K side red, p.4
K Side Red, page 4
And, as Yata sprang, his target turned to face him.
Those sharp eyes, which showed keen intelligence, held not a single trace of surprise. With agile moves, the blue sprang back lightly and fled from the path of Yata’s skateboard, taking a safe distance. As it landed, the skateboard screeched loudly against the ground and came to an abrupt stop before Anna. Taking a protective stance in front of her, Yata glared at the stranger in blue.
“Who the hell are you? What do you want with this girl?”
“That color your abilities hold… You are a clansman of the titular Third King, then. I should be the one asking you what business you have.”
The Blue was a man in maybe the first half of his twenties. He had a thin face, with narrow eyes that fixed Yata with a firm gaze from behind his black bangs.
Yata tugged down on the front of his shirt in response.
“I’m Yata of Homra.” On his collarbone, he bore Homra’s ‘mark’. “This girl is something like one of our members. I can’t overlook some shady bastard closing in on her.”
Sparing no more than a single cold glance to the ‘mark’ that had been so proudly displayed, with eyes that showed no emotion at all, the man clad in blue shifted his gaze back to Yata’s face. Just then, Kamamoto finally caught up and stopped next to his friend, catching his breath. But even as it became two versus one now, their opponent didn’t show any signs of distress.
Yata glared straight into the Blue’s thin, pale face. On the inside, he could feel his blood boiling already with the rush of adrenaline, as his body was ready for battle. Like pouring out from his skin, an aura of light had engulfed him completely – in red, the color of the one and only King who existed for him, Suoh Mikoto.
“I got it, blue guy. You’ve gotta be a Blue Clansman. You guys don’t have a King, right?”
Even Yata, who’d only set foot in this sort of world a short time ago, had heard at least that much. There were a total of seven kings in this country, and each of them held supernatural powers. However, the Blue King had died in an incident ten years prior, and a new one had yet to appear. As such, the current Blue Clan, found without a King and just somehow miraculously retaining the structure of an organization, didn’t amount to much more than just a gathering of people with special abilities.
Originally and essentially, the Blues – actually called Scepter 4 and recognized as a Clan from their blue uniforms – held the duty of handling cases in which those with supernatural abilities disturbed public order. A group which, to begin with, wasn’t very compatible in character with Yata and the Red Clan.
But, even as Yata purposely tried to provoke him, the blue-clad man before him didn’t so much as bat a single eyelash. His thin lips calmly parted, and he only spoke flatly.
“Stand back, Red Clansman. If you defy me here, you can think of it as defying the will of the titular Second King.”
As he kept a terribly serious glare fixed on the Blue in front of him, Yata whispered to Kamamoto beside him.
“Titular Second King… Who’s that?”
“It’s the ruler of District Seven!” Kamamoto urgently hissed back at him.
Still, it didn’t ring any bells for Yata.
“What ruler?”
“C’mon, you know! That freakishly huge tower in District Seven? That thing’s master is the Golden King. He’s been a King since right after the war, he’s the greatest king!”
Responding with automatic, reflex annoyance to the exposition Kamamoto gave, Yata punched him hard in the head.
“Ow…! Hey, what was that fo—“
“Moron! The greatest King is obviously Mikoto-san!”
“That’s not how I meant—“
Finally though, from Kamamoto’s explanation, Yata remembered. However confused he may have been about who or what the titular Second King was, the words “Golden King” easily rang home even for him.
District Seven was the political and economic center under this King’s rule. And the conspicuously huge building which rose in the middle, Mihashira Tower⁽¹⁾, was of course something even Yata knew of as well.
Kokujouji Daikaku.
That was the name of District Seven’s ruler. The name of the titular Second King – the Golden King.
At the same time as being the King of those endowed with gold powers, he was also basically the actual King of the country. It was by his power, as he controlled its government and oversaw its economy, that Japan had grown to be as strong as it was.
And, as the symbol for all of that, Mihashira Tower stood to be this man’s castle.
However, even despite all of that, to Yata it was still not much more than just “that annoying showy building”.
“Huh, I don’t care if he’s the titular Second King or the ruler or whatever, but I don’t see any reason for me to be scared or sorry! In the first place, aren’t you a Blue Clansman? What, your King died so now you’re gonna wag your tail at the feet of another!?”
He scoffed — or, more rather, he was actually overtaken by genuine irritation.
A king was someone people looked up to with genuine feelings. To follow orders from another – and moreover yet, to proclaim that one’s name – was only worthy of scorn as far as Yata was concerned.
Though, he’d barely spat out those words and the Blue’s face drained of color. However mask-like it had been before, with features that would express no emotion, even that countenance with narrow eyes and thin lips seemed to crack the tiniest bit as a single corner of just one eye sharply twitched.
