Kojou made a pained smile as he spoke. Of course, finding homes for ten kittens wasn’t a one- or two-day job. This was the product of several days of hard work between both Kanon and Nagisa.
“Glad we finally finished the job, though.”
“I suppose so. Now all that’s left is the one I picked up earlier, but I can manage that on my own.”
“…Wait, you picked up another one?!”
Kojou was naturally in shock as he caught sight of the kitten in the blanket Kanon was holding.
It was hard enough caring for only one abandoned cat, yet here was Kanon taking care of one after another; it had to be a considerable burden on her. It was something that couldn’t be explained by a simple love of animals; Kojou felt a fierce motive behind it. And just as Kojou was about to spontaneously ask why she was going so far…
“…My, a delicious-looking kitten there.”
A small woman with a parasol raised emerged from the side.
“Natsuki?”
“Don’t call your homeroom teacher by her first name.”
Kojou let out an anguished groan as he sustained a ferocious elbow strike to his side. Natsuki Minamiya looked back at the suffering Kojou with an upbeat look.
“Did you know, Kojou Akatsuki? It’s forbidden to bring small animals onto school grounds. So, I’ll be confiscating that kitten. I was planning to have stew tonight, anyway…”
Kanon sucked in her breath with a sharp “hiu!” at Natsuki’s casually conveyed words. Seeing her reaction, Natsuki smiled at her as if she was licking her lips.
Clutching the blanket-wrapped kitten, Kanon backed off, as if frightened.
“…I’m sorry, I must run away.”
“R-right.”
Kojou sighed as he beheld Kanon running off, her silver hair swaying all the while.
Somehow, Natsuki looked somewhat wounded as she tapered her lips.
“Hmph. Can’t take a joke. She didn’t have to run like her life depended on it.”
“It doesn’t sound like a joke when
you
say it.”
Kojou made an exhausted-sounding sigh. Natsuki glared at Kojou like that had been beyond the pale.
“Incidentally, who was that brat just now?”
“Who calls students of her own school brats? Sheesh. She’s Kanon Kanase, middle school, third-year.”
“She puts a lot of attention into her hair. Teenage rebellion?”
“No, no, it ain’t that at all. She said her dad was a foreigner, so it’s probably ’cause of that? Not that she told me details about her dad or even what country he was from…”
“Is that so?” Looking like she was filing that away for future reference, Natsuki said, “Hmm,” but she immediately raised her face, looking at Kojou. “Well, fine. Kojou Akatsuki, you’re coming with me tonight.”
“…Huh?! Um, ah, what exactly do you mean by…?”
“What’s with that reaction? I want you to help me with
work
.”
Kojou made a disagreeable face as he replied with a question. “…You mean, Attack Mage work?”
Natsuki shot him a cold look. “You know that there was combat in urban areas in West a few days back?”
“…Yeah, I heard from class that it was unregistered demons going nuts and stuff, but…”
Kojou made a vague nod. He remembered how Asagi had complained about the ruckus costing her sleep.
“It wasn’t unregistered demons running wild. Don’t spread that around, though.”
“Not demons…? Who, then?”
“I don’t know. We’ve apprehended one of them, but their true nature remains unclear.”
Natsuki spoke in an animated tone. Kojou had a really bad feeling about this.
“If you captured one of them, then the other one got away?”
“Right. And the other night wasn’t the first fighting that’s taken place
in urban areas, either. There’ve been five similar smaller-scale incidents over the last two weeks.”
“Five…?!
“Seriously?” said Kojou, If what Natsuki said was true, that was about one urban battle every three days or so.
That’s like a round-robin soccer tournament
, thought Kojou with a scowl on his face. “So you figure there might be another incident just like that taking place tonight…”
“Very perceptive, Kojou Akatsuki.”
Elegantly inclining her frilly parasol, Natsuki made a charming, satisfied-looking smile.
“…So all this being the case, I want you to assist me in apprehending the suspects. After all, even I have difficulty catching several suspects at the same time by myself.”
“No, no, no…” Kojou fervently shook his head.
Natsuki was one of the very few people who knew of his true nature. That an unregistered demon like Kojou could continue living as an ordinary high school student was thanks to the strings she was pulling as an Attack Mage.
