Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (43 page)

“Your husband seems upset.”

“Oh, he's always like that, concerned about me. We've lost a good many retainers because of it.”

“There was something you wished to ask me?”

“Don't be so distant. You haven't thanked me for pointing out that book to you.”

“But of course.”

“Why do you think I did so?”

“I wouldn't presume to say,” Mephisto answered brusquely. Aside from her being another man's wife, it was as if her very essence aroused in him a deep and abiding feeling of aversion toward her.

“I have been waiting to meet you for such a long time.”

“My, my.”

She softly stroked his cheek. “Loathsome man. Disguised as an old wizard, you sealed me inside the body of that young girl. How many times have I resolved to return the favor? And now I have at last set eyes upon you.”

Her fingers drew an arc across his skin, the force sufficient to raise five streaks of red. Mephisto's blood. The streams trickled down to the line of his jaw. Oozing sensuality, she brought her mouth up to the dripping blood.

When she pulled away, her lips were redder than the scarlet skin. “I'll kill you some day. Or right away. In the most awful and feared way this world has to offer. You dreadful man.”

Her dainty chin jerked up, seized by Mephisto's hand. “Can you? Can the Queen of Death kill the Demon Physician?”

Mephisto's gaze and voice engulfed the beautiful woman like smoldering amber. She shut her enraptured eyes. Her lips trembled. She took a breath. Mephisto's mouth covered hers.

She moaned. A moment later, Mephisto was alone again in the old library, his arms forming an incomplete circle, as if wrapped around an invisible person.

“You invited me here to kill me, Semiramis?” he whispered to the empty air. “I accepted knowing you would try. Ha, so we could love each other in all our mutual hatreds. Alas, we were never the kind who would lie awake at night enjoying a little night music.”

Mephisto's voice drifted away into the distance.

A beautiful moon hung in the night sky.

Kyoya opened his eyes. He was sitting on the rock, legs crossed in the lotus position. The discipline and training required to amass spiritual power was entering, as planned, its final stretch.

Up till now, unbelievable things had occurred around him. Hungry wolves had crept onto the promontory and prowled around, growling in their throats and sniffing the air. And yet they didn't once dare bite.

It was like Kyoya didn't exist there. Or rather, that his presence meant more to them than the trees or the stones. Gnashing their teeth, they left and went elsewhere to fill their bellies.

From time to time, when Kyoya climbed down from the rock and strode around the promontory, he noticed he was walking
through
the boulders.
A mind cleared of all mundane thoughts can quench fire
. When Nobunaga Oda attacked Keirin Temple in the province of Ka, this was the incantation chanted by the monks perched on the gates as he attempted to burn them alive.

Though in this case, even the rocks began to fade at his touch. Such was the result of spiritual training in the ultimate mountain aesthetic of the Himalayas, and absorbing the energy of the universe pouring down.

Of course, he came down from the rock to exercise his kenpo.

There was a graveyard next to a village at the foot of the mountain, haunted by the usual evil spirits and residual ghosts, or
restligeists
. Kyoya purified them all. They thanked him and left. At one time he would have simply vanquished them. That alone was evidence of an increase in spiritual strength.

But it still wasn't enough.

In order to counter the masked lord's secret ability to send his own psychic energy back at him, Kyoya had no choice in these three final days but to shoot for the top in one fell swoop.

There'd be no taking it easy. Not to mention, according to the newspaper Tarta had brought, the weird goings-on in Demon City. Even Chief Yamashina had gone to check it out. Things were growing stranger and stranger and there was still no word from Mephisto. Similar messages were coming into the bureau on a daily basis.

In any case, only Kyoya's character could have brought him this far. His cells had activated in a flash as they absorbed the energy filling the universe. For over two weeks, he hadn't drunk a drop of water.

This energy of the universe was suffused with the pure powers of creation. If anybody else—witch, warlock, psychic warrior—whose psychic powers were not matched to its nature, the result would be instant death.

In that sense, there could be no one more perfectly attuned than Kyoya.

