Riko laughed. And as she did so, one of her pigtails was moving—just like the hair of Medusa from Greek mythology. It grabbed onto a knife that Riko had probably hidden on her back and used it to attack Aria.
“!”
Just as shocked as I was, Aria dodged the first strike…but Riko’s other pigtail, which was also armed with a knife, found its target, drawing fresh blood.
“Aaaaagh!” screamed Aria reeling backwards.
She had been cut on the side of her head. Red blood gushed out from the wound.
“Aha…ahaha! Great-grandfather, after one hundred and eight years this much of a difference in ability between descendants can change, can’t it? This girl can’t even use her own powers let alone a partner! I can win! I can win! Today, I can become me! Aha! Ahaha! Ahahahaha!”
Riko laughed as she started to talk unreasonably again, all the while thrusting Aria backwards with her hair. That hair must have been exceptionably powerful because it was startling to see just how easily Aria was knocked back before falling at my feet like a tattered rag.
“Aria…Aria!”
Tightly closing her eyelids against the blood that painted her face dark red, Aria continued to grip the pistols in her hands. Riko licked the blood off the knife being held by her hair with a gratifying look on her face.
Unreal…She’s a monster. What I need to do right now is get Aria out of here.
I could hear Riko laughing at the top of her lungs as I turned my back on her and ran with Aria in my arms.
“Ahahahahaha! Come on, now. Where do you think you’re going to run to in a small plane like this?!”
It had been a while since the last time I held Aria in my arms like a princess—and she was so light, it filled me with grief. When human beings become stiff or struggle about, they feel heavier than they actually are. Aria must have been losing consciousness because she was in a complete state of lethargy. I ran into the suite we had been in previously and laid Aria on the bed. The first thing I did was clean the blood off Aria’s face with one of the towels that the room was supplied with.
“Ngh…..” Aria groaned.
Above her temple was a deep cut underneath her hair.
This is bad. It hit an artery on the side of her head. It’s not as vital as the carotid artery but I’ve got to stop the bleeding right away…!
“Get a grip…the wound isn't that deep!”
Using the hemostatic bandage in my Butei handbook, I sealed the wound on Aria’s head. The bandage was nothing but a temporary form of treatment that used petroleum jelly to forcefully stop the bleeding. I wonder if Aria was aware of that; she smiled listlessly, paying little heed to the lie I told her.
“Aria!”
Half crazed, I stuck my fingers into the penholder of my Butei handbook and pulled out a small hypodermic syringe that had the words ‘Razzo’ written on it.
“I’m gonna use Razzo! You’re not allergic, right?!”
“…n…o…”
Razzo was like a condensed mixture of adrenaline and morphine. Basically, it was a restorative drug that contained both an analeptic and an analgesic. “Razzo is a drug that’s injected directly into the heart. This can’t be helped, okay?”
Having given Aria advanced notice, I climbed on the bed and sat straddling her small body. I then took a hold of the collar of Aria’s sailor uniform.
“I-If you…do…anything..weird…I’ll…blow…”
“Right. Do me a favor and recover to the point of being able to blow a hole in me…!”
I aggressively unzipped and opened up her blouse.
“Uu……” Aria trembled slightly.
That bra decorated with the symbols from a deck of cards was completely exposed. Her skin was like white porcelain. Her breasts were adorable, covered by a single thin cloth. My heart raced with a nearly audible thud. At a time like this…talk about indiscretion.
But damn it, why is every inch of this girl so cute?
“Aria…!”
I laid trembling fingers on her white skin. Searching for her sternum, my fingers traveled down her miniature torso. At two fingers length higher, I found her heart. It was right where the front hook of her bra was at.
“K-Kinji…”
“Don’t move.”
“I…I’m scared...”
As she spoke in such a feeble voice, I used my teeth to remove the cap from the syringe I held in my right hand.
“…Aria, can you hear me?! Here it comes!”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t budge. The beating of her heart—it had stopped.
Aria!
“…come back!!”
I thrust the syringe into Aria’s chest as if I were slamming my fist down on top of her. Hesitate and it’s over. That’s why I strengthened my resolve and just injected the medicine into her heart.
“…!”
Aria went into convulsions. Her face twisted in response to the intense power of the drug. But I was happy to see her face even in that condition. It was proof that she was alive. She had been resuscitated.
“Ngh…!”
Aria inhaled deeply through her nose and opened her small mouth in a quiver.
What’s the outcome…?
On the verge of reviving, Aria’s pallid skin began to retrieve its pink color and, and her respiration gradually became stronger. And then…
“Hwuah!” Aria gasped, and the upper half of her body sprung up like a zombie does in the movies.
“Huh…wha?! W-W-W-W-What the-?! What is this?! M-My breasts?!”
It would seem that due to the medicine, Aria’s memory was in disarray, and she was unable to remember a few details.
“Ki-Kinji! You did it again, didn’t you?! W-Why do you want to look at my breasts so badly?! Are you trying to make fun of me? Is it because they’re small?! They just won’t grow, no matter how many years pass! I’m just gonna be one hundred and forty-two centimeters tall for the rest of my life!”
In her confused state, not only Aria’s face, but her entire body was as red as a boiled octopus while she was closing her blouse. Soon enough she realized that there was a syringe stuck in her chest.
“Gyaaah!”
She let out a scream unlike anything you’d think you would ever hear from an elegant high school girl and swinging her arm in a wide arc, wildly yanking out the syringe.
“Look at what you’re holding! You were taken out by Riko, and I used Razzo to…”
“Riko…Rikoooo!!”
In a frenzy, Aria fixed her clothing and grabbed her two pistols off the bed. She then tried to stagger her way out of the room with the look of a demon on her face.
Not good.
Razzo was a restorative, but at the same time, it was also a stimulant. Aria’s physical constitution must have made her particularly susceptible to its effects because she wasn’t in her right mind. She wasn’t able to judge how much of a difference there was in combat ability between her and Riko.
“Aria, wait! You won’t be able to win against her using standard means!” I yelled as I stood blocking the door and grabbed both of her gun-toting hands with my own.
“It doesn’t matter! Let…go! You go hide in fear somewhere!” Aria yelled back with her hands grasped by mine and bearing her fang-like tooth.
“Q-Quiet down, Aria! Riko’s going to find out that we’re in the same room and that we’re also not working as a team!”
“I don’t care! I’m ‘Aria’, anyway! I’ll take care of Riko by myself! And besides, you didn't need to come here to help in the first place!” A crazed look had surfaced in the red pupils of Aria’s eyes, which were glaring at me.
This is not good. It doesn’t look like I can get her to calm down.
“You hate me, don’t you?! You said it yourself before you went looking for that cat when we were in Oumi! I remember it clearly!”
God, what can I do to shut her up? I’ve got to seal this mouth that hollers with an anime voice. But there’s no way I’m letting go of these hands that are holding onto her guns. The second I do, she’ll probably shoot me and run right out of this room. There’s got to be some way to… There might be one…
It was a last-resort measure that would take advantage of Aria’s weak point. But if I were to go through with it, I…almost without a doubt would go into hysteria mode—that hysteria mode which brought nothing but bad memories and caused my brother’s downfall. It would summon forth my other self whom I absolutely didn’t want to be and didn’t want to show anyone, especially a girl.
But…but…! But right now, there’s no other way! At this rate, Riko is going to come straight for us. She might even already be behind the door.