The Amphisbaena (9 page)

Her throat rent, the body of the wounded Masked heavily convulsed.

Tears flowed from Kanase’s pale blue eyes as she bit into the torn-off piece of flesh.

That moment, Kojou finally understood the meaning of this battle. They were being made to fight each other so that one would consume the other. Kanon was consuming her fellow Masked.

Kanon, having finally completed her objective, spread her wings and soared into the sky once more.

Her form, surrounded by that malevolent light, suddenly blended into the sky and vanished from sight.

Kojou and the others could only watch her go, shocked.

All that remained were heavy traces of destruction and the gravely wounded Masked girl…

A breeze carrying the scent of blood blew through the moonless sky over the city.

The next day: Saturday…

Kojou, having passed the night without a single wink of sleep, came out of the Island North monorail station together with Yukina.

The Demon Sanctuary of Itogami City was a research and development city. The island was cramped with big corporations manufacturing pharmaceuticals, precision machinery, and high-tech materials, etc., and several well-known academic research agencies.

This place, Island North Section Two’s Magia Valley, was known for having a particularly high concentration of large-scale research facilities. It was a futuristic-looking area with strong traces of being part of a man-made island.

“…Magus Craft?” Kojou asked Yukina while looking up at the Y
OU
A
RE
H
ERE
map in front of the station.

Yukina unfolded a handwritten memo and double-checked.

“Yes. The address Nagisa gave me for Kanase is the address for Magus Craft Incorporated.”

“…That’s a company that makes cleaning robots, isn’t it?” Kojou mumbled as he located a memory in the back of his mind. He’d definitely seen the name on trash compactors for buildings, rug-polishing machines, and household-cleaning robots.

“That’s right. It’s a corporation known mainly for manufacturing
Automata for commercial purposes. It has a research facility here in Itogami City, and Kanase’s current father works there.”

“…
Current
father…? Oh right, Kanase lived at an abbey?”

“Yes. I heard that he took Kanase in after the abbey was shut down.” As Yukina spoke the words, she lowered her eyes with a somewhat conflicted look. No doubt Yukina, an orphan raised by the Lion King Agency, had empathy rather than pity for Kanon’s circumstances.

Kojou scratched his head with a sober look.

“Normally you’d think that was a good thing, but…after seeing that yesterday, I dunno…”

“Agreed. There seems a bit more to the story.”

Yukina nodded in her overly serious demeanor. Then, she suddenly lifted her face up with apparent concern.

“Have you spoken to…Ms. Minamiya about Kanase?”

“Not yet. More like, I can’t yet. She might not know that the Masked girl’s really Kanase. We need a bit more info one way or another…”

Kojou’s face twisted in anguish as he exhaled.

Of course, he didn’t think his own judgment was absolutely correct, either. It might have been best to leave preventing further damage in Natsuki’s hands. However, Kojou wasn’t a member of the Island Guard; he was just a student. He wasn’t inclined to hand an acquaintance over to the Gigafloat Management Corporation without any idea of the circumstances involved. He at least wanted to talk to Kanon once beforehand.

Unusually, Yukina didn’t try to scold Kojou at all; she simply murmured, “It can’t be helped, then.”

“This is…where she lives?”

“This building is listed as her address…”

Having finally arrived at their destination, Kojou and Yukina spent a while silently standing there in place.

It was an aggressively standing structure entirely encased in reflective glass. It looked like a cold, lifeless office building, not somewhere anyone would actually live. If this was really where Kanon lived, it would mean she lived not in a house, but inside a corporate laboratory.

While that was far from the worst of all things, that fact just didn’t fit with their image of Kanon. At the very least, hardly lent itself to raising a kitten.

As Kojou and Yukina made their way into the lobby, a young girl at the reception desk spoke up to them. “…Welcome.”

“Ah… Excuse me, we’d like to meet Kanon Kanase who lives at this address?”

Kojou made an awkward, polite smile as he stated his business.

The receptionist looked up at Kojou with a detached look in her eyes. Kojou realized that she wasn’t human. She was a robot… An Automata built to mimic a human being.

“Kanon Kanase of room 204 is currently absent.”

The receptionist spoke informatively, her fingers typing on a keyboard all the while.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“I do not know.”