But the price of that was that Natsuki occasionally asked him to help her with her side jobs. Invariably, Kojou had a near-death experience as a result.
“I get the circumstances, but why do I have to help you out? Ain’t there anyone else?!”
“Astarte is still being readjusted. She’s only just finished healing from the gunshot wounds Gardos gave her… But if you refuse to cooperate, I suppose I’ll have to have her help, anyway?”
Natsuki invoked the name of the homunculus she had been granted protective custody of. Kojou couldn’t help but shudder at Natsuki’s underhanded negotiating tactics, as if she was using an injured person as a hostage.
“Also, Dimitrie Vattler gave me a warning. He said not to involve you in this incident.”
“The heck?! Aren’t you completely ignoring his warning, then?!”
“If it annoys him, of course I’m going to do it.”
Pettiness notwithstanding, Natsuki grandly puffed up her chest as she spoke.
“We’ll rendezvous at nine
PM
at Thetis Mall. Don’t be late. If you’re even
one second
late, I’ll send compromising pictures of you and Aiba in the art classroom to the cell phones of all your classmates.”
“…Why do
you
have something like that?!”
Kojou let out an unrestrained shriek at Natsuki’s earth-shaking pronouncement.
“Because I’m your homeroom teacher.
“Huhuun,” went Natsuki with a proud smile. Kojou couldn’t judge how much she was joking and how much she was dead serious.
She really is a woman with no conscience
, thought Kojou.
“…Gimme a break,” Kojou murmured helplessly as he watched Natsuki casually walk off.
The crimson setting sun seemed to burn into the top of his head. Night would soon visit the Demon Sanctuary of Itogami Island…
Thetis Mall was a commercial district right in the center of Island West.
It was a convenient place with specialty shops, restaurants, and movie theaters lined up side by side, but Kojou didn’t really like how they were, quite naturally, all jumbled together. He liked even less the lethal crowd density in front of the station on Friday nights and on weekends. Natsuki appeared at the rendezvous point within those crowds just before eleven
PM
, or nearly two hours after the appointed time had passed.
“…You’re late! And the heck’s with that outfit?! Aren’t you doing Attack Mage work here?!”
Glaring as Natsuki walked over in a showy
yukata
, Kojou shouted, heedless of those being bothered around him.
But Natsuki’s expression did not change.
“Don’t get excited, brat. I saw there was a festival at a shopping district nearby. I thought I’d treat Astarte to some nighttime shopping.”
“At least call to let me know that, geez!”
“What are you angry for? I even bought you some fried octopus. Here, eat.”
“…Well that’s nice of you.”
Natsuki offered the package of fried octopus; Kojou indignantly took it.
In front of Kojou, a little girl with what somehow seemed to be an artificially beautiful face quietly bowed her head.
She had indigo-colored hair and a perfectly symmetrical, doll-like face. She was Astarte the homunculus. She, like Natsuki, was wearing a
yukata
. Her pale, lavender-colored eyes really went well with her hair.
“We are one hour, fifty-six minutes late to our rendezvous. I apologize, Fourth Primogenitor.”
“Nah, you don’t have anything to apologize for. …Did you have fun?”
“…Affirmative,” Astarte curtly replied. Her tone was as robotic as usual, but she did seem cheerful.
During that time, Natsuki’s gaze shifted to behind Kojou with an annoyed, reproachful look.
“And what are
you
doing here, transfer student?”
“I am the Fourth Primogenitor’s watcher, after all,” replied Yukina, wearing her school uniform and carrying her guitar case on her back.
As if a matter of course, Yukina, having learned that Kojou was going to go with Natsuki out on a job, had insisted on accompanying him.
“Well, fine. It doesn’t hurt to have another pair of hands. Why don’t you put on a
yukata
, too? You can rent them in front of the station.”
“…I’m fine, thank you.”
Though the short pause preceding her reply seemed to carry a small twinge of regret, Yukina strongly shook her head.
“More importantly, why are you bringing a dangerous individual like Akatsuki out on an unsafe mission such as this? You do understand the enormous damage that would occur if senpai’s Beast Vassals ran wild in an urban area such as…”
“And what would you do if he was dragged into fighting without even a clue what was going on, Sword Shaman? Don’t you think that’s even more dangerous?”
