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her voice was mixed with what seemed like a certain echo of disappointment in what she was seeing.



C HAPTER T WO
T HE S AINT ON THE R OOF
1
    The seventh day of the lunar month, the night of the first quarter of the moon…
    “H…hello?! Kojou Akatsuki?! It’s me!”
    About an hour after midnight, the sudden ringing of the phone roused Kojou from the verge of falling asleep.
    The voice he heard through the phone’s speaker sounded tight with tension. Kojou replied to the voice, one he’d become very accustomed to hearing over the last several days, with a reluctant tone.
    “…Kirasaka? Sorry, I don’t feel like dealing with you today. Later.” With that, Kojou moved to hang up the phone.
    “Huh?! W-wait, will you?!”
    The girl on the other end of the line, Sayaka Kirasaka, sounded very rushed.
    She was a War Dancer for the Lion King Agency—a specialist in curses and assassination. She was also Yukina’s former roommate. Kojou had come to know her due to an incident that had rocked Itogami Island two weeks prior.
    A one-sided grudge by the man-hating Sayaka had caused a great deal of grief for Kojou, but for some reason, she kept in touch by phone like this even after she’d left Itogami Island once her mission had ended.
    “What are you hanging up on your own like that for?! Inform me whatthe meaning of this is. Or does this mean you’ve done something to my Yukina again…?!”
    Her display of typical overprotectiveness toward Yukina put Kojou in a mood of deep regret. This was pretty much the only part of Sayaka’s personality he didn’t like, really…
    “It’s not… Nothing to do with Himeragi, but I haven’t done anything to bother her. Probably not.”
    “What in the…? I don’t understand a word you’re saying…”
    Suppose that figures
, Kojou thought with a bit of self-reflection.
    “It’s not about her, it’s my little sister who’s in Himeragi’s class…”
    “Ah, Nagisa you mean?”
    “Why do
you
know about her?”
    “She was in a file concerning the recent incident. Unlike you, she’s pretty cute,” Sayaka said glowingly in a self-absorbed voice.
    “Oh, shut up,” Kojou muttered, grinding his teeth. “So…a boy in her class gave her what looked like a confession…”
    “…Did you kill him?” Sayaka asked in a suddenly frigid tone.
    Kojou was bewildered by the sudden change. “Huh?”
    “Did you kill the filthy little thief? I mean, I do understand how you feel, but I wonder if burning him to a crisp with your Beast Vassal might be overdoing it just a little.”
    “Like hell I did!!” Sayaka’s altogether too-extreme impression made Kojou feel a shiver as he shouted. “Why would I use a Beast Vassal to fry a guy making moves on my little sister anyway?! I don’t get what you’re going on about!”
    “Why not? Maybe now you can sympathize a little with the anger and despair I felt when I’d heard you’d laid a hand on my Yukina.”
    “No, no, no, Himeragi’s not your little sister, and anyway, I didn’t lay a hand on her.”
    “…You drank my Yukina’s blood, you drank my Yukina’s blood…,” Sayaka repeated the words in a subdued, resentful tone. “Shut up,” muttered Kojou again as he pulled the phone away from his ear. After a little while, he heard an “ahem” sound of her clearing her throat.
    “Well, I basically understand the situation.”
    “D-do you now.”
    “You’re one of
those
. What do they call them? You’ve got a sister complex.”
    “Er, no, you don’t understand one little bit. It’s not that at all,” Kojou disputed in irritation. “…It’s just, after our parents divorced there was no dad in the house, and Nagisa had a hard time for a while living in a hospital. That’s why I kinda feel like…if I don’t protect her, who will?”
    “Is…is that so…? W-well, that’s pretty…commendable by your standards…”
    Normally he’d never think about the matter that deeply, and more than half of it was born of