Now he opened his eyes. Oddly enough, a color approaching fear rose to his face. He quietly turned precisely in the direction of Tokyo.

“This feeling—” he muttered. “Today is the day.” He bit his lip. “But how do I return?”

He heard footsteps. Not along the ridgeline. From the ravine below, traveling up the gentle slope. A single pair of footsteps in the snow.

Kyoya waited silently. He knew who he was waiting for. The strength of the approaching spirit raised goose bumps on his skin. A concentrated lump of malice.

The figure that soon appeared behind the stone pedestal was covered in armor and carrying a long lance under his arm. It was Valen. Valen's ghost carried about him a fierce and evil power that buffeted him.

“I've come to renew our contest,” said the voice of the ghost.

“Let's have at it, then,” Kyoya answered without hesitation. Saving hate-crazed souls was the province of
nenpo
as well.

He descended from the stone table and settled into a fighting stance. Nothing fancy. He wasn't showing off. The normal
en garde
position.

Valen said nothing. He let the lance speak for him. Kyoya batted it away, and felt a cold chill run through him, the violent manifestation of Valen's malice. Slipping through the garden of strange stones, Kyoya pivoted to his right.

The lance pulverized the boulder and arced through the air. Kyoya parried it left and closed the gap between them in a flash. Valen pulled back the lance. Drawing him in, perhaps. The parry had left Kyoya's right hand numb.

A stone Buddha stood between him and Valen. That was when he heard a strange voice. He heard it because of his now heightened senses.

Kyoya-san, come quickly
. Sayaka's voice. Those words crystallized in his being. He took off at full speed.
I'm coming, Sayaka-chan
.

When he'd cleared the row of stone columns, the enchanted lance came at him. Asura sprang out. The tip of the lance flew into the air. The sword swept down from above his head and struck Valen's neck straight on.

The powers of his thought flowed forth and annihilated.

Kyoya was alone. The moon came out. The stars twinkled in the sky. A holy night in the Himalayas.

“I guess he's really gone,” he said, in tones as relaxed as his features.

At the last moment, he knew he had heard Valen's voice.
Thank you
. He too had been freed from the destructive delusions of the world.

“A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.” A fierce sense of conviction colored his face. It was soon replaced by one of human concern. “But how the hell do I get back to Japan?”

Doctor Mephisto gazed at Sayaka in front of him, wondering what to do next.

During this month, the experiments with the spirit of Semiramis taking control of Sayaka's physical body had continued. Today the time had come. Not even Mephisto knew what the golden mask intended to do with Semiramis once she had fully reincarnated. The question hadn't been asked. The answer hadn't been offered.

He had been present during every experimental session, and so was fully apprised of their progress. But it appeared that for all his abilities, the lord of the Demon Palace could not easily revive a soul and command the physical body of another.

Sayaka's soul resisted with a strength that surprised even Mephisto. This willowy young woman had a spine of steel.

The mental powers the golden mask possessed were startling. When he attended the procedures, strange changes arose in the Demon Palace. The power systems largely came to a halt. Considering the amount of energy required to support this structure, the mask's psychic numbers must be astronomical.

Attacked on one side by the mask and on the other by an evil spirit, Sayaka was definitely losing ground. Yet she didn't complain, and neither did Mephisto interfere.

Sayaka intended to ferret out the mask's true intentions. When she made this clear on the first day of the experiment, the mask made a promise.

The experiment was being conducted on the terrace where they viewed the moon. The phantasmal night and the lamp fires of the capital of Babylon glimmered in the distance. Sayaka sat on a chair. The mask thrust out his hands. Sayaka fell into a trance.

“Semiramis,” he said.

“Yes,” Sayaka said. Her answer came with unusual alacrity.

“Do you understand. It is I. Nebuchadnezzar.”

“Yes.”

“My dream is at last in my grasp.” His voice trembled with joy. His eyes glowed with a blood-red glee.

Perhaps that was when he noticed something strange happening on the green-covered terrace. The fountains of water muddied and oozed. From all across Demon City flowed a white substance like a low-lying fog, disappearing into the openings at the base of Demon Palace Babylon.

