Right Arm of the Saint (21 page)

Yukina Himeragi was sitting alone as the rays of the setting sun filtered into her room.

It was room 705, the far-too-big-for-one-person apartment next to the Akatsuki family residence.

There were signs of life: curtains, cushions, magnetic cups with black tea in them. She’d bought them together with Kojou. In just a few days, she’d gotten completely used to seeing them, yet no doubt she would soon be leaving them behind.

Thinking that, she felt very lonely for some reason.

“…”

Outside the window was the expanse of the twilight sky.

Looking down at Itogami City from here, nothing seemed to have particularly changed. It was a peaceful scene, as if the battle that had occurred in this island’s lowermost section had been all a lie.

Three days had passed since Armed Apostle Eustach’s raid on Keystone Gate came to an end. Now that the chaos had calmed down somewhat, the residents of Itogami City seemed to think it was time to go on with their normal lives.

In the end, Yukina and Kojou had escaped after the battle before the Island Guard made it to the lowest level. So all the security force personnel saw when they reached the lowest level were traces of incredible
destruction and Eustach and Astarte’s unconscious bodies. Apparently Eustach had not spoken of Kojou or Yukina after his arrest, either.

His recovery of the saint’s corpse having thus ended in failure, Eustach’s conduct grew into a global-scale incident.

The Gigafloats were held up by a miracle from a holy relic. That Itogami City had been designed this way brought a flood of condemnation from not only the Western European Church but a wide variety of kingdoms and organizations. Simultaneously, there was a widespread demand to pardon Eustach for his crime. It was not possible for the government of Japan to ignore the controversy.

As a result, what had been Itogami Island’s keystone for over two decades would be replaced by one constructed by conventional means. The government publicly committed to return the currently used holy relic to Lotharingia.

Eustach was declared persona non grata and expelled, and Astarte, a homunculus, having merely been obeying her master’s commands, would be treated as under probation. The formalities had yet to take place, but it was a fair and just conclusion that managed to mollify world opinion.

The next morning, Kojou Akatsuki went to school as usual as if nothing had happened at all.

After his having skipped class on the first day after summer break, his charismatic homeroom teacher wrung him dry. She added to his unfinished pile of summer break homework, which made him look a bit like the dead.

However, that was probably a normal, everyday thing to him.

It was boring, day-to-day life like this that he had used the power of the Fourth Primogenitor, the world’s mightiest vampire, to protect—

“…He really is quite a piece of work…”

As Yukina murmured, she unwittingly let out a small giggle as well.

Her laughing voice, containing so much fun it shocked even her, immediately changed to a deep sigh.

Yukina, too, would soon return to her normal daily existence.

Her training as an apprentice Sword Maiden at High God Forest. Though severe, there was nothing perplexing or confounding about it. It was tranquil and never-changing, day after day. That was Yukina’s old daily existence.

Yukina had failed too many times to continue watching over Kojou.

The Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassal went berserk, reducing the warehouse district to ashes.

The Fourth Primogenitor she was watching over had been in great danger and nearly slain.

When the Fourth Primogenitor rejected combat, she spurred him on and brought him to the battlefield with her.

And on top of that, so that he could become able to use his Beast Vassal, she had granted him her own blood—

Any one of those actions made her unworthy of being a watcher.

Even more, as a result of combat unrelated to her mission, Snowdrift Wolf, the Lion King Agency’s secret weapon, had been wrecked.

Yukina was not skillful enough to gloss all this over with a suitable report. She reported what had occurred to the Lion King Agency, leaving out the minor details.

Yukina would no doubt be recalled by the Lion King Agency for failure as a watcher. Probably soon.

If it ended in no more but discipline that would be fine, but it would not be strange for her Attack Mage qualification to be revoked and for her name to be stricken from the Lion King Agency’s rolls. That, too, would be Yukina’s sole responsibility. It was the result of her own conduct, so it could not be helped. Besides, Yukina did not regret what she had done.

If she had any regrets, she regretted only that she would never meet Kojou Akatsuki again.

He was a flake, so she worried about him. After all, if she wasn’t by his side, there was no telling what he might do—

“—!”

The intercom’s chime caught her by surprise.

The monitor displayed a man in a home delivery company uniform, no doubt working for the Lion King Agency.

Yukina unlocked the door for him and went into the entryway. However, by then the deliveryman had already vanished. In his place, a large package had been left in front of the apartment’s entrance.

It was a long aluminum case. It was a trunk called a tour case, used for transporting guitars and other musical instruments. Yukina was perplexed as she brought the case into the room.

She undid the clasp and opened the case.

Then Yukina sucked in her breath.

Inside the case was a silver-colored spear, all repairs complete, every bit as good as new.

“A lot happened, but the result was as you expected…I would suppose?”

Nighttime, Saikai Academy, high school section. A lone male student was in a classroom that should have been empty.

As he leaned against a wall, there was a crow right beside him.

The young man spoke casually to the bird, which was considered an ill omen, as it rested on the windowsill.

