Chapter 31

Osaka, residential district. There was a lone girl at the edge of a window of a nine-story apartment complex.

She was a girl in her low teens who gave the impression of being a bit underdeveloped and her name was Nagisa Akatsuki. All she had on was a thin shirt in place of pajamas.

The silver moonlight passed through the material, highlighting the contours of her slender body. Her hair, worn down, was unusually long. It reached almost all the way to her hips.

Perhaps that was why she gave a different impression than her usual appearance, with her hair worn up. Her usual aura of cheerfulness was hidden away; her cherubic face had an adultlike calm across it.

Her long hair swayed without a sound from the sea breeze that blew in through the open window. She was looking in the distance as if she was trying to feel her long-lost brother's presence.

Being the highest building in the entire town, she could see it quite well from the edge of the window. Nagisa Akatsuki silently gazed at the building. Tonight, the night of Osaka was dark. With its lights extinguished, one could think of the majestic scenery as melting into the night sky. For just a single instant, there was a pale glow far away, barely visible to the naked eye, as if it had been struck by lightning.

Watching this, the girl's lips formed a mysterious expression. She made a smile as if she knew what that glow represented.

"Regulus Aurum… So you have finally awakened…"

Nagisa's tongue calmly spun the words. It was a calm voice as if it were not her speaking, but another person. But her expression seemed somehow amused.

"So even that boy finally got a little motivated. Heh-heh… Wouldn't be any fun if he weren't…ah, now that I remember, Kuroka-nee should be close by watching Kojou. How much I would love to see him again…but now, it's not the time."

A fiercely mischievous light dwelled within her refined eyes—a light that resembled flickering flames.

However, when someone appear behind her and gently hugged them, both the adultlike calm and the ferociousness vanished from her body. Seemingly forgetting why she'd been there, to begin with, the girl turned her head towards the source of the hug and saw her friend and big sister figure looking sad.

"Mm, Kuroka-nee, what happened?"

"Vali happened! That idiot picked a fight with Kojou-kun and lost quite badly. Though Kojou-kun got some help from that church girl-nya."

"Fufufu, you don't say… tell me Kuroka-nee, how long do I need to wait?"

"A year or two, then we can all meet him once again. I also miss him, Nagisa-chan -nya ."

"I know, nee-san, but I'm also curious about how would he react when you will appear in front of him."

"Probably excited-nya?"

Nagisa gently hit the head of her big sister for even suggesting such a vulgar thing.

<Himeragi Yukina POV>

I was sitting alone as the rays of the setting sun filtered into her room. It was a normal apartment that was far too big for one person and was also right next to the Akatsuki family residence.

There were signs of life: curtains, cushions, magnetic cups with black tea in them. She'd bought them together with her boyfriend. In just a few months, she'd gotten completely used to seeing them, yet no doubt she would soon be leaving them behind as it was her job to do so, no matter how much it hurt her. Thinking that I felt very lonely for some reason.

Outside the window was the expanse of the twilight sky. Looking down at Kuoh from here, nothing seemed to have particularly changed. It was a peaceful scene as if the battle that had occurred in town had been all a lie.

Four days had passed since Vali's attack against Akatsuki come to an end. Now that the chaos had calmed down somewhat, the residents of town seemed to think it was time to go on with their normal lives. Serafall-san did a splendid job repairing the place and altering the memories of those people that were unfortunate enough to become witnesses at Akatsuki's battle.

In the end, we had left after Azazel appeared and took his son. So all the devils and their peerage saw when they reached the place were traces of incredible destruction.

<Akatsuki Kojou POV>

The next morning, I went to school as usual as if nothing had happened at all.

After I've skipped class on the first day after the incident, my charismatic homeroom teacher wrung me dry with the amount of homework that I had to do. She added to my already unfinished pile of homework even more papers, which made me look a bit like a zombie, not that I wasn't pale enough from being a vampire. However, that was probably a normal, everyday thing to me, at least compared to what I had to deal with daily lately.

It was a rather boring, day-to-day life like this that I had used the power of the Fourth Primogenitor, the world's mightiest vampire, to protect one of my girlfriends. My only consolation was that every day I can spend a little bit of time with all three of my lovely girlfriends making this boring life, just a little bit more worth living for.

"…He really is quite a piece of work. Aika-san, shouldn't you prepare for our class?"

"Don't mind me, I'm just checking the package."

As she heard Aika's murmur, Yukina unwittingly let out a small giggle as well. Her laughing voice, containing so much fun it shocked even her, immediately changed to a deep sigh. Yukina, too, would soon return to her normal daily existence.

Her training as an apprentice Sword Maiden, though severe, nothing was perplexing or confounding about it. It was tranquil and never-changing, day after day. That was Yukina's old daily existence. She had failed too many times to continue watching over Kojou.

The Fourth Primogenitor's Beast Vassal went berserk, almost destroying the place where it was first summoned, and thankfully his aunt's friend was there to contain it. The Fourth Primogenitor, her boyfriend that she was watching over had been in great danger and nearly slain if not for her help.

Even more, as a result of combat unrelated to her mission, Snowdrift Wolf, the Lion King Agency's secret weapon, had been wrecked. She was not skillful enough to gloss all this over with a suitable report. She reported what had occurred to the Lion King Agency, leaving out the minor details.

Yukina would no doubt be recalled by the Lion King Agency for failure as a watcher. Probably soon and maybe her other better sisters would be relocated to her mission.

If it ended in no more but discipline that would be fine, but it would not be strange for her Attack Mage qualification to be revoked and for her name to be stricken from the Lion King Agency's rolls. That, too, would be Yukina's sole responsibility. It was the result of her own conduct, so it could not be helped. Besides, Yukina did not regret what she had done. She did it for the idiot that stole her heart and if she had any regrets, she regretted only that she would never meet Kojou Akatsuki again.

He was a flake, so she worried about him. After all, if she wasn't by his side, there was no telling what he might do or what may happen to him. Yes, he may have two other girlfriends, but she was the one that was with him from the start and she was the one that worried the most about his own safety, knowing how much does he love putting himself in danger for the good of others.

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