Avrora was extremely fond of all sorts of modern snacks, and among them, her favorite was ice cream.
"The protection of ice lets me feel power."
Those were Avrora's exact words.
Perhaps because the Beast Vassal inside her was Alrescha-Glacies, which commanded ice and cold, she had a natural affinity for anything cold or frozen.
If that was the case, even Ciel was not sure whether Avrora should like Itogami Island or hate it.
As an artificial island where it was always summer, Itogami Island had the greatest number of research institutions, followed by food and beverage businesses. In particular, chilled dishes and snacks were especially important and popular here, and cool, heat-relieving entertainment facilities were common as well—swimming pools, indoor ski resorts, and the like.
Even when Avrora stretched out her arms, Ciel would hold down her head, leaving her unable to reach the ice cream in Ciel's hand no matter how hard she tried.
Was Ciel worried that Avrora would eat too much ice cream and upset her stomach...? Of course not. How could a vampire's stomach be that fragile?
Ciel simply wanted to bully Avrora a little and enjoy the aggrieved expression on her face, satisfying her own small, wicked sense of fun.
"Phew... Good. My black tea is still here."
Natsuki let out a sigh of relief. After rummaging through her cabinets, she discovered that none of the precious black tea she had been saving had gone missing, unaware that her dear little sister had only just been planning to take it out to entertain the uninvited Koyomi Shizuka.
Just as boys out having fun would unconsciously take a sip whenever they had a cup of milk tea in hand, Natsuki would instinctively want to brew herself a cup whenever she saw the black tea in the cabinet.
"Ciel, brew me some black tea. The Lion King Agency showing up uninvited has completely ruined my mood. I need a cup of Ceylon black tea to settle my nerves."
Natsuki lightly rubbed her temples with her fingertips and leaned back against the sofa.
Since her esteemed big sister had spoken, Ciel stopped teasing Avrora and tossed the ice cream back to her, then set about brewing Natsuki's black tea.
She had long since memorized Natsuki-oneechan's fussy tastes, honing her skills again and again all for this single cup.
As the deep amber tea slowly flowed into the bone china teacup, a rich, layered fragrance spread through the air.
Within that fragrance was the crisp clarity of mountain mist, the sweetness of ripe flowers and fruit, and, lingering at the end, a distinctive hint of caramel and smoke. It was the signature of top-grade black tea from Ceylon's Uva region.
The tea was bright and vividly red, sending warm ripples through the gold-rimmed cup like melted gemstones.
Even Avrora, who had been focused on eating her ice cream, was drawn in by the fragrance and raised her head. Her small, delicate nose twitched lightly, and her gemlike eyes quietly looked over.
"What? Does Avrora want a sip too?"
Ciel noticed Avrora's gaze, smiled, and asked.
Natsuki frowned in displeasure.
"She's just a little brat. Would she even understand black tea?"
"Natsuki-oneechan, Avrora's body may only have been shaped by me yesterday, but her soul has been asleep for over a thousand years. She's much older than you."
"Shut up! Sleeping time doesn't count. Just look at her mind. She's basically a six-year-old brat, isn't she?"
Ciel understood what Natsuki meant. It was like how many netizens had once said that although Fu Hua was a warrior from the Previous Era more than fifty thousand years ago, she had spent nearly fifty thousand years asleep in between, so that did not count, and her actual age should be a little over five thousand.
After all that talk, Natsuki was actually just feeling protective of her black tea. It was not exactly that she cared about the money; she simply could not bear to see her tea wasted on someone who did not understand it.
If you spent a thousand bucks on high-grade tea leaves and someone used all of them to boil tea eggs, you would be so angry your liver hurt too, furious that they were recklessly wasting good things.
"Forget the black tea. Ciel, go get Avrora some random drink."
"What kind of random drink? Is oolong tea all right?"
"That's fine... Don't ask me about such trivial things. Decide for yourself."
A moment after receiving her instructions, Ciel placed a drink whose color looked very much like oolong tea on the table in front of Avrora.
Naive and kind-hearted Avrora trusted Ciel just like that, drinking it without the slightest suspicion.
