The Asterisk War, Vol. 6: The Triumphal Homecoming Battle Read online

  If there were two people to a room, and Saya used her own room, then he would have to—

  “I see. In that case, I’ll share with Ayato,” Claudia announced easily.

  “Huh?!”

  “Wha—?! What a second, Claudia! Th-think about what you’re saying!” Julis blurted out, but the other girl merely tilted her head to the side enigmatically.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Of course there’s a problem! For a man and woman of the same age to sleep together, that’s…”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, laughing. “I trust him. Right, Ayato?”

  “Well, um…” Ayato returned a stiff smile, trying to look away from her meaningful gaze.

  Claudia always acted like this, so he had no idea how serious she was.

  “But, Julis, are you saying you don’t trust him?”

  “Wha—?! O-of course I do! But I mean… Th-that’s a separate matter!” Julis stammered.

  “I—I trust him!” Kirin, red-faced, stepped forward just then.

  “Oh my, shall I leave him to you, then, Miss Toudou?” Claudia prodded.

  “Th-that’s…” Kirin stared down at her feet for a short moment before looking to Ayato with upturned eyes, her small body trembling shyly. “B-but if it’s okay with Ayato, then I…”

  “Huh…?”

  “I see. It would certainly be easiest to let Ayato decide.” Claudia lightly clapped her hands, while Julis, her cheeks red, glared at him.

  “Um…” No matter how he answered, there was no way he was going to come out of this in one piece.

  He wanted to run away from this situation, but a keen pressure stopped him from doing that.

  “Oh, by the way, I wouldn’t mind if you did do something. In fact, I might even welcome it,” Claudia stated frankly.

  “Wh-what?! I wouldn’t!”

  There was a short silence.

  “…Come on, Mom, stop teasing us.” Saya, sighing, looked reproachfully at Kaya. “He can use my room. There, it’s settled.”

  “…Ah.”

  And with that, the oppressive mood that had settled around them instantly abated.

  It was just as Saya had said—there were actually three rooms, so it wasn’t necessary at all for Ayato to share with one of the girls.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!” Kaya burst into laughter.

  “Hmm. Then let’s do that. It is a shame, though.” The student council president shrugged. She must have understood the situation from the very beginning, so she had no doubt just been baiting them.

  “…”

  Julis and Kirin, on the other hand, looked away in embarrassment.

  Saya’s bedroom had hardly changed since they were children. It was practically empty, fitted only with a bed, a desk, and a computer, with hardly anything else to catch the eye.

  Of course, she had obviously taken many of her belongings to the Seidoukan dorms, including her Lux cases, which were conspicuously absent. However, Ayato doubted her room at the academy was much different from this spartan one.

  And that was because, apart from fiddling around with Luxes, Saya hadn’t really had any childhood hobbies. Some of that might have been her father’s influence, but he doubted that was the whole story.

  Ayato, cloaked in the moonlight shining in from the window, lay on the bed reminiscing.

  The night was late, and he had no doubt that everyone else was asleep. But for whatever reason, he found himself meandering through endless thoughts, unable to put his mind at ease.

  Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen them in so long…

  He would most likely be in trouble the next day if he couldn’t get any sleep, but at least for the moment, he didn’t feel too bad.

  Then…

  “…Nnn.”

  …silently, the door slid ajar, and someone stumbled inside.

  “—!”

  Ayato was only a second away from jumping out of the bed when he realized who it was:

  “Oh, it’s you, Saya. What is it, this late at night?”

  He hadn’t been able to see her properly at first due to the darkness, but it was indeed the daughter of the house.

  She continued to walk toward him unsteadily, without responding.

  “Saya…?”

  “Nnnnnn…”

  She must still be half-asleep.

  Her eyes half-closed, her body swaying to and fro drowsily, she collapsed onto the bed with a thud. Ayato rushed frantically to stop her from crawling under the blankets.

  “H-hold on a second, Saya!”

  When he looked closely, he saw that her pajamas were coming loose, exposing her shoulders and abdomen.

  Unsure where to look, Ayato shook her gently, trying to rouse her from her slumber, but she showed no signs of opening her eyes.

  “Ha… Saya, your sleepwalking hasn’t gone away, huh…”

  But he couldn’t just leave her as she was. He would have to use his last resort.

  “I hope it still works…”

  As he pinched Saya’s nose, her peaceful breathing and relaxed face underwent a complete change. She knitted her brow and shook her head from side to side, but Ayato wouldn’t let go.

  This had been the best way to wake her up when she was a kid, and it looked like it still worked.

  “…Whuuua!”

  Saya jumped up, her face red.

  “You’re finally awake…”

  “? …Huh?” Saya glanced around restlessly, her confusion so complete it was as if a question mark had appeared over her head.

  She stared at Ayato’s face for a full ten seconds before commenting on where they were.

  “Ayato…? What are you doing here?! Did you sneak into my bed?!” She hugged the blanket somewhat comically but exuded a strangely satisfied look.

  “No! It was you who snuck in!”

  “Huh? But this is my room…”

  “Yes, but you said you would let me sleep here tonight!”

