Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (5 page)

For a long moment, silence filled the room. Then Kyoya said nonchalantly, “I see. He's supposed to be a ritual sa—”

He cut off the rest of the sentence. In a faint voice, Sayaka finished it for him. “A ritual sacrifice.”

The Master looked at her, compassion showing in his eyes. “Yes. Having paid the necessary tribute in the form of a man of such high virtue,
it
will appear when the president draws his last breath. Ra's previous efforts failed because the offering was lacking.”

“You telling me the bastard has tried this before?”

“Yes. And we are now at the scene of the crime.”

“Where? When?”

The Master said softly, “Early in the twenty-first century. In Japan.”

Kyoya searched his memories. Then bolted from the sofa. “Son of a bitch!
That's
where you were gonna send me? You're nothing but a pair of double-dealing con men!”

“Nobody is forcing you to do anything. What is your answer?”

“Hmph.” Kyoya again huffed and turned away. “This stinks to high heaven. But—let me get this straight—in that case, the earthquake was because of
it
showing up, but this Ra chap couldn't seal the deal?”

The Master nodded. “As Ra summoned
it
from deep within the earth, their streams of demonic energy failed to converge, and were redirected instead into the earth's crust and caused the damage we still see today, all in complete contradiction to the known laws of science.”

Kyoya found himself at a loss for words. Section Chief Yamashina and Sayaka were also rendered speechless, their faces wan.
That earthquake?

“I must return shortly,” said the Master's doppelganger. “I cannot easily perform the incantations for the president and converse with you at the same time. If nothing else, please remember this: Kyoya Izayoi, the peace of the world rests upon your shoulders. The future—and soul—of the world. Won't you yield and accept this duty?”

The Master's form faded. Before disappearing entirely, his low but demanding voice said, “A true hero cannot overlook the suffering of others. My disciple was a true hero. I believe the same of his son.”

Caught in the steady gaze of the young woman and the middle-aged man, Kyoya Izayoi averted his eyes.

The darkness was omnipresent and oppressive, like an expanding slick of heavy black oil. In its very center, the smothering silence suddenly broke.

“Kaki, you there?” asked an inorganic voice, utterly devoid of human emotion.

A point of light glowed in the empty space. No brighter than a cigarette lighter, it steadily expanded in height and width, sprouted arms and legs, until it took on human dimensions. And yet did not disturb the density of the darkness in the slightest. A fire that shared its light with nothing—the fire of the Demon Realm.

“You're here,” said the same voice. “Doki and Suiki should be arriving soon.” He meant the demons of earth and water. “Don't let your powers slacken. The enemy draws near.”

The fire wavered. The portion forming its face bent into a sneer. A sprite that manipulated the fires of this world—that was Kaki.

A burning right hand stretched out toward the speaker, collided with something and deflected, the column of flame bursting apart like an overripe tomato, the streamers curling around and headed at the target.

“Stop it!” the voice barked.

The lines of fire reversed course and merged into one and became an arm again. At the same time, the lights came on. The speaker had switched on a miniature nuclear lamp. The strange, concrete-enclosed space emerged in the blue-white radioactive glow. An old desk and chair in the center; a laboratory bench lined with rows of beakers and test tubes; bookshelves filled with worn leather-bound books of spells and magic.

And far on the other side, an incongruous collection of electrical machinery and what appeared to be automated surgical equipment. Considering its size and the height of the vaulted ceiling, what looked at first like an ordinary room could be more appropriately described as a large underground plaza.

This was one room in the secret headquarters of the sorcerer Rebi Ra and his three Demon Realm bodyguards. The evil odors bubbling out of the noxious fluids in the test tubes and beakers, mingled with the ghostly aura emitted by the inhabitants of the room, together with the cool air—a combination that no normal human could stand for more than a minute.

This was a small Demon Realm within the human world.