"Cough... Cough, cough, cough, cough!"
The intensely stimulating taste shot straight to the top of Avrora's head. Her complexion went from red to purple, and broken, wailing coughs squeezed from her mouth.
Natsuki was startled... But what startled her was not Avrora's sudden coughing. It was the sudden eruption of a cold wave.
"My sofa! My carpet!"
Although Ciel acted in time and kept the cold wave from spreading beyond the office, the sofa beneath Avrora and the carpet did not escape disaster. Both were frozen into lumps of ice.
"You little Primogenitor brat! What did you do?!"
Natsuki loudly questioned her.
Through the spreading white mist, she saw Avrora clutching her throat with a pained expression, hoarse words squeezing intermittently from her mouth.
"Water of hell... burns mine throat..."
"Water of hell? Ciel! What did you make Avrora drink?!"
Her anger shifted targets, and Natsuki sharply realized that the source of the problem was the bottle of oolong tea Ciel had handed Avrora.
"Oolong tea, of course... Isn't this the color of oolong tea?"
Expressionless, Ciel poured the "oolong tea" from the bottle into a glass, then picked up a lighter and set it on fire in front of Natsuki.
"Look, Natsuki-oneechan. It even burns."
"If it burns, that means most of it is alcohol!"
Furious, Natsuki picked up her folding fan and delivered a three-hit combo to Ciel's forehead.
Absolutely infuriating!
"Are you insane? You actually gave Avrora alcohol!"
"I couldn't help it... As soon as I thought about this drink being for a vampire Primogenitor, it felt like a whole swarm of bugs was crawling all over me, and I got goosebumps everywhere. I couldn't resist teasing her a little..."
"This is a school! Aren't you afraid Avrora will lose control and hurt the students in class?"
"I'm watching, so nothing like that will happen. I am a teacher at this school, after all. I definitely wouldn't joke around with the students' safety... Of course, I'm seriously reflecting on it too. I have to admit I was a little impulsive just now. Avrora is too much like that old rival of mine. Sometimes I can't quite control myself..."
Ciel spoke with great distress, and it did not look like she was making excuses. It seemed to be true.
This was not the first time she had mentioned that old rival of hers, and Natsuki had asked about some of the details out of curiosity.
Arcueid Brunestud, princess of the True Ancestors.
In the TYPE-MOON world, vampires could be divided into two types.
True Ancestors were vampires by birth.
Dead Apostles were vampires transformed from humans.
Dead Apostles had many defects in their bodies and needed to drink human blood to sustain their lives, while True Ancestors could live forever even without drinking blood. However, they did possess an impulse to drink blood. The vampires of the Strike the Blood world were actually closer to the True Ancestors of the TYPE-MOON world.
True Ancestors could suppress their own blood-drinking impulses. They generally believed human blood was filthy and regarded it as a deadly poison. However, there were some exceptions, considered "fallen True Ancestors" by the True Ancestors and stains upon their race.
In order to hunt those "fallen True Ancestors," the True Ancestors created Arcueid, the pure-white princess of the True Ancestors. Back then, Arcueid was only a weapon, a weapon that hunted fallen True Ancestors. The True Ancestors relied on her, yet also feared her, and did not permit her to possess a self.
Later, a human magus tricked Arcueid into drinking his blood. Driven mad, Arcueid killed all the True Ancestors in the castle, killed that human magus as well, and then fell into a long slumber.
That was why Ciel said Avrora and Arcueid were too alike.
Both were blond, progenitor-class vampires.
Both were innocent and guileless.
Both had originally been created as weapons by their respective creators—Arcueid by the True Ancestors, Avrora by the Primogenitors and Devas—and neither had been allowed to possess a self.
Both Fenghuang Yu and Ciel deeply pitied Avrora's life and circumstances, but precisely because she was too similar, the Ciel part, while caring about Avrora and being unable to stop worrying about her, could not help wanting to make things difficult for her. Seeing Avrora teased by her made her feel delighted in both body and mind.
"...First, get some water for Avrora to soothe her throat and ease things a little. Also, take this cup of flammable oolong tea farther away. How could you bring alcohol into school?"
