VOLUME 2

Chapter 4: Part 6

Whatever that other Tomonori had been, the ice soon melted and disappeared, and I was left sitting in a room that smelled of tonkotsu soup. The contents of the machine seemed to have all flowed out of the opening in the wall.

Tomonori was sleeping soundly next to me, and both Sera and that other girl were leaning against the wall in a corner of the room.

Sera had drunk dry the blood pack that the other girl had been carrying, but she seemed pretty injured.

Sera had an arm on her bewitching chest, and carried herself over to my location. I stood up, and called out to her. “You alright?”

Sera shook her head.

“I really need to find some fresh blood.”

“You can have some of mine if you want.”

“I’ll pa.s.s.”

As I thought. Also, stop looking at me with those red eyes.

“Hey, Sera. Tomonori back there… I mean, Mael Strom…”

“I don’t know what that was. That girl never had that sort of power.”

“Is she really a vampire ninja?”

“Yeah. She’s quite an excellent vampire ninja, who’s been taking on missions for a long time.”

If she was a masou shoujo, then she was able to manipulate memories. So what if Tomonori’s existence itself was a fabricated memory?

I sighed and frowned, looking at Sera. She didn’t seem like she was in her usual scornful mood.

“That looks like it hurts. Are you really alright?”

“Yeah, I think I can make it back home. But I really need to suck Haruna’s blood as soon as possible.”

She took a long, painful-looking breath. Only Sera could look so beautiful when she sighed in pain like that.

“But being a vampire ninja sure is hard.”

“I’m quite proud of the fact that I became a vampire ninja.”

“Became? You weren’t a vampire ninja when you were born?”

“Vampire ninjas are immortal creatures. If you’re immortal from the day you were born, then you would just stay a baby, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Vampire ninjas are beings who were granted immortality through being given h.e.l.lscythe-dono’s blood.”

“So Yuu was the one who made the vampire ninjas. And to make mankind into vampire ninjas, all you have to do is hand out your blood?”

“Yeah. They probably intended to mix our blood in with the population’s drinking water.”

“That works even if the water dilutes it?”

“I don’t think they intended to make very strong vampire ninjas.”

“Raining blood… the thought of that is pretty frightening too.”

“It’s difficult for vampire ninjas to make blood themselves. We also expend blood when we use our powers. So, we need periodic blood transfusions. Vampires who aren’t ninjas end up attacking people.”

“So, why do you refuse to drink my blood?”

“When we drink the blood of others, we apply a drug we have in our teeth to prevent harm onto the one whose blood we are sucking.”

“So that’s why you always kiss the person you’re sucking blood from?”

“I’d rather die than kiss you.”

“I feel so loved. So, do you want to lean on my shoulder?”

“I don’t really want to use too much soap later, so please don’t touch me.”

It seemed that there really was nothing to worry about here.

At that time, my phone rang, and the sound echoed through the room.

“Sera, wait just a second.”

I headed for the one wall that had been cleanly ripped away, and flipped open my phone while looking down on the town lights below me. It was an unknown number.

“h.e.l.lo.”

“Ayumu! You really should come!”

It was Haruna’s voice.

“Haruna? Where are you calling me from?”

“I borrowed a phone at the arade.”

“I see. You’re not… causing… anyone… trouble…… ri… ght….”

My voice slowly came to a stop. I looked up at the sky, so shocked that I almost dropped the phone.

“It’s really fun here! Come on, you come too!”

“Ahh, I want… to go, but…”

The sounds of flapping wings a.s.sault my ears.

In front of me was a monster with red skin, the face of a lizard, and the wings of a bat.

I only had one word in my vocabulary to describe such a beast.

A dragon.

Sending in such a famous monster when we were in a situation like this was just a bit…

The dragon, wearing a boy’s school uniform, headed towards us. The dragon was huge, around four or five meters tall, and seemed to have a bit of a hard time coming in through the missing wall.

The dragon pointed one of its three fingers towards Tomonori. So he was aiming for Tomonori?

I see. So Kyouko figured it out too? Figured out that at that time, Tomonori was the only one who wasn’t harmed. That the person who had the weapon wasn’t me, but it was Tomonori. Well, the truth was that Tomonori herself was the weapon, but Kyouko probably at least figured out that Tomonori was somehow connected with the weapon.

So this dragon was one of Kyouko’s fake Megalo? But… it was strange.

Why wasn’t Kyouko herself here? She was the one who wanted the weapon, right?

“Ayumu! Are you listening?! Don’t ignore me!”

“Sorry, Haruna. It looks like I’m going to be a bit longer…”

“U-Uwaah!!” I heard Haruna raise her voice on the other end of the line.

“What’s wrong? What did you do this time?”

“Ayumu! That thing… help-“ “Haruna, run away!”

“Hey, Haruna! Dammit!”

Something might have happened to Haruna, since I heard no response. The dragon bent down and approached Tomonori, so I kicked that lizard face.

With 300% power.

The dragon turned and glared at me, but I ignored him and continued to yell over the phone.