“I know the strengths of your powers,” scolded the Sorcerer. He was seated at the desk, wearing a black hood and mantle. Thirty-seven years before, when he was twenty-five, he had been Master Rai's pupil. That made him sixty-two. The thin face inside the shroud looked ten years older, except that his eyes possessed a haunting glow, and the aura cast off by his body lent him an oily demeanor.

He held up his palm for Kaki to see. Gray smoke rose from the scorched flesh, where he'd blocked Kaki's arm of flame. Otherwise, the fire would have engulfed his body and burned him down to the marrow of his bones. Despite calling them forth as their master, these creatures of the Demon Realm must be treated with all due discretion, though there wasn't the slightest indication of pain on the sorcerer's face.

“But the enemy we face next is far stronger. My prophetic dreams are stained black and blue. Hopefully not with your blood.”

“And the name of this enemy?” another presence asked.

“Is that Suiki?”

“Doki is here also.”

The voice came from the silver goblet sitting near the sorcerer's hand, that still held a few drops of wine.

“Show yourself.”

“Yes.”

The upper half of a human body rose out of the goblet. It wore a hood and medieval priestly garb the same color as the sorcerer's. Its entire body—at least the upper half that appeared out of the goblet—dripped with water. This sprite had water at its command. Shadowed by the hood, its features were impossible to make out, except for the lively red gleam of its eyes. A mist filled the room as the auras of Kaki and Suiki collided.

“Whoa!”

Even knowing this was a regular occurrence, Suiki's unexpected appearance caused the Sorcerer to push back his chair, and then look down at his feet. Something resembling a man's head and shoulders pushed out of the tiled floor.
Resembled
because its face lacked eyes or a nose, the fingers seemed to adhere to its hands more out of obligation than biology, and its skin was the reddish-brown color and grain of the soil far below.

Whether concrete or stone, nothing that touched the ground could hold him back, for this was Doki, the devilish earth sprite.

The enemies of the earth were gathered here amidst the haze and devilish miasma.

“And the name?” asked Doki.

“I do not know the name or the appearance. But I can make an educated guess. After I caught the vision of the Demon Realm and cast aside my sacred training, I heard that the man I had studied with also descended the mountain and perfected a martial art called
nenpo
. Based on his disposition, I would say that he did so in order to challenge me. He did not pursue me at the time, so I set such concerns aside. His name is Genichiro Izayoi.”

The murderous discord of the three sprites whirled around the room.

“So what became of him?”

“I do not know. Thirty years have passed. He would be an old man by now. Perhaps a son or disciple? Either way, the foe I see in my dreams has frightening skills at his command. Your own powers may not be enough to defeat him.”

With a dull roar, Kaki's body expanded to twice its size, an expression of his rage. The heat shook the air in the room. A fierce burst of steam rose from Suiki's upper half. Doki alone appeared to laugh silently.

Kaki said, “Leave him to me. I don't care how strong he thinks he is, if he lives according to the laws of the mortal world, he can die according to them as well. He will not lay a finger on us. Give me a good ten seconds and watch me take him apart piece by piece, molecule by molecule, atom by atom.”

The Sorcerer gave Kaki's overweening confidence an equally self-satisfied nod. He had a great amount of trust in the strength of his supernatural bodyguards.

“I'm counting on you. The day is approaching when you will meet face to face. Reveal your true powers slowly when the time comes. What about tonight's rite? Is the offering ready? A minimum of two virgins is necessary.”

“Yes,” said Suiki. “One was located last month and a letter sent. All is going according to plan. The other is being sought out as we speak. She will surely be delivered to the altar of blood at the appointed time.”

“Then you had better be on your way.”

Taking that as their cue, the demons disappeared. For a little while longer, the nuclear lamp illuminated the sorcerer's smiling face in the electric glow. But then that too died away, inviting the return of the surrounding black.

It was around eleven when Kyoya got home. His aunt and uncle took seriously the motto
early to bed, early to rise
and were already asleep. A couple of home delivery food packs were waiting in the kitchen. Not uncommon in this neighborhood. The night life of the young had grown later and later over the years. The PTA blamed, for one, Tokyo's twenty-four-hour automated bus service.