The receptionist’s calm, polite reaction gave Kojou a creepy feeling he couldn’t put into words.

Even though she, too, was a man-made construct, her nature was completely different from Astarte.

Astarte was a
human being
made through artificial means, but this receptionist was a
machine
only pretending to be human. She did not possess free will. How she behaved just like a human being in spite of that really creeped Kojou out. The cold malaise he felt was a good match for that which he felt hanging about the whole Magus Craft Incorporated building.

“Is Mr. Kensei Kanase at home?” Yukina opened her mouth in place of the now-silent Kojou. This Kensei Kanase was no doubt Kanon’s guardian.

“Please pardon me, but you are?”

“Himeragi of the Lion King Agency,” Yukina replied to the receptionist’s question with the name of her organization. That surprised Kojou a little.

Bringing up the name of the Lion King Agency in a situation having nothing to do with her formal mission wasn’t something he expected out of the highly diligent Yukina. And the corresponding reply from the receptionist was somewhat outside their expectations, too.

“…Understood. Please wait over there briefly.”

As the receptionist spoke, she pointed to a sofa for guests in the central lobby.

“What does she mean by ‘understood’?”

“I’m not certain, but it seems good for us.”

Although a little bewildered, Kojou and Yukina sat on the sofa and waited as they’d been told.

The expensive sofa felt very comfortable to sit on, but it was impossible to relax in the middle of a huge lobby like this. Kojou felt like they were on display.

After waiting for about fifteen minutes, with Kojou beginning to feel bored, he saw someone getting off the elevator in the back of the lobby. It was a foreign woman dressed in a wine-red suit.

The woman had ornate blond hair. With high heels on, she was probably taller than Kojou. From one glance at her, she was a stylish, sensual, beautiful woman. The legs emerging from under her tight skirt had bewitching body lines.

“That’s not…Kanase’s dad, is it?”

Kojou narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he muttered.

“A registered demon, it would seem.”

Yukina let Kojou’s airheaded remark slide and pointed out that fact.

The woman was wearing a metallic bracelet about five centimeters wide on her right arm over her suit. It was a demon registration bracelet from the Gigafloat Management Corporation.

Those bracelets monitored a demon’s body and prevented the activation of special abilities; in exchange, Itogami City granted demons full citizenship. So long as they bore their demon registration bracelets, they had the right to receive an education or employment, the same as any normal human being.

But to Kojou and the other residents of this Demon Sanctuary, a registration bracelet was by no means a rare sight. What drew in Kojou’s eyes was rather the sensuality of the woman’s presence.

“She’s…pretty gorgeous, huh?” Kojou unintentionally voiced his thoughts out loud while staring at how the woman’s breasts thrust out from the top of her suit. As Kojou did so, Yukina glared at him from the side, making a sigh of displeasure.

“That’s rude, senpai… Or rather, those indecent eyes of yours are already looking rather criminal.”

As Kojou underwent a bit of shock at her words going so far, the
woman in the red suit halted in front of Kojou and Yukina. An alluring smile came over her, as if trying to bewitch those gazing at her.

“I’m sorry. Did I make you wait for very long?”

“No… We are quite sorry for the sudden visit,” Yukina replied, refusing to be overawed. Perhaps she’d judged, now that she had declared herself part of the Lion King Agency, she could show no weakness. Nor was there any sign of her being cowed by the difference in height between her and the woman opposite her, nearly two hundred centimeters tall.

Looking back at Yukina, the woman in the red suit displayed a bit of surprise in her eyes.

“You’re the ones from last n…”

“Ah?”

“No, pardon me. I simply didn’t think an Attack Mage from the Lion King Agency would be so young,” The woman continued in a businesslike tone, shaking her head as if nothing had happened.

“I am Beatrice Basler from the Research Department. I…suppose you might say I am Kensei Kanase’s secretary. What business did you have with Kanase today?”

“I’m very sorry, but I cannot say at present. I would like to speak to him in person.”

Yukina stated it with a hard-sounding voice. The woman calling herself Beatrice nodded, showing no sign of taking offense.

“I understand. However, unfortunately, Kanase is not in today.”

“Not in?”

“That’s right. Kanase is currently off the island. Our firm operates an independent research facility under the jurisdiction of the Demon Sanctuary; that is where he is.”

“Outside of Itogami Island? And would Kan…his daughter be with him?”

