Free Right Arm of the Saint by Gakuto Mikumo

something. The color of her face turned faintly pale. Aside from being cursed by the gods, there was but one other method by which a human being could become a Primogenitor. She’d just remembered what it was.
    “Senpai… You don’t mean, you…consumed a Primogenitor and took his power into you…?! But that’s not…”
    The softness that had been in Yukina’s expression a short time before had vanished. In its place, a look of fright came over her.
    If you couldn’t become a Primogenitor yourself, there was but one way that existed to obtain a Primogenitor’s power. That was to consume the Primogenitor’s existence and to take the power, and the curse, into one’s own body.
    However, there shouldn’t have been any way for someone inferior in magical power to take the quasi-godlike power wielded by a Primogenitor into oneself. Clumsily laying a hand on a Primogenitor would only result in one’s own existence being consumed and annihilated.
    All the more so where an ordinary human was concerned: consuming a vampire simply wasn’t possible.
    And yet, in point of fact, Kojou Akatsuki was saying he’d obtained the power of the Fourth Primogenitor.
    “‘Consumed a Primogenitor’… Uh, please don’t put it like that. It makes me sound like a ravenous beast.”
    Kojou sluggishly rested his chin on his hands as he sipped on his iced coffee. Yukina’s expression remained sharp and impregnable.
    “Are you saying you obtained a Primogenitor’s power by some other method, then?”
    “Sorry, but even I can’t explain the details. I just had that idiot push this troublesome condition onto me, and that’s it.”
    “Pushed onto you…?”
    Yukina blinked in what seemed like surprise.
    “Senpai, you didn’t become a vampire of your own will?”
    “Who the heck would
want
to be like this?”
    Kojou spoke in an offhand tone. Yukina glared at Kojou with a dubious look.
    “And who is this idiot?”
    “The Fourth Primogenitor. The previous one.”
    “The previous Fourth Primogenitor…?!”
    Yukina sucked in her breath in shock.
    “You’re talking about the real Kaleid Blood?! You’re saying you inherited
those
powers? Why did the Fourth Primogenitor choose you as his successor? How did you even encounter the Fourth Primogenitor in the first place?”
    “Er, that’s…”
    As Kojou tried to speak, his face suddenly grimaced, as if assaulted by a fierce headache.
    The coffee cup he’d been drinking from fell over, spilling the melting ice and thin liquid that had been within.
    Without noticing that at all, Kojou lowered his face onto the table, clutching his head. He let out what seemed to be anguished pants from having bitten his tongue. Like a curse, Kojou’s lost memories brought torment to his entire body.
    “S-Senpai?”
    Yukina spoke in a flustered voice at Kojou’s completely unexpected reaction.
    “Sorry, Himeragi…”
    But Kojou did not raise his face. He suppressed the fierce pain in his heart, as if impaled by an invisible stake, and simply panted painfully. The only thing that came into the back of his mind was a lone girl whose face he could no longer remember, smiling amid the flames.
    “I’m gonna have to leave it at that.”
    Kojou spoke in a frail tone. Yukina tilted her head a bit.
    “Eh?”
    “I don’t have any memory of it. When I try and force myself, this is what I get.”
    “Is…that so? I understand… In that case, it cannot be helped.”
    An expression that seemed relieved came over Yukina as she watched Kojou finally lift his face. It seemed she’d believed without any doubtwhat Kojou had said about having no memory. She must have had a fundamentally straitlaced personality.
    Kojou was actually a bit disappointed in Yukina’s all-too-quick reaction.
    “You believe me?”
    “Yes. I believe I understand you at least well enough to know you are not lying, Senpai.”
    Yukina spoke matter-of-factly. A conflicted expression came over Kojou. He wondered if that was a