The very next instant, a blue wind picked up.
Giving little in the way of a warning, the man charged swiftly at them.
Yata’s surprise only lasted for a tiny split second, before he promptly fell into a defensive stance, getting ready to block. He noticed soon enough, though, he actually wasn’t the target the Blue had aimed to attack.
It was Kamamoto.
Like a bullet, the Blue plunged straight at him, drawing his sword.
Kamamoto wasn’t slow to retaliate, either. However much he’d stuffed himself with ramen just earlier, he now moved his large body with contrasting swiftness, and dodged from the path of the Blue’s sword as he leapt lightly back. His figure, as well, was now draped in red flames.
However, even as he’d avoided that strike, the very next moment another shadow appeared out of nowhere behind him.
“Watch out!” Yata shouted before he could even think, and jumped with his skateboard. Feet firmly planted onto the board, he twisted his body right at the peak of the somersault.
Clang. The underside of the skateboard hit metal. The red and blue auras met, repelling each other.
As soon as they landed, the skateboard’s wheels clashed roughly against the ground, eliciting ear-splitting roars. Without wasting a moment, Yata grabbed Kamamoto by the back of his jersey, and dragged him towards himself to pull him away from the second assailant. As he was rescued by Yata, Kamamoto’s eyes opened wide to look at the attacker whose appearance he hadn’t noticed behind him.
At first, Yata thought maybe the Blue had used some kind of mirror image technique.
The second attacker was indeed also clad in the blue uniform – and moreover yet, his face was a perfect identical copy of that of the first man who had been standing before them. Literally the only difference was that the first man had black hair, while this one’s was colored light brown.
“You two…”
They had to be twins. The two Blues, black and brown hair alike, regrouped side by side. Swords drawn, they gazed at the two boys before them.
Yata clicked his tongue loudly.
“That’s playing dirty, you bastard!” he spat. “Hiding there like that. There’s two of you and two of us, so just come up fair and square from the front!”
The Blues just tilted their heads, both bearing thin smiles.
“Regrettably, that isn’t…”
“…exactly our style.”
“Hmph!” Annoyed and disgusted by the close-knit twins who spoke in such a way as to split their lines evenly, Yata planted a hard kick on the tail of his skateboard. The front end lifted a little and, like a sword, he pointed the tip at his enemy. “Fine, then! I’ll be your opponent. You can both come at me if you dare!”
“Stop it.”
Suddenly, the voice of a small girl cut through Yata’s annoyed will to fight.
“Huh?” he turned to gaze at the source of that voice.
It was Anna.
Too caught up in his irritation with the Blues, Yata had completely forgotten about her existence. On the other side, the Blues seemed to have been in the same situation as well. Noticing Anna, they acted as if they’d suddenly remembered something and traded a glance with each other.
“…We have no reason to fight with you here,” the black-haired one said.
Yata frowned with all of his might. “The hell’re you saying, you bastard. You’re the one who started it, just now!”
“We were only responding to your insult,” the brown-haired one said.
The black-haired man looked to Anna.
“You do realize your position, correct?” he asked.
With a light tremble, Anna gave a faint nod.
“Who are these guys to you?” the brown-haired one asked her.
“…Honami’s… friends,” came the reply.
In a child’s mind, all of a person’s acquaintances were summed up as ‘friends’ automatically. This was likely nothing more than just that, but even so, Yata felt his heart beating fast as he heard himself called a ‘friend’ of the King’s significant other.
“Make sure you don’t forget whose jurisdiction you’re under,” the black-haired man pointed out coldly.
Upon hearing those flat, unperturbed words, Yata furrowed his eyebrows.
“Hey! The hell’s that, what’re you talking about?”
“It has nothing to do with you. Am I correct?”
Struck silent by whatever the brown-haired man’s tone seemed to imply, Anna quietly nodded again. Yata felt himself getting sick to his stomach.
“Don’t threaten a kid!”
“We’re not threatening anyone.”
“Just restating some facts.”
The blue-clad twins alternated their speech yet again as they returned their swords to their scabbards.
Noticing that, Yata kind of slouched a little as well. No matter what, he just couldn’t bring himself to attack a foe who had put his weapon away.
“…You chickening out?”
“H-Hey, maybe we shouldn’t needlessly provoke them too—”
“Shut up.”
As he told off a distressed Kamamoto, Yata glared at the Blues. No matter how you thought of it, these two were shady. He may not have known what was going on, but Yata was sure these guys had to be what Kusanagi-san had told them to be on their guard for. So, shouldn’t they just beat the crap out of them right here and right now? That’s what he thought, but as he remembered Anna’s voice stopping them, he hesitated to put that idea in practice.