A food pack could preserve and keep its contents heated for up to three days. After opening and consuming them, Kyoya went upstairs to his room. From a locker recessed into the wall, he took out a wooden sword in a cloth sheath.

It was called Asura, after the Hindu archangel, and was the only remaining memento of his father. When he was a boy, his father had placed the sword in his hands—carved from the branch of an evergreen oak on Mount Grdhrakuta—and trained him in the art of
nenpo
.

He removed the sheath, stood in the middle of the room, and settled into an
en garde
position, the blade of the sword centered and the tip rising to the height of an opponent's eyes. His palms melded to the hilt. A warmth and a power flowed through the connection, the mental energy instilled in Asura by his father, Genichiro. Even to a prodigy like Kyoya, his father's skills as a fencer were truly awesome.

In his twilight years, those extraordinary talents seemed to diminish, such that he lost two out of three matches to Kyoya. But Kyoya was not convinced that he had gotten that much better, or his father that much worse. Rather, wielding the sword with all his heart and might had smithed his spirit into the sword. His father's will as well resided in Asura.

Not surprising, considering the opponent. However reluctant, this untested son would have to fall back on his father's strength.

Kyoya was ready to leave. He couldn't explain to himself how things had gotten to this point. This had nothing to do with the efforts of Master Rai and Section Chief Yamashina to persuade him. In fact, after Master Rai disappeared, Yamashina and Sayaka left the room without saying another word.

To start with, he had plans. His path after graduation was already mapped out. He'd applied for and been awarded an athletic scholarship to the Earth Federation base on Phobos. He had a hard time believing a sorcerer's curses could run after him all the way to Mars.

Then why?

Although he'd posed the question to the Master, Kyoya actually did understand where his father was coming from. The purpose of his training was as the Master explained. The reasons he'd kept mum about it were also becoming clear.

He didn't want me carrying that burden all through my childhood
.

Suppose that he knew that his son was predestined from the start—Kyoya knew perfectly well that his father wasn't the type to keep something like that buttoned up because he figured his son would find out about it sooner or later.

He certainly understood Kyoya's character—spill the beans just once, and no matter how contrary he might be, in the end he would always return to the scene of the battle. His father couldn't bear his son living a life so utterly predetermined from the start.

Then why didn't he slacken in his training until the day he collapsed? He must have felt the fever coming on as he practiced kenpo in the bitter cold of the mountains. A few hours after Kyoya found him, he died with the single word “Shinjuku” on his lips.

Because he believed in me
. Not because it was something that he was
fated
to do, but because it was something he would choose of his own free will.

Though that wasn't what now propelled him on his way. Her face rose up in his thoughts. Her long black hair—that translucent young lady—fighting back the tears. She must be sixteen or so.

Am I doing it for her?

He didn't know the answer. Among all the reasons, it was probably the one closest to the truth. Well, good enough for him. Wracking his brains over it wouldn't do him any good.

Every cell of his body was brimming with energy—his and his father's souls fusing together in Asura, giving birth to psychic energies of unimaginable power. He had unfailingly taken a hundred practice swings morning and night in order to savor that sensation, as if his body was turning into a fusion reactor.

The question was how well he could control it.

Kyoya took another object from the back of the locker. A carved wooden doll a foot tall, of an African medicine man with a bow in his hand. The dark paint had worn away in places, exposing the grain beneath. It was clearly an antique, though it didn't look particularly valuable. A rather odd touch was that the arrow notched in the bow was sticking into the man's chest.

Kyoya set the doll in the middle of the floor and removed the arrow. He placed it in the empty hand and quickly backed away and once again assumed an
en garde
pose.

Several seconds passed.

The doll grinned. Simultaneously, the room transformed. Water erupted violently out of the computer display unit, met by a spray of fire from the wall opposite, resulting in an ear-splitting explosion that shook the air. The entire room shuddered. The rollaway desk and the bed danced through the air, along with the digital notepad and electromagnetic pen and trinkets and gifts from his girlfriends.