  “…Oh,” she said, finally understanding, tapping her head with her fist. “I must have gotten up to go to the bathroom, and then come back here…”

  “I figured it was something like that.” Ayato laughed.

  Saya bowed her head feverishly. “…I’m sorry, Ayato. Did I wake you?”

  “No. I wasn’t able to fall asleep anyway. I kept remembering things from when we were kids.”

  “When we were kids…?” Saya cocked her head, perplexed.

  “…Saya?”

  “Ayato. Can we talk, for a little while?”

  “Ah, sure. I don’t mind. What is it?”

  She looked directly at him, hesitating for a moment before speaking. “I’ve always… I’ve always wanted to apologize to you…”

  “Apologize…?” He had no idea what she was talking about. “What for?”

  “…After I moved away, we stayed in touch for a while. Do you remember?”

  “Of course.”

  After Saya and her family left, she and Ayato had kept in contact via their mobiles. No matter how far away two people were, in the modern age there were always ways to stay connected. They were in different time zones, and they couldn’t call each other all the time, but they decided they would call at least once every three days.

  But before they knew it, those three days grew into one week, and before half a year passed, it had grown into one month, until eventually they stopped calling each other entirely.

  Losing his childhood friend like that had left him despondent, but he had tried to console himself by saying that that was what happened with kids.

  “…I couldn’t keep going on like that, so I stopped calling you.”

  “Huh? Was that what happened?”

  He didn’t remember exactly how they had drifted apart, but now that she mentioned it, it was certainly the case that he had usually been the one to call her.

  “I mean… Before that, we would play together every day, but then all we could do was talk. And even then, only for a
short time. I was fine with that, at first, but it became too painful… So I thought, until we can meet again, face-to-face…” She trailed off, despondent under the weight of the memories.

  “It’s okay, Saya. I don’t—”

  “It isn’t just that.” She shook her head sadly. “If I had kept in touch, I might have been able to be your strength when Haruka disappeared…”

  “—!” Ayato’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Even if I couldn’t have been your strength, I could have tried to cheer you up. I could have supported you… I’m sorry…”

  “Saya…”

  “I should have been there. I was always there for you, always, until I wasn’t…”

  It probably would have been good for him to have had her with him back then; he did agree with that. But there was no changing that now.

  “So…you know, you can rely on me. When you need to. Next time, I’ll be your strength.” She looked up from the bed and took his arm.

  Her eyes, staring into his, shone with earnestness, pure and clear.

  “I’ll be your strength,” huh…?

  Those were the same words Julis had said to him not long ago.

  “Thank you, Saya. I can always count on you.”

  She nodded, finally showing a soft smile.

  “Well then, we had better get some sleep, or—” But before he could finish his sentence, a high-pitched sound suddenly rang out. “Wh-what’s going on?”

  “…The alarm system.”

  He remembered that security around the house had always been very tight. Souichi said he had installed a system to protect against intruders trying to steal his research, and Ayato himself had been caught by it once as a child.

  “Don’t tell me it’s a thief?”

  They left the room to find the others similarly standing in the corridor.

  “What on earth is that noise?” Julis grumbled, holding back a yawn.

  Kirin looked half-asleep as well, rubbing her eyes as if just waking from a dream.

  “I wonder whether there’s some kind of emergency?” As usual, Claudia was the only one who remained calm. Her figure was even more mature than Saya’s, and her negligee so thin that it was almost transparent in places. Ayato averted his eyes, not knowing where to look.

  “Oh, sorry, sorry. Did I startle you all?” Souichi’s hologram appeared in the corridor as the alarms fell silent.

  “What happened?”

  “Some folks tried to sneak in through the backyard, but it looks like they ran off as soon as the alarm sounded.”

  “Intruders, you mean?”

  “Yeah. I’m analyzing the evidence now. They probably work for a rival corporation, or a research institute…”

  At this announcement, Claudia’s expression turned serious.

  “Well, my security system can stand up to anything some other research institute could throw our way, even if they did have the backing of one of the IEFs. There’s no need to worry.”

  And with that, the hologram faded away, dissolving into the air.

  “…”

  “Claudia?” Ayato asked.

  “Yes? Sorry, I was just thinking about something.” She smiled sweetly, as if it were no big deal.

  “I guess that’s okay, then…”

  Claudia rarely looked so troubled, so he couldn’t say he wasn’t concerned, but if she didn’t want to talk about it, then he couldn’t force her.

  “By the way, Ayato…”

  “Yes?”

  There was something frighteningly tense lurking behind Julis’s voice.

  “Did I just see you and Saya come out of the same room?”

  “…Ah…”

  In the end, it took so long to clear up the misunderstanding that by the time they were finished, the eastern sky was tinged orange with the light of dawn.

  CHAPTER 3

  LIESELTANIA

  “Take care, okay?”

  The next morning, Kaya saw them all off at the gate. She wished them well as she gently stroked her daughter’s head.

  Saya, looking a little embarrassed, nodded.

  It was another sunny day, but the temperature remained cold, and their breath turned into white plumes of mist before their eyes.

  “Ah, I almost forgot to tell you. That intruder last night—looking at the data from the sensors, it seems that it wasn’t human.”

