chance to properly speak to each other was the day after that first encounter. It was right before the end of summer vacation. That day, too, Kojou was heading to school by himself to receive extra lessons, whereupon Yukina, a transfer student at the middle school, appeared before him.

“Back then, I had just about the worst possible impression of you, though—the way you turned your spear on me for no good reason.”

“I—I believe you were responsible for that, senpai! I believe that was very much the case!”

For once, Yukina was flustered in her response. Apparently, Yukina’s impulsive behavior at the time was an embarrassing memory she did not particularly want to remember.

“I mean, even though they told me you were the World’s Mightiest Vampire, you seemed oddly flaky. I could not really tell what you were up to, the talk of memory loss seemed very fishy, and you were indecent… How could I possibly trust a person like that?!”

“I wasn’t indecent! Seeing your panties back then was totally an act of God!”

“I told you to forget about that!”

Yukina walked toward the station at a rapid pace, leaving Kojou behind. He lowered his shoulders in exasperation and chased after her.

Even when they boarded the monorail, Yukina kept her face turned away from him as if she was sulking. Left with no avenues to pursue, Kojou pulled out his cell phone and began quietly checking his messages.

The interior of the monorail car was emptier than usual, no doubt because few people commuted on New Year’s Eve. The jovial atmosphere despite that was probably because it was the year’s end, too. Even the billboard in the car was plastered with New Year’s greetings and advertisements for New Year’s sales.

“Senpai… Umm, about our conversation earlier…”

It was a while after the monorail set out that Yukina hesitantly opened her mouth. Kojou was still looking at his cell phone when he replied in a tone that seemed absentminded somehow.

“Mm? Ahh, you mean about the panti—”

“Not that!”

The plastic strap Yukina was holding audibly creaked under the power of her grip.

“I said earlier that I could not trust you, senpai…b-but I do not feel that way about you anymore, so…”

Yukina’s voice was tense, as if she had wrenched considerable courage out of herself. She must have been quietly dwelling on how she’d unintentionally scolded Kojou out of stubbornness.

“Ah…yeah.”

“I mean, you are certainly as unreliable as before, sloppy, not self-aware of your being a Primogenitor, you get far too comfortable with other girls as soon as I take my eyes off you, and your incorrigible indecency is not a good thing, in my opinion, but you do still possess a few admirable qualities…”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I thought I should tell you that I do understand this, senpai, having watched you for these past four months.”

“Mm.”

Kojou had yet to meet Yukina’s gaze as she continued to explain herself, her voice threatening to fade away. However, Kojou’s reaction was indifferent. He showed no particular sign of satisfaction as he let Yukina’s words roll past him.

“…Um, er… Senpai, are you listening?”

Naturally, Yukina lifted her face and looked up at Kojou, sensing that something was off. Kojou, gazing vacantly at his cell phone, blinked in mild surprise and asked:

“Huh? Ah, sorry. What’d you say?”

“Senpai…!”

Yukina scowled irritably when she realized that Kojou hadn’t listened to a word she’d said.

“S-sorry about that. Nagisa hasn’t been in touch for a while, so that was kinda on my mind…”

“Haaa…” Yukina glared at Kojou and let out a deep sigh as he hastily tried to vindicate himself. “A while, you say… You were able to call her normally up to last week, yes?”

“Yeah, but it’s been a whole week since then. She said she was just about to arrive at Grandma’s place, and I haven’t gotten one word from her since, so that’s kinda worrying me a bit.”

“Didn’t you tell me that cell phone signals do not reach where Nagisa went for the New Year? If so, I would think there is nothing unnatural about that being the case…”

“Well, yeah.”

Kojou grudgingly agreed with Yukina’s exceedingly sensible assertion. Now that his inbox was empty, he checked his missed calls one last time before putting his cell phone back in his pocket.

“Besides, Grandma works people pretty hard. I think she’s probably just too busy helping at the temple to send me a message.”

