A devil wire shot out, and another, one after the other.
The old man laughed, the laugh of the Dancing Flower Fiend, now sporting Setsura’s face. He yanked harder, and the wires slipped through Setsura’s fingers. Blood welled up. Setsura was able to keep it from slipping further thanks to the almost magical techniques his own fingers possessed.
The old man shook his mask. The red hair—that had sprouted in great quantities at some point—danced like a lion’s mane. “I love dancing amidst the flowers. Especially the peach blossoms my kind hates. The villagers go to view the blossoms. I go to eat my fill. Dancing makes a monster hungry.”
The old man howled in an unfamiliar voice and began to dance there on the spot. No, it wasn’t him. His breath ran hot and cold. The feet stamping on the floor moved almost weightlessly, as if prancing on invisible petals floating in the water.
The white flowers bedazzled man and beast alike. Could anyone perceive the true form of the magical creature through the tumbling blossoms?
The petals blew around the humble abode, as if drawn to the old man’s demonic hands waving back and forth. The adobe walls cracked, and transformed into white flowers before crashing to the floor, enveloping the dancer with dazzling light.
Setsura forgot the pain of his own wounds and watched in stunned surprise. If the dead found repose beneath the cherry trees, here was a soul-eating monster amidst the peach blossoms.
Look! Look! said the demon soul.
Look only and ponder nothing and only see.
Look to whence I came. Look to whither I go.
For that is from where you came also.
A curtain of white clouded Setsura’s vision—clouded by the adobe walls—no, by a cascade of petals. Crazed flowers and the crazed creature. All it had to do now was gobble down this beautiful village as he was swallowed up by the veil of white.
A crisp, bell-like sound rang out in the air.
Followed by a painful grunt and groan and an eruption of blood. A splotch of red shot toward a corner of the room as the walls came down and crumbled to dust, along with the disintegrating floor and ceiling.
The foundation alone remained intact among the ruins. Setsura stood there by himself.
“That was some fine cutting,” said the bell-like voice behind him.
Setsura didn’t immediately whirl around. The mesmerizing spell of the dancing demon still had a grip on his soul. And then he turned. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to save you,” Princess said with radiant scorn. “The Dancing Flower Fiend is a rare gem, for it once deceived me also. If it looks into your eyes, you will become its prisoner, down to the devouring of your heart and soul.”
“Bugger off.”
This was without a doubt the same old Setsura. Truth be told, he was not entirely sure how he had evaded the ogre’s attack. As soon as his vision was obscured by the curtain of white, a fierce and repulsive sensation blew like a gale through the abode. His body had reacted to it while in that stupor of thought.
Without understanding why, that ill wind became jumbled. In the momentary delay, the opportunity for a counterattack presented itself.
But how to cut something that could not be cut? He didn’t know that either.
“Is this the blood of the ogre?” Princess glanced down at Setsura’s feet. “I have heard rumors, but I have never seen it before.” She did sound honestly impressed. “You wounded it severely. Was that before it began its dance?”
“Naw.” He added, like a poor student unraveling a difficult problem, “I got help.”
“Who was that?”
“Ah. What I do know for certain is that something interfered at the last moment.”
“No one and nothing in this world would call you its ally. And even if there were, the odds of fending off an attack by the Dancing Flower Fiend are slim to none.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Setsura stopped thinking about it and blankly turned his gaze back to her. “You said you came here to help me. Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking me to where the prime minister is.”
“That’s what I intended to do.”
“In that case, good,” Setsura said with a nonchalant nod. Princess abruptly drew closer. “What?” he said.
She took hold of his right wrist as he backed away. At first glance, there was hardly anything out of the ordinary about the situation. But imagining a relationship between these two truly stretched the mind.
Setsura hadn’t given her cause to touch him, and Princess was never so casual about getting close. The heavens and the earth might pass away before the little bundle of pride that was the vampiress would lay her hands on anyone of humble birth without hesitation.
“A lot of blood,” she said, gazing down at Setsura’s palm. “I can’t help feeling concerned.”
Setsura went to pull his hand away, but couldn’t move it. This wasn’t an opponent who could be defeated with raw strength. Nevertheless, not getting an evil vibe from this unusual demoness, he entrusted his bloody hand to her.
“That wound is from your devil wire. Hoh, what a trifling thing.”
“What’s so funny? Would you like to try it yourself?” he threatened, although his physical strength aside, there was no hint of intimidation in his voice or words. This was the threat of the virtuous.
“I have just the medicine for that,” Princess said.
This time, Setsura exerted all his effort and pulled back his hand, tearing open the wound in the process. Fresh blood poured out, but he didn’t notice. “I can do without your poisons, thank you very much.”
Princess smiled. “What makes you think of poison?”
“How would you propose that I not think so?”
“Even the kind of face that might better stare at clouds from sunrise to sunset knows the nature of his enemy. Don’t worry. I am not a woman of such good character that I would pile on the poison in order to hasten you to an easy death.”
“That is certainly so,” Setsura heartily agreed.
“So put out your hand.”
“I’d rather not.” Setsura covered his right hand with his left and backed away.
“What an unreasonable boy, and at your age. Hardly the same person who once sliced me in two.”
“That was then, this is now.”
“Come here and stop acting so strange.”
