For whatever reason, Shio Hikawa had turned timid and blushy as she murmured quietly to herself.
“S…Shio?”
“Her delusions are quite vivid, aren’t they…?”
Yuiri and Kiriha couldn’t hide how Shio’s sudden revelation of her maidenly side left them at a loss.
“Whatever, just give the ring back! I’m confiscating it!”
Sayaka raged in an attempt to snatch back the ring, but the next moment, Sami, toying with her smartphone off by herself, went Oh my and furrowed her brow in surprise.
“I am sorry, Kiriha. Unfortunately, we must abandon that plan. Please forget all about it.”
“…What is the meaning of this, I wonder?”
Kiriha looked back at Sami as a grave expression came over her, staring with vivid displeasure.
Not that she’d genuinely wanted to be Kojou Akatsuki’s servant, but she fiercely resisted the idea of simply forgetting about it. That was just how Kiriha’s personality worked.
“The situation seems to have changed… It would appear the government of Japan has agreed to a cease-fire with MAR.”
Sami, well aware of how troublesome Kiriha could be when she wanted to, continued in a tone of voice broadcasting that this was not her idea.
Both the Lion King Agency and the Bureau of Astrology were special agencies operating under the Japanese government. If the government of Japan had a cease-fire with MAR, none of them could lay a hand upon it. Of course, that made cooperating with Kojou a difficult affair.
“Cease-fire negotiations…why all of a sudden like this?”
Sayaka commented in a daze. Kiriha let out a sigh with a weary expression.
“The Beast Vassal Warheads are the reason, I take it?”
“Yes. If the Beast Vassal Warheads brought back from Nod were fired at the Tokyo Metropolis on the Japanese mainland, it is estimated there would be a maximum of seven million two hundred thousand casualties. At present, only primogenitor-class vampires are able to face Beast Vassal Warheads, but they cannot protect every region of the globe.”
Sami replied with a somewhat conflicted look.
Yuiri and Shio seemed perplexed as they traded glances.
“So, what? We should be MAR’s lapdogs?”
“This is going just like Shahryar Ren wants…!”
“I really do not care for this.”
Kiriha clicked her tongue with annoyance. Threats against the Japanese government had resulted in Kiriha and company being unable to raise a hand against terrorists—it was a result she found difficult to accept. Her irritation made her want to lash out against someone, but Kiriha touched a hand to her chin and sank into serious thought.
Then a second later.
“—!!”
The four Attack Mages present stood up at once as if they’d been slapped, each drawing her weapon. Sami responded only a moment later. They felt an incredibly strong “power” approaching, a strange power differing from the demonic and spiritual powers known to Kiriha and the rest. This power rivaled that of a vampire primogenitor—
“What is this pressure…?! Where is it coming from…?!”
Kiriha honed her consciousness and searched for the source of this power, but the power was too strong for her to pinpoint its source. Its overwhelming presence seemed to cover the entirety of the ground at their feet, something that left the Lion King Agency Attack Mages just as perplexed.
The ground at the center of the tent Kiriha and the others were in was being encroached upon by a steel-colored shadow resembling a mirror.
They were stricken by a powerful, unpleasant feeling, like a precursor to being caught up in a large-scale teleport. The shadow-encroached ground ferociously swayed, and an enormous demon beast floated up from it.
It was a beautiful dragon covered in scales with a mane the color of steel.
“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!!”
The steel-colored dragon emerging from within the shadow made a high-pitched roar. Caught up in the wind raging around its huge body, Kiriha and the others were blown straight out of the tent.
“—A dragon?!”
Kiriha froze in shock for but the briefest of moments. Twirling her lead-colored forked spear, Kiriha instantly adopted an attack posture. Priestesses of the Six Blades from the Bureau of Astrology were experts in anti–demon beast combat. She could think of any number of rituals effective against even a dragon over ten meters long.
Responding to the ritual energy Kiriha sent coursing into it, her forked spear emitted a dull glow. Activating her pseudo-spatial severing ritual, she girded herself for slashing at the dragon’s throat, but someone suddenly stepped in the way before Kiriha could launch her attack.
“Wait, Miss Kisaki! Not her!”
Yuiri Haba of the Lion King Agency stood before Kiriha. The appearance of an unexpected interloper slightly slowed Kiriha’s attack.
During that time, the steel-colored dragon changed shape, going from a huge dragon to a human girl—a little girl with steely hair.
“Glenda! Where have you been all this time?”
Lowering her raised recurve bow, Shio Hikawa raced over to the girl.
Sayaka and Kiriha stared at Shio and Yuiri’s actions in confusion. They’d heard of the dragon being of unknown origin called Glenda, but they couldn’t hide their surprise at seeing her in the flesh. Her being able to use teleportation was news to them, too.
“Yuiri! Shio! Come! Come save Ava!”
Now that she was in human form, Glenda pleaded with Yuiri and Shio in a voice every bit as young as she looked. What does she mean? wondered the perplexed Kiriha and Sayaka, but Yuiri immediately realized what she meant.
“Ava? You mean Avrora?”
“Dah!!”
“You’re telling us to come, but how…?”
Shio looked overhead as she posed the question.
Avrora Florestina, the new Fourth Primogenitor, was probably in Nod that very moment. Reaching Nod meant going through the gate in the sky over Itogami Island, but that gate opened only at night.
Glenda, however, seemed impatient, wrapping her arms around the reluctant Yuiri and Shio as she changed into a huge dragon once more.
“Daaaah!!”
“Ehh?! Wait a…?!”
“G-Glenda?!”
Yuiri and Shio yelped as the steely dragon put them on her back and glared at the ground. That instant, a large, ripple-like sway occurred in the ground upon which Kiriha and Sayaka stood.
A silvery shadow like a watery surface spread farther. The tips of Sayaka’s toes sank into the ground. The shadow covering the ground under Kiriha’s feet was serving as a gate connecting to Nod.
“The encroachment of Nod…! Don’t tell me this dragon can…?!”
Pulling the shaken Kiriha into the mix, the huge dragon flew right into the steely shadow. Yuiri’s and Shio’s faces were frozen stiff as they progressively sank into the shadow and vanished from sight.
Finally, the dragon’s tail was engulfed, and the steely shadow vanished.
The only things left were the metal pipe chairs, worktables, and the remnants of a tent strewn all around, and Sayaka and Sami, standing stiff and dumbfounded.
“The hell…what in the world’s going on?! Hikawa! Haba! Kiriha Kisaki!”
Sayaka fell into a fit of panic, dropping her silver long sword to the ground as she shouted, but there was no reply forthcoming. Realizing something had happened, Island Guard members were gathering around, but not a single soul really understood what had just taken place.
“This is…quite vexing.”
Amid the uproar surrounding them caused by that abrupt strangeness, Sami Arashima’s expression was unchanged as she began thinking up the report she’d send to HQ.
The tilting sun was beginning to paint the western sky with a golden glow.