Narrowing their already narrow eyes even more, the Blues displayed something akin to a smile.
“We’re simply fulfilling our duty. Should you decide to obstruct us, this time you will be killed.”
“The Gold Clan may not be our King, but they are our employer. The only thing acting rashly against the Gold Clan here would accomplish is to make your King look bad.”
As they indifferently said all of that, the blue-clad twins once again looked at Anna. It was as if, using only their eyes, they had been coldly conveying something explicit. Leaving it at that, they both turned on their heels and, with stiff moves which contrasted the wind-like swiftness their attacks had displayed, they withdrew.
Stare fixed on their backs until he lost them completely from sight, Yata refused to slip out of his battle-ready stance until they were gone.
“…Wow, Yata-san…! You sure are the real thing…!” Kamamoto said excitedly as soon as the Blues couldn’t be seen anymore. “Well, I mean, I know you saved me a lot when we were little… And I did have a feeling you’d be really strong in Homra as well, Yata-san! But, this is totally on a whole new level! You might really even get away with calling yourself Yatagarasu for real! …Ah, come to think of it, did you forget that when you gave your name earlier?”
As he stood next to Kamamoto and received his enthusiastic discourse, however, Yata was preoccupied with entirely something else.
“…Kamamoto.”
“Wha…?”
Trying to put on a brave act over the childish face he was making, Yata abruptly turned his head to eye Kamamoto. As a trail of cold sweat formed on his face, he looked almost on the brink of tears.
“Kamamotooo…”
“Wh-What’s wrong?” Kamamoto stressed, taken aback by the pitiful tone he was met with.
“Are you sure it’s alright?”
“What is?”
“I didn’t make Mikoto-san look bad, right?”
Yata was concerned with the words that the Blues left behind. That “make your King look bad” part just wouldn’t stop playing in his head over and over again. To him, Suoh was a strong and cool hero, and being of service to him was Yata’s pride. However, if his actions were to put a dent in Suoh’s image…
For only a moment, Kamamoto was left dumbfounded, but then he gave a strained smile and clapped Yata reassuringly on the back.
“Don’t worry about it! That was just idle talk from sore losers.”
“R-Right! That’s all it was, right?”
“More importantly…” Kamamoto said in a low, serious voice, turning to Anna behind him.
Yata also shifted his attention to her.
Anna looked so stiff and expressionless he really started to worry. Was this seriously not actually a mannequin or something?
“So what the heck were those Blues in the end anyway?” he asked Anna, who just stood frozen in place. “Do you know those guys?”
No response.
“…By the way, were you trying to run away from home or something?”
Yet again, absolutely no response.
At a loss, Yata turned to Kamamoto, eyes begging for help. But the other only made a face just as troubled as his.
“W-Well, that’s alright, I’m sure there are times you’d want to get away from home! Yeah. I mean, ma’am Kushina’s nice, but she’s a teacher and stuff, so I’m sure there are times when she’s all in your hair and…”
This time, there was a response.
As if trying with desperation to deny Yata’s words, Anna frantically shook her head.
At least this confirmed that she wasn’t a mannequin, though it only served to confuse Yata more.
“…So you’re trying to say ma’am Kushina wasn’t annoying or anything?”
Anna drew her chin and gave a small nod. Yata scratched his head.
“Then, did something bad happen at school? …Wait, you were in the hospital all this time. You probably don’t go to school.”
Slowly, Anna lowered her head, looking guilty. Just as Yata and Kamamoto found themselves even more at a loss, the apartment’s door slammed open all of a sudden and Honami barged out, face livid with worry. She’d finally noticed Anna was missing.
“Are you sure it’s alright?” Honami asked, an apologetic expression on her face.
“S’fine. Our place’s got plenty of room to play, and there’s no lack of guys who can babysit either.”
It was an early hour of morning. Kusanagi had come to Honami’s apartment together with Totsuka.
Yata and Kamamoto had given him a full account of last night’s events. After that, Kusanagi phoned Honami in the middle of the night and offered to be responsible for taking care of Anna during the day.
What they’d told Honami was that, as Anna attempted to run away from home, Yata and Kamamoto just happened to be passing by. They’d left it at that. Anna’s runaway attempt had been such a shock to Honami, it seemed, that she had very easily accepted Kusanagi’s offer to keep Anna under constant watch and take care of her while she was at work.
After telling Totsuka to take Anna and go on ahead, Kusanagi lowered his voice.
“Did Anna-chan say anything about why she tried to run away?” he asked Honami.