“Yes. I heard something to that effect.”

Beatrice made a courteous smile as she nodded.

Itogami Island, which floated atop dragon lines that flowed through the Pacific Ocean, was a site particularly suitable for sorcery. However, as a man-made island, it did have its limits. The effects of waves and currents could not be completely negated, and any magic requiring an unbroken connection to the earth could not be performed whatsoever.

To deal with these shortcomings, corporations based out of the Demon Sanctuary had been authorized to make use of several uninhabited islands that were part of the Izu Islands chain. Perhaps the facility Kensei Kanase was said to be at was on just such an uninhabited island.

“Do you know when the two of them will return here?” Kojou asked with tension mixed in with his voice. Beatrice shook her head with a look of dismay.

“That is unclear. I am not familiar with the details of the project Kanase is currently involved in, so I cannot say…”

“Is…that so…?”

Seeing Kojou so dejected, the woman made a pleasant smile as she spoke.

“However, if it is an urgent matter, I believe it would be faster if you visited the research facility in person.”

“…We can do that?” Kojou’s eyes snapped wide as he asked her back.

“Yes, of course. A light airplane makes two round-trips to the island daily, so you could go along for the ride. I believe you can still make it for the
AM
flight.”

“Could you…make the arrangements for that?”

“Understood. This way, please.”

Beatrice walked off, beckoning Kojou and Yukina to join her. As Kojou quickly rose to his feet to follow her, for some reason, Yukina was murmuring to herself as she kept her eyes lowered.

“Airplane…”

“Himeragi?”

Kojou looked back with a questioning look.

“No, it’s nothing at all.”

Yukina squeezed her fists as she shook her head. Her lips were slightly pale as they quivered.

To the residents of Itogami Island, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, planes were a familiar means of transportation. For this reason, Itogami Island was host to six airports of various sizes.

That said, large passenger planes could only land normally at the
central airport. The other five airports were civilian airports with the bare minimum for facilities. The runways weren’t even a hundred meters long. In other words, they were truly simple, minimal facilities without any instrument landing systems or even lights for nighttime landings.

The Northern District commercial airport that Kojou and Yukina were brought to was one such small airport.

The only building standing inside the airport’s perimeter was a small control tower. There were four slightly dirty light passenger airplanes standing atop the runway, but they seemed to have been left behind as an afterthought.

They were most likely old-school propeller planes. They seemed to be private aircraft owned by Magus Craft.

“Sheesh, that bitch. She calls me all the way back here, and it turns out she wants me to play tour guide for a field trip.”

Standing beside the propeller planes, waiting for Kojou and Yukina, was a long-haired man in a leather jacket. He was fairly tall, and thanks to being overly thin, he had a bit of the look of a model, but his apparently slothful personality was what immediately stood out. An air of thorough disappointment seemed to hang all around the man.

As Yukina and Kojou walked over to the runway, the man gave them a light wave.

“Oh, well… Welcome, guests! I am Lowe Kirishima. I’m something of an errand boy for Beatrice. Well, nice to meet you.”

As Kojou shook the hand Kirishima offered and Yukina traded glances with him, Kirishima made a leering smile as he stared at the guitar case on her back.

“Hmph, I see. Seems you’re not just a couple of students… Well, you get all kinds here in the Demon Sanctuary, huh?”

“Ha-ha…”

As Kojou glossed things over with a vague smile, Kojou’s eyes stopped when they passed over the bracelet Kirishima wore on his wrist. He, like Beatrice, was a demon. He was probably an L-type…a beast man.”

Kojou and Yukina had boarded the plane and were waiting inside when Kirishima called out from the pilot seat. “Well, time to get this girl ready for takeoff.”

After they sat down in the seats behind him, he handed a vinyl sheet bag to Kojou.

“Here you go. Barf bag.”

“Eh?”

For a moment, Kojou was bewildered at why he’d be handed this before even taking off, but he immediately got it as soon as he glanced at the adjacent Yukina’s face. The exceedingly brooding look on Yukina’s face, the way she gripped her hands together as if in prayer—she was in a near-panic, as if her usual calm, composed air was an illusion. No doubt not even facing the Lotharingian Armed Apostle or the aristocrat from the Warlord’s Empire had thrown her off to this degree.