A deep growl—not a voice, not a reverberation—echoed through the night air, the city groaning in pain.

“Do you remember? I built this city and these gardens for you. I beheaded a hundred thousand for your sake, trampled a million more underfoot. All that death and destruction to succor the power you possess, to unbind it and bring to pass miracles of such unspeakable evil, and bring the whole world under my control. You reveled in the blood of the slaughter, and in your joy released your powers. Remember. Remember what happened.”

“I remember. I remember. How could we ever forget? I moved mountains and shaped continents. I formed rivers and caused the rain to fall. I drowned the forces of the enemy and guided the flaming stars down to scorch their cities. Ah, I can hear it even now—the screams as they died, with curses of hatred and venom on their tongues. I am the immortal queen, the woman who consumes the energy of the dead and their angry spirits and lives forever. And yet—and yet—why—”

“Semulia,” said the masked lord, his body shaking with anger. “That wandering warrior who appears always and out of nowhere. He killed you. He killed me. Your power proved fruitless in the face of his abilities. Such frighteningly refined skills. But he is no longer part of this world. Rather, however he may still be part of it, he will be too late this time. Now the world is ours. King Nebuchadnezzar and Queen Semiramis of the great and terrible Babylon. In this most evil city in the world, compared to which Sodom and Gomorrah were mere shadows, you shall drink its eternal energies to your heart's content, and take hold of reincarnation and immortal life. That is why I chose this place.”

The mask threw back his head and laughed. As did Sayaka, her face suffused with evil rarely seen.

The mask turned to Mephisto. “The promise has been fulfilled. Now the process of reincarnation should be plain. You may go.”

“Not quite yet,” Mephisto softly said, revealing neither in his beautiful visage nor in the depths of his soul the slightest surprise at their appalling pasts and horrifying goals.

“Hoh. What else, then?”

“I have beheld the shape and form of your reincarnation. I need nothing more from you. Now if you would eradicate that woman and restore Sayaka-chan.”

“What are you—”

The eyes in the golden mask focused on Mephisto like a pair of lasers. Mephisto looked back at him. The contest was resolved in an instant, without a sound, with no smoke or fire. The mask reeled, slumped against the stone parapets of the terrace.

“Have you seen it? Mephisto's evil eye?” the black-clad figure calmly said.

He was wrapped in fire. The flames swept backward, engulfing his cape as it spread out like the wings of a giant black bird of prey, and scattered across the terrace.

“You should have been seared down to your bones. I would expect no less from Doctor Faustus, that most uncommon of wizards.” Only her voice was different. Fixing her glowing eyes on Mephisto, she got up from the chair. “The desires I told to you in the library will now be fulfilled.”

Sayaka smiled seductively. Her disheveled silk gown slipped from her round shoulders, showing the tops of her breasts. And parted around her legs, exposing the tops of her thighs. Her captivating presence now would make the most sober of eyewitnesses doubt that she had ever been that innocent young woman.

This was not Sayaka. This was the incarnation of evil reincarnated inside her, having pushed her righteous soul down into the darkness. Semiramis, the queen of ancient Mesopotamia, once all but erased from history. For all his strengths and resources, could Mephisto hold his own when this demoness unleashed her powers?

“Such beauty should be consecrated to none other than me. Receive the kiss of my mouth and be on your way to destruction.”

The white and wicked hands coiled around Mephisto's neck and pulled him to her. Their lips overlapped. A groaning sound seeped out from where their mouths met.

Ah, but what fate awaited the Demon Physician? Sucking on his lips in ecstasy, Semiramis smiled her bewitching smile. She poured strength into her pale hands. Her hands trembled. A moment later, her hands around his throat, Semiramis threw her head back.

“W-what are you doing, bitch!” she cried out with the mien of a monster. That this was Sayaka underneath alone made the appearance a hundred times worse than any “normal” woman. “No. Not her. Not her alone. Y-you—who are you?”