“Having thus obtained a blood partner, Kojou Akatsuki gained a single Beast Vassal. So he’s one step closer to becoming a full Fourth Primogenitor, but what I don’t get is why you’d go out of your way to wake up a monster that can raze a city without blinking…”

The crow silently listened to the young man’s words. Its body, covered in jet-black feathers, was strangely flat and smooth. From its angles and lack of thickness, it looked like it had been simply crafted from paper. This was not a real bird. It was a shikigami born from ritual energy.

“The timing’s too convenient in the first place. Surely you knew of the Lotharingian Armed Apostle hunting demons, and his objective of seizing back the holy relic, from the beginning?”

The young asked the crow with a critiquing tone.

“And sending an apprentice Sword Shaman with a strong sense of justice to watch over Kojou at a time like that, it’s really transparent. So, Kojou drinking that girl’s blood was part of your scheme from the beginning. Geez, you sure put that serious girl through the wringer here.”

“…However, thanks to this, the Fourth Primogenitor’s awakening has been hastened.”

The crow suddenly opened its mouth and spoke with an elderly voice.

“He already exists, whether we reach out to him or not. Therefore, it is best to control him and have one more card to play.”

“So, Yukina Himeragi is the bell around the neck of the sleeping beast.”

Making a heavy sigh, as if pitying her, the young man shifted his gaze beyond the window.

“Certainly given Kojou’s personality, no doubt he’d never do anything cruel to the valiant girl, but…I’m sure she has no idea the Lion King Agency sent her to be the Fourth Primogenitor’s lover. Poor thing.”

“There has never been a Primogenitor born to rule a Dominion in this nation’s entire history. National survival is at stake; may she play her role very nicely.”

Something like a chuckle came out of the crow’s throat.

The tone had been a jesting one, but there was no concealing the gloom that came with it.

Even to them, this plan was a double-edged sword that could invite a great calamity. She must have felt like she was tossing a lit lighter into a warehouse full of gunpowder and taking her chances.

However, it seemed that for the moment, things were proceeding as they had hoped.

Yukina Himeragi had most certainly closed the distance between her and Kojou Akatsuki.

“And not all that may befall her deserves pity. To be the partner of an emperor means to be an empress.”

“Well, that might be so, but…it does give me a somewhat conflicted feeling.”

As he spoke, the young man looked at a table in the center of the classroom. That was where his childhood friend sat.

If she ever found out that he was
the actual watcher of Kojou Akatsuki
, no doubt she’d fly into a rage. He really wasn’t looking forward to that.

“Now then, the Fourth Primogenitor appears at turning points in history. Does his appearance portend good or evil? …Kojou Akatsuki. At times the Western European Church refers to the Lightbringer, another name for the fallen angel Lucifer… Hmm, very interesting…”

So a servant of God, or the Devil who would destroy the Earth—

Leaving those words behind, the crow was undone.

It became a simple sheet of paper, dancing atop the wind.

Watching it go until it faded into the dark nighttime sky, the young man stroked his hair as if fed up with it all.

“Sheesh… You’ve got a rough road ahead of you, buddy.”

His utterance was somehow playful, but the sound was wasted on an empty classroom.

Kojou Akatsuki was lying on his face, sitting in a terrace seat in the corner of the student cafeteria.

It was Monday, after class, having surmounted a weekend immersed in homework. Here in the terrace-style café of the student cafeteria, male students who’d spotted unsold bread at fire sale prices and athletic club members before practice made the place unusually lively.

Looking at them from the side, Kojou made a deep sigh.

“So hot… I’m melting. Burning. Turning to ash… And what’s with
more
supplemental exams? That little shrimp homeroom teacher’s doing it to have fun tormenting me, I just know it!”

He complained to no one in particular as he gazed at the textbooks spread over the table.

Apparently the results of the last make-up test during summer vacation were far from the necessary number of points to make up for the piles and piles of days of missed attendance. On top of that, they’d looked into the issue of his skipping class on the first day after summer break, with even more make-up exams being assigned as a result.
Not much of a reward for saving Itogami Island from almost sinking
, thought Kojou.

The only saving grace was that since that incident, Asagi had been oddly kind toward him.

Even that very day, she’d gone out of her way, staying after class to help him study for the extra make-up tests.

Having been caught up in the Keystone Gate incident, she knew that it’d been Kojou and Yukina who’d stopped Eustach and saved Itogami Island. Perhaps as a result, from Asagi’s point of view, Kojou had risked his own life to save hers.

That was actually just Kojou’s arbitrary decision, not something Asagi should think of as a debt to be repaid, but Kojou was grateful for the study help all the same.

Asagi was currently away, off to buy something to drink from the counter.

“…”

“Now get these done before I come back,” she’d said of the pile of problems from which Kojou was subconsciously averting his eyes.

Asagi had incredibly good grades, but perhaps thanks to her being a genius, she wasn’t all that good at teaching others, to the degree he could understand the younger Yukina’s explanations a lot better.

But, he couldn’t rely on Yukina, either.

She’d said she’d no doubt be removed from watch duty over Kojou. She’d probably return to High God Forest and resume her training as a Sword Shaman.

Kojou had no reason to stop her. A girl like her being sent to watch over him had been a strange situation to begin with.