“Haruna! Hey, Haruna!”

I could vaguely hear voices coming from the other end. It was so faint that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been paying attention, but I could definitely hear it.

–

I heard Dai-sensei’s voice, calling out Kyouko’s name.

–

Why was she going after Dai-sensei? Kyouko wanted the weapon that Dai-sensei had made, right? I see! Dai-sensei could make masou weapons. So Kyouko was going after Dai-sensei so she could make Dai-sensei create weapons for her! But considering how strong Dai-sensei was, how did she plan to make that plan work…?

It must be that man! If he had an absurd amount of power just like Yuu did, then even Dai-sensei might… suddenly, I had a bad feeling about all this.

But in any case, hearing Haruna calling for help was a rare thing indeed. I should hurry up and deal with this fellow over here, and then get right over to where Haruna was.

“Sera! Take care of Tomonori! Run!”

At the time when I said that, Sera was already beside the dragon, preparing to launch an attack.

Ah, now I remember. Vampire ninjas were never afraid of a fight.

The dragon sent Sera flying with a flick of its long tail. What a swing that was. It was enough to even put Ogasawara (1) to shame.

Sera slammed into the wall, and groaned in pain.

I stopped thinking about the consequences and prepared an attack as strong as I could muster. A 600% attack.

The dragon’s huge mouth opened, and I could see his sharp fangs. And then, a purple flame burst out from its gaping maw.

I formed a cross with my arms and blocked the attack.

Ugh, dammit! I had to deal with this thing fast and get to Haruna! G.o.d, it was hot.

Zombies were weak against light and fire. Being bathed in flames like this, I already knew all too well that my ability to regenerate my body had been considerably weakened.

If I attacked with 600% power, then the recoil might send my arms and legs flying from my body. And if that happened, it would take time before I could reattach them.

Dammit! If I didn’t fight with only around 300% strength, then I wouldn’t be able to go help Haruna.

“My turn! Hiken, Tsubamegaes.h.i.+.”

Carrying a green sword in both hands, Sera attacked from behind. Completely as expected, she wasn’t afraid in the least even after seeing that fire from before. In her position, I would have withered away.

Sera cut into the lizard’s skin, but the dragon didn’t seem to care.

Sera tried to put some distance between her and the dragon, but the dragon sent a three-fingered fist hurtling in Sera’s direction. He did that at a speed that was unimaginable for something that size. Alright, now he’s turned his back on me. I closed the distance between us, and sent a strong punch into his back.

Even a dragon would yell out after being punched at 300% strength, right?

The dragon swung its tail, and I was sent flying to the side. And then, I slammed into the wall.

What a strong attack… did Sera also eat one of those attacks? Not good. Not good in many ways.

“Uwa! Kuaaahhhh!!!”

The dragon was squeezing Sera’s body as if it was twisting a wet towel.

How much time has pa.s.sed already? I really needed to get to Haruna as quickly as possible.

… But this guy was really strong. What should I do? With just us two here, it would take time to beat this thing. With just us two…

“Aikawa!”

I heard my name being called, and I realized that the dragon’s tail was swinging right at me. I quickly ducked, and the tail gouged out a section of the wall behind me. And then, a fireball attacked that tail.

“Tomonori… you…”

Tomonori was standing up, and she had a fireball in her left hand.

However, she seemed to still be conscious, and looked at the dragon with youthful eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with confidence. Those fireb.a.l.l.s didn’t seem to be just an ability of the weapon inside her.

“Aikawa, Seraphim! Here I goooooooo~~!!”

She sounded like she was having fun, and as if she was competing in a hammer throw, she held the fireball by the tail and spun it around. Ah, so that’s how the fireb.a.l.l.s were used normally. She then threw it at the dragon like she was casting a fis.h.i.+ng rod, and although it didn’t explode, the dragon staggered from the impact and let Sera go.

Before her ponytail hit the ground, Sera waved her sword and cut the dragon’s throat.

The dragon faced Sera while she was down on the ground and opened his mouth wide.

Seeing that, I stomped down onto the dragon’s tail with 600% power.

If I just used 600% to stomp down, it’s not like my body would fall apart.

The dragon turned its face towards me. And in that ugly mouth of his, the dragon had sucked up the fireball that Tomonori had thrown at him. And then… boom!

Those fireball bombs were no joke.

The dragon turned into sparkling white particles and vanished. But I didn’t have time to stay there and watch that happen. I didn’t know how much time I had lost here.

“Sera, I’m going to help Haruna.”

“Yeah, while I’d also like to go…”

It seemed like she couldn’t stand.

“The thought is enough. Tomonori, I’ll leave Sera to you.”

“R-Roger.”

I stood in front of the hole that used to be a wall, and a cool wind blew through my heated body.

“Ah, right, Tomonori. Tomorrow I want to eat hamburger.”

Tomonori gave me a quick thumbs up, so I returned one of my own.

And then, I threw my body out into that black night sky.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) A baseball player.