Labyrinth of the Blue Witch by Gakuto Mikumo

sorceresses ‘the Meyer Sisters’ assigned to LCO’s First Branch, ‘Philosophy.’”
    The squad leader’s voice shook with despair.
    “The Meyer Sisters?! The Ashdown Witches?!”
    The Meyer Sisters were international sorcery criminals who had conducted a dangerous magical ritual in the imperial state of Ashdown of the North Sea, and the ensuing disaster had wiped out an entire provincial capital.
    These same sisters had appeared at Itogami Island some ten years prior, inflicting severe, unprecedented damage.
    If those witch sisters had appeared once more, the weapons of the Interdiction Unit were nowhere near enough to deal with them.
    “Quite correct. It seems you do remember us still.”
    “Marvelous. Here is your reward.”
    Looking over the shocked guardsmen, the black witch raised her own book to the sky. The ground at the troops’ feet split open; a malignant miasma rose through the crack.
    Snapping back to his senses, the squad leader tried to order his men to fall back. But it was already too late. A new tentacle emerged from the split in the ground’s surface, ripping apart the artificial island’s steel foundation and dragging the guardsmen toward the bottom of the dark sea.
    When the overwhelming onslaught concluded, a strange silence came over the cliff-side road.
    All that remained on the surface of the ground were two witches, one scarlet and one black.
    The scarlet witch murmured in a bored tone as she put her book back under her cloak. “A pathetic bunch. If they were all we faced, we wouldn’t need help from the Library at all.”
    The black witch nodded.
    “Quite so, Octavia.”
    Lifting the rim of her triangular hat, she glared at the night skyline of Itogami City.
    “But do not forget. Natsuki is in this city…that abominable Witch of the Void!”
    Leaving a wet
plop
behind, the giant tentacles returned to the sea.
    The two witches melted into the darkness once more, leaving nothing behind save the evidence of their senseless destruction.
    Midnight had passed. It was a new day.
    One more day remained until the wild, blood-drenched banquet was set to begin—



C HAPTER T WO
M Y D EAR C HILDHOOD F RIEND
1
    Itogami Island’s central airport was completely jammed with travelers.
    On this day, the Friday of the last week of October, they were heading to festivities the night before the Hollow Eve Festival itself. There were numerous events scheduled to begin in the evening, resulting in the first real flood of tourists from off the island.
    The road connecting the airport to the monorail station was heavily congested, completely taken over by people dragging their luggage along. Kojou and the others wedged themselves through the crowd, somehow finally arriving at the airport terminal.
    Kojou raggedly exhaled as he looked up at the time on the electronic billboard.
    “Looks like we made it in time…?”
    The time was already past a quarter after nine in the morning. However, there was still no sight of the person he was meeting. From the looks of it, he might have been in the crowd around luggage pickup; maybe quarantine and customs inspection was taking a while.
    Nagisa was fuming in anger.
    “Well, it’s your fault! You took so long getting ready that we had to work up a sweat, too. And I picked up such awesome clothes! Why’d you have to sleep in on a day like this? I can’t believe it, it’s just unreal.”
    It figured—however heavily her shoulders heaved, her word output did not diminish in any way.
    “Sorry already! Thanks to the fuss last night I was wide awake and couldn’t sleep!”
    “You were worked up from remembering Kanon visiting your room, weren’t you? It’s so embarrassing!”
    “U…gh…!”
    Kojou was at a loss for words as Nagisa hit the mark. Kojou didn’t have the nerves of steel it would’ve taken to sleep soundly after getting stimulated so much that his urge to drink blood had kicked in.
    Kanon bowed her head, feeling responsible for some reason.