“Then, there is no need to be so concerned.”

“Yeah…”

Kojou nodded, unable to rebut her. Even he could understand that it was outside the social norm for a little sister in middle school to call her older brother without a good reason.

“Incidentally, Himeragi, what were you talking about earlier?”

Having apparently recovered his senses, Kojou looked straight at Yukina.

“Eh…?! Ah, umm, nothing at all.”

Startled, Yukina’s entire body went rigid before she shook her head in manic protest. Apparently, he was directly asking about a subject that contained details that were difficult to voice out loud.

“Hmmm.”

Displaying no particular interest, Kojou did not pry further, readily dropping the subject. As he did, Yukina glared at the side of his face, murmuring:

“Stupid senpai…!”

3

Kojou ate a quick lunch in front of the station, and by the time he arrived back home, it was a little past three. Less than nine hours remained before the year was over.

Taking the elevator to the apartment building’s seventh floor, Kojou opened the door to his own apartment, room 704. “Pardon me,” said Yukina quietly, following Kojou into the entryway.

About ten days earlier, an incident had occurred that had left Yukina’s room—room 705—a complete disaster, and while repairs were technically complete, it still lacked the furniture and appliances required for everyday living. Thus, due to circumstances beyond her control, Yukina had become something like a houseguest at Kojou’s place.

A third party would invariably mistake the situation for cohabitation, but Yukina had stated that she needed to keep Kojou under even stricter observation. Because this eased the burdens of living at home alone, Kojou had no compelling reason to drive her out, either.

Having thus entered the apartment together without any particular misgivings, Yukina and Kojou both gasped in shock—for the three-bedroom apartment was in a state of total chaos. Everything in the drawers had been dumped onto the floor; the closet doors were open, too.

“What the hell?!”

“Don’t tell me…a burglar?!”

Sensing a human presence, Yukina stepped ahead to shield Kojou. Apparently, the intruder who had made a mess of the apartment was still present.

Kojou followed Yukina’s vigilant gaze when he, too, discerned the intruder’s location: the near side of the corridor in the master bedroom, usually left closed and unused.

Yukina, seemingly on guard in case the opponent was armed, cautiously opened the door. Then they laid eyes upon an individual wearing a frumpy white coat, sitting on the edge of the bed.

She was probably around thirty, give or take. She had unkempt, disheveled hair and eyes that seemed reluctant to open all the way. At first glance, the young-faced woman came off as a negligent adult.

She heaved a contemplative sigh as she noticed Kojou and Yukina entering the room, adding, “Wow, Kojou. And Yukina, too. Perfect timing!”

“Gah…”

“Miss Mimori?”

Kojou let out a low groan as a surprised Yukina addressed her by name.

Sitting on the side of the bed and rummaging through the closet was none other than Mimori Akatsuki—Kojou’s mother. She usually slept at her workplace, more because she found commuting to be a pain than anything else, normally returning home once every week or so. But apparently, her colleagues had managed to shoo her out of the lab for New Year’s.

That said, Mimori was the rightful occupant of the apartment. Of course, Kojou and Yukina had a hard time understanding why Mimori would turn her own apartment into a cluttered bird’s nest.

She reached for a piece of luggage at the back of the closet and explained, “I finally found my suitcase, but there are things in the way, so I couldn’t get it out. Hold it down for a sec, would you?”

“W-wait!”

Kojou hastily tried to stop Mimori as she grabbed hold of the suitcase handle and gave it a good, hard yank.

For Mimori, who lacked any domestic capabilities whatsoever, the term “messy adult” did not even begin to accurately describe her. The closet in her room was packed with all sorts of things. The contents had less space between them than a wood mosaic.

It was painfully easy to guess what would happen when the suitcase was yanked out. However, despite Kojou’s valiant efforts to prevent the inevitable, the wall of luggage collapsed, causing a wave of clutter to crash down onto him.

“What a relief. Now I can finally pack.”