  “Wasn’t human…? Then what on earth was it?” Ayato asked Souichi—or rather, his hologram, standing beside Kaya rubbing his chin.

  Souichi had undoubtedly installed projection devices not only within the house but all around the premises.

  “It must have been a wild animal or something like that. It probably came out of the forest.”

  Since Saya’s house was located on the edge of the suburbs, there was a dense forest only a short walk away.

  “An animal…” Claudia sank deep into thought.

  All of a sudden, a large black limousine stopped in front of them.

  A young girl in a maid outfit—Flora—stepped down from the passenger seat. “Hello, everyone! I’ve come to pick you up!” she exclaimed enthusiastically, giving them an extravagant bow.

  “You’re as energetic as always, Flora.”

  “Yep!” she replied simply, brimming with pride.

  Only a few months had passed since the Phoenix, but she seemed to have grown a little taller. She’ll certainly be quite the beauty in a few years, Ayato thought.

  “Thank you for taking care of us, Uncle Souichi, Kaya,” he said politely, and they all stepped into the limousine.

  The interior of the vehicle was similar to the one in which they had spoken to Dirk Eberwein, but the windows weren’t tinted black, and it didn’t have a table in the center. The front of the vehicle, where the driver’s seat was located, was separated from the passengers’ area by a glass partition. There were three cushioned seats facing the rear of the vehicle, across from which were another two even more spacious seats.

  “Your Highness, Master Amagiri, please take the rear seats.”

  “Huh? Well, all right…” He didn’t know whether there was special meaning behind the seating arrangements, but he didn’t really have any reason to refuse the suggestion, so he sat down on the seat next to Julis as instructed.

  “Okay then, let’s go!” Flora exclaimed, and the stern-faced driver started the engine without a word.

  “How long will it take to get there?”

  “Hmm… From here, probably around two or three hours.”

  “Wow, it’s closer than I expected.”

  “Lieseltania is a small country, in the mountains on the border between Germany and Austria, after all.” After answering Kirin’s question, Julis addressed her companions across from her. “Well, we have a little time, so I suppose I had better tell you all a little about it. But it looks like there’s someone here who can correct me if I make any mistakes.”

  Claudia laughed softly. “Hee-hee. I wonder who that could be?”

  “…Haah…” Julis released a long sigh, glancing out the window. “To start with…okay. The territory that is now Lieseltania was originally part of the Holy Roman Empire. It became an independent country after the Empire collapsed…and lost that independence with the German Revolution. So it existed as an independent country for around a hundred years.”

  Perhaps because Saya’s house was at the edge of the suburbs, almost from the start of their journey the scenery outside changed to one of row upon row of snow-laden trees. Watching those trees fly by, Julis continued, “It would have been for the best if it had ended with that, but unfortunately, Lieseltania was dragged out of its coffin after the Invertia. During the Reconstruction, a class-one grade Vertice Meteorite was discovered in the territory of the former kingdom.”

  The meteorites that had fallen to Earth during the Invertia were called Vertice Meteorites in order to distinguish them from the regular kind.

  “Class-one grade meteorites are extremely rare, right?�
�� Ayato asked.

  “Indeed, there has been only a dozen or so such meteorites discovered thus far,” Claudia replied.

  Vertice Meteorites were graded based on their manadite content, with the class-one grade referring to specimens with a purity rate of more than ninety-five percent—in other words, composed almost entirely of manadite.

  The technology to create artificial manadite had since been developed, but the products of such processes could hardly match the quality of the real thing. Moreover, such technology hadn’t existed during the Reconstruction, so securing the world’s manadite deposits had been a top priority of the integrated enterprise foundations.

  “The size of the deposit is quite small compared to many of the others, but there’s also an overall smaller amount of Vertice Meteorite material in Europe, as the damage caused by the Invertia was itself comparably less here than in other parts of the world. It’s only natural that the IEFs would want to get their hands on as much class-one grade material as possible. And Europe is the home territory of Solnage, Frauenlob, and EP, after all.”

  Julis took a breath as she watched her three companions in turn. “But the location proved to be a problem. As I said, the territory of the former kingdom of Lieseltania had become a border zone. Both Solnage, based in Germany, and Frauenlob, based in Austria, had a great level of power. Both parties were ready to go to war over it…but the risk posed by military conflict to the European economy, which was just starting to stabilize during the Reconstruction, was deemed to be too great, so the other IEFs stepped in to mediate.”

  “They might have called it mediation, but they certainly had their eyes on the leftovers.” Claudia smiled as she spoke, but her voice spat venom.

  “And once the profit-sharing agreement was completed, the integrated enterprise foundations came to the conclusion that if they were going to have to share anyway, they might as well take the opportunity to build their own little miniature garden where they would be free to do whatever they liked. Even though the existing states already didn’t have any power to resist them, the integrated enterprise foundations figured they could use that framework for their own benefit. And so the former kingdom of Lieseltania was reborn. Which is why, in my country, every government policy, from tax rates to guarantees of status, are designed to perfectly suit the IEFs—essentially, legal tax avoidance, and legal immunity for core staff.”