“Th…that might well be so, but…”
Yukina’s willfulness abated in the face of Natsuki’s unexpectedly straightlaced rebuttal. Natsuki added more, as if to press her advantage.
“Surely it’s safer to keep something dangerous close at hand, not in a distant place where you cannot see.”
“Uu…”
Yukina’s shoulders slumped in dejection at how easily she’d been dressed down. Kojou, who’d just been called a dangerous individual by both girls, twisted his lips with a feeling of dismay.
Without displaying any special pride in victory, Natsuki led Kojou and Yukina onto an elevator. Licking a candy apple she’d bought at a stall, she asked Kojou, as if she’d just remembered…
“Did you read the data I sent by e-mail?”
“Well, I skimmed it. Masked, was it? So we’ve just gotta capture this thing?”
“More precisely, capture both Masked.”
Natsuki spoke high-handedly as she replied with a tone befitting a teacher.
Masked was a code name for the mysterious monsters doing battle over and in the skies above Itogami City.
According to witnesses in previous cases, the Masked always appeared in pairs, with combat apparently continuing until one or the other collapsed. Naturally, Natsuki was thinking it was highly probable that two would appear simultaneously this night as well.
“Capturing them’ll be easier said than done. I dunno what to do about guys who can fly around…”
“No need for concern. Shoot them down,” Natsuki replied instantly and without hesitation.
“That’s nuts,” Kojou groaned.
“After all, if you’re letting your Beast Vassals loose toward the sky, there’ll be no ill effects on the city.”
“Er, that might be true, but, uh…”
“They’re monsters of no small measure themselves. Don’t worry, they won’t bite the dust that easily. Even if you slip up and kill one, they’ll just toss you in a jail cell.”
“Don’t worry, my ass! What the hell?! Can’t I get a ‘not guilty’ here?!” Kojou clutched his head and yelled at Natsuki’s declaration, which was over the top even for her.
The elevator kept rising until finally arriving at the top floor. From there, they switched to a service elevator and moved onto the roof. At ten stories tall, Thetis Mall was the tallest building in the area. It was an ideal location for spotting the flight-capable Masked.
“At any rate, that is rather strange.”
“It’s not ‘rather’… It’s totally messed up!”
“I don’t mean your treatment, senpai, I mean that building…”
Yukina was pointing at an office building on the other side of an intersection.
The upper half of the brand-new structure was thoroughly gouged out; even now, rubble that had been scattered about was piled up on the roadway. The ghastly scene looked like a meteorite strike.
“Even though there was such a large explosion, I never noticed a thing. If that destructive power had been generated by a spell or a summons, quite a bit of magical energy should have been released.”
“Meaning, even a Sword Shaman of the Lion King Agency could not detect it…just as I suspected,” Natsuki murmured with a curious look of acceptance.
“The magic energy detectors placed around Itogami Island’s interior didn’t respond to the Masked, either. The Island Guard only realized something was wrong when buildings were wrecked and civilian security corps kicked up a fuss.”
“What does this mean…?”
“I don’t know. Special kinds of spells, physical attacks… There are a number of possibilities I can think of.”
After those words, an aggressive smile came over Natsuki’s face.
“Well, we won’t really know until we ask the persons concerned… Don’t kill them, Akatsuki.”
Natsuki was glaring in the direction of the sky above a giant cell tower standing outside the shopping district.
Things enveloped in malevolent light were dancing in the dark nighttime sky. Their movements were far too unorthodox to be those of aircraft. They were bizarre silhouettes near human in size engaging in fierce aerial combat.
“…The Masked?!”
“They appeared sooner than I expected. Astarte, tell the corporation, ‘It’s time for the fireworks.’”
“Accept.”
Having received Natsuki’s orders, Astarte took a radio transmitter from a sleeve of her
yukata
and operated it.
Kojou gave it a suspicious look.
“Natsuki, what do you mean by ‘fireworks’?”
“What, young people nowadays don’t know what launching fireworks is?”
Spreading her beloved parasol, Natsuki smiled cutely, as if astounded at how dense he was. A moment later, Kojou heard a
boom
behind him. Colored fireworks bloomed into a large floral pattern in the sky.