Mimori, the culprit of that tragic spectacle, opened her suitcase in good humor, ignorant of her son’s suffering. Thanks to Kojou’s body acting as a dam, she escaped the luggage landslide unscathed.

“You see all this, and that’s all you have to say…?”

Kojou, bruised all over, pointed to the luggage scattered on the floor as he chided his mother. However, his words simply mystified her.

“Well, there’s no time. Tonight, I’m heading out for the company trip to Hokkaido.”

“You never mentioned that to me!”

“Oh, did you want to go, Kojou?”

“Nah, I’ll pass. I went through hell when I went with you on that company trip when I was in middle school!”

“Did you, now?”

“How could you forget?! I lost all my clothes in strip ping-pong, I lost all my New Year’s money betting in mah-jongg… All sorts of stuff happened!”

Kojou’s eyes glazed over as he recalled the bitter experience. Mimori let his grumbling wash over her like she was listening to background music at a coffee shop.

“Incidentally, I don’t see Nagisa anywhere… Kojou, do you know where she is?”

“Dad took Nagisa to go see Grandma in Tangiwa. —A week ago.”

Notice faster, dammit, went Kojou, sighing with an exasperated look.

The instant Mimori heard the words Grandma in Tangiwa, her expression heavily contorted, almost as if by reflex. For Mimori, one to take everything in stride, it was a rare look of dismay.

“Tch… That ghastly old bag is still alive?”

“Gh…ghastly old bag?”

A bewildered look came over Yukina as she watched Mimori curse her elder with vivid enmity.

Kojou whispered to Yukina, “Mom and Grandma don’t get along very well.”

Yukina gave a bewildered nod of understanding. One was an airheaded psychic working as a researcher for an international conglomerate; the other was a rogue Attack Mage and spiritualist working as a priestess at a shrine. They had no common ground to speak of, and beyond being a wife and a mother-in-law, their mutual compatibility was abysmal. Small wonder Gajou hadn’t said a word to Mimori about that year’s homecoming.

“More importantly, why is this house so messy? Don’t tell me this is all from looking for that suitcase…?” Kojou inquired as he surveyed the area.

Mimori seemed to notice the dismal state of the apartment for the first time. Gazing at the luggage strewn about the floor, she looked surprised for a moment as she said:

“Oh, th-this is—you see… Yes, end-of-the-year cleaning!”

“…Huh?”

“Doesn’t it feel really good to get rid of a year’s worth of grime on New Year’s Eve and face the New Year with a clean slate?”

“D-don’t make up such convenient lies! You made that up just now, didn’t you?!”

Kojou responded a moment late to Mimori’s all-too-innocent explanation. While he tried to regain his footing, Mimori smiled in victory and changed topics.

“Mm-hmm… Well, never mind that. The two of you, stand side by side. Yes, right over there.”

“Ah…?”

Prodded by Mimori to stand near the window, Kojou did as instructed, largely on reflex.

“Yes, Yukina, can you take one step closer to Kojou?”

“L-like this?”

Yukina stood right beside Kojou, still unable to grasp what was going on.

Mimori, seeing that Kojou and Yukina were nestled right against each other, suddenly said in a completely serious voice, “Now, question. What is Napier’s constant e’s logarithm to the second power?”

What the heck? Kojou froze, not understand his mother’s question in the slightest. He couldn’t even tell if she was speaking Japanese anymore.

For her part, Yukina looked just as bewildered as she easily solved the problem, resulting in…

“Two…?”

Yukina tilted her head as she brought up the index and middle fingers of her right hand.

And because the Japanese word for two is ni, Yukina’s expression broke into a little smile. Mimori did not let the instant slip by, quickly snapping the shutter of the digital camera she’d brought out.

As a result, she had taken a commemorative photo recording Kojou and Yukina in an intimate-looking scene. Furthermore, the way Yukina was making a peace sign with a smiling face made it a frighteningly rare image.