Natsuki had not forgotten Avrora, who was still suffering.
A dignified vampire Primogenitor had been felled by a bottle of flammable oolong tea. If word got out, people would laugh their heads off.
"Natsuki-oneechan wants water? How about mapo water?"
"What the hell is that? Even the name sounds suspicious."
"The essence of mapo tofu. One cup of mapo water is equivalent to an entire pot of mapo tofu."
"That doesn't sound like something people are meant to drink at all! That's even worse than flammable oolong tea. Didn't you just say you were seriously reflecting?!"
"Just a joke... Milk should help with Avrora's condition, right?"
"Forget it. I'll get it myself. I can't trust anything you bring over right now. I don't even dare let you get too close to Avrora, so leave my office immediately!"
And so, Ciel was driven out of the office by Natsuki.
All that could be said was that she had brought it on herself.
Although school was not over yet, Ciel checked the timetable and discovered that she had no more classes scheduled for the day, so she simply left school, planning to wait for Kanon Kanase at the gates of Tensou Academy.
Itogami Island's east district was home to the airport for private airlines. The south district was an academic area where residences and educational institutions were clustered. The north district belonged to various research institutes, and the west district was a commercial zone packed with restaurants and fashionable buildings, the most prosperous area on Itogami Island.
Saikai Academy was located in the south district, while Tensou Academy and the Minamiya home were in the west district. As such, compared to Ciel and Natsuki, who went to Saikai Academy to teach, Kanon's route to Tensou Academy was even shorter.
The reason Ciel had seen Kanon at the abbey on the mountain behind Saikai Academy yesterday was because Natsuki had brought her there.
There was still some time before Kanon got out of school, so Ciel did not need to hurry. Like the ordinary people around her, she took the train there.
She was lucky. There were not many people in the car, and quite a few seats were still empty. Ciel found a seat away from the others and sat down, not disturbing anyone, maintaining the friendly distance between strangers.
The train traveled quietly along the elevated tracks. The view outside the window was good, overlooking the houses that looked somewhat small below.
Keystone Gate... It was the tallest and most conspicuous building on Itogami Island, located at the central connecting point of the island. Its exterior looked like an inverted pyramid, and inside were the city hall and other government offices, along with numerous hotels and commercial institutions. It was the island's foremost fashion center. In addition, beneath the surface of the sea were as many as forty floors of artificial-island management facilities. The building, less than two kilometers in diameter, also served as the connecting section linking Itogami Island's four artificial islands together.
Sitting on the train seat, Ciel could see that building far in the distance through the window. It was like a steel nail firmly fastening the work known as Itogami Island to the Pacific Ocean.
She got off at the station closest to Tensou Academy, then continued on foot.
The road was familiar. She could see the gates of Tensou Academy in the distance, cold and deserted.
It would probably become a little livelier after school let out.
In her memory, a few impressive figures had also appeared at Tensou Academy, making appearances in the original plot. But it seemed those few were all elementary school students? One of them was even the strongest succubus in this world.
For a combined elementary, middle, and high school, why did it rely entirely on elementary school students to carry the scene?
Once she drew closer, Ciel finally discovered that another figure was also standing before the gates of Tensou Academy.
It was not a stranger, but someone Ciel knew.
"Why are you here? Kensei Kanase."
There was hidden hostility in her words. Ciel sincerely could not bring herself to like the man before her.
Kensei Kanase. One could tell from his surname that he was related to Kanon Kanase.
Kanon's deceased mother had been Kensei's younger sister, so Kensei was Kanon's uncle.
"Hmph. I only came to see Kanon."
Kensei spoke coldly, his tone suggesting he was unwilling to say much to Ciel.
"You still refuse to give up on Kanon?"
"I have never believed your home was a good place for Kanon."
"Hmph. I can't guarantee that our home is the most suitable place for Kanon, but I can be certain of one thing: living with us, she is definitely happier than she would be if you adopted her."
Ciel said this in a firm tone.
Kensei did not understand where her confidence came from. It was as if she had seen the future in advance.
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