Ah, such words from the Demon Princess who shook the dynasties of ancient China and toyed with the fates of millions.
To which he responded, “Stop pulling my leg.”
Had a man ever uttered such words to this one and lived?
“I’m doing nothing of the sort.”
“Well, maybe just a little then.”
Setsura slowly extended his right hand. Her slender fingers gripped his wrist like a vise.
“Hey.”
“Relax. I swear—on my life. And I’ve never done that before either.” Princess lifted his hand to her red lips.
“Yeah, the bitch is back.”
“Shut up.”
Princess turned back to the wound and pursed her lips and spit into the palm. Setsura flinched. The translucent saliva burned the wound like hot acid.
“If I didn’t do that, you would end up in your very least-desired state,” she cheerily said to Setsura, as he constrained himself by biting his lip. She painted the skin with her saliva and then raised her own hand to her mouth.
Setsura watched quizzically as the vampire queen bit into her own flesh. The bright red blood spilled over the white skin. Without hesitation, she smeared the pool of blood over Setsura’s wound.
“Huh?” he gaped a moment later. The moment the blood touched the wound, the pain vanished completely.
“When it comes to staunching a wound, there is nothing to match my blood. You should know that. Because those capable of regeneration are the product of blood. Mix even a portion with yours and you would become my servant. Don’t worry. My saliva will prevent that from happening.”
&nbs
p; “So I’m saved by spit,” Setsura said morosely.
“Thanks to me the pain is gone, right? Come along.”
Princess turned and walked away.
“Just to be clear, that ogre just now isn’t dead.”
“I know that.”
Setsura shrugged and set off after her.
Chapter Two
“What am I doing? I’ve got to get out of this city. You too, and the faster the better. This whole place is going up in smoke. Nostradamus prophesied it all. The wrath of God will rain down from heaven.”
“Here we are.” The uniformed guard escorting the fat, whining woman came to a halt.
“Ah, right.”
Tonbeau Nuvenberg cleared her throat and examined the steel bars. They’d arrived at the special detention lockup on the first basement level of the Shinjuku Police Station. In terms of hard and rugged, it was a world apart from a normal holding cell. Even taking the criminal element of Demon City into consideration, only one in ten ended up here, meaning that nothing else could handle them.
Based on the nature and brutality of the run-of-the-mill crook in this city, maybe one in a hundred million matched the same criteria outside Shinjuku.
That was what it meant to be in a Demon City lockup.
“I was getting all ready to skedaddle myself. There had better be a damned good reason for dragging me down here. I expect an apology! In writing!”
“I’ll see about that,” the officer said with a smile.
“Really?”
“Leave it to me.”
“Much appreciated,” she said, livening up a bit and peering through the bars. “Now, which one of these ne’re-do-wells wanted to see me?”
She was about to take a step forward when a pretty hand tugged on the hem of her skirt. Tonbeau Nuvenberg looked down at the doll girl behind her. “What do you want?”
“This is too dangerous for you to go poking about. Let me handle this.”
“You do have a point there,” Tonbeau readily agreed, stepping back. “You check things out.”
“Yes.”
The girl wrapped in dark green velvet answered her new mistress with an obedient bow and proceeded down the corridor of iron bars.
“I see,” she said three or four minutes later, peering into a cell.
In a single night, the demon had sucked the blood of fourteen vagrants, and then when taken into custody, had requested an audience with Nuvenberg. Now he sat on a cot in a regulation black jail uniform in a solitary cell.
“General Ryuuki,” the doll girl said disbelievingly. “He allowed himself to be arrested?”
“Sure, after wrecking a chameleon,” the officer said, as if it were all in a night’s work. “At that point, sixteen weapons that could destroy sixteen armored vehicles drew a bead on him. There was a lot of curiosity about what would happen if they unloaded on him. Alas, it didn’t happen.”
Faced with an array of weapons, he had strummed his koto. As soon as the most beautiful sound in the world flowed though this corner of the night, his would-be attackers froze in place.
“I promised to give up without a fight. In exchange, I requested a meeting with the witch called Nuvenberg who lives in Takada no Baba. If she wasn’t available, then the next most powerful witch would do.”
The steely voice came from the man at the back of the cell. Before the doll girl could call his name again, he turned toward her and softly said, “I see you came.”
“Yes.”
“Where is your mistress?”
“You mean me?” The fat lady marched up and, hands on hips, threw out her chest.
“So she hasn’t returned?”
“No.”
Tonbeau stamped her feet. “Hey, I’m standing right here!”
“Only her head. Setsura Aki-sama had it with him.”
“That is—good,” Ryuuki said. The doll girl could hear the sincerity in his words.
“Thank you.”
“What is Aki-san up to?”
“He again stole into your kingdom in order to save this city.”
“That is a—”
“He will surely return.”
“A man like him always will.”
“Why did you ask for us?”
“After Miss Nuvenberg’s death, this is Magic Town’s second most powerful witch?”
There was a touch of derision in his eyes, but Tonbeau heartily slapped her immense chest. “The same. Speak your business. I’ll warn you, though. If you’re gonna try and recruit me as a vampire hunter, you’re a little late to the party.”
“I understand. The opposite, actually. There is nothing to hunt. I would like you to destroy me.”
For a moment, it was as if the world had frozen in ice. The two of them looked at each other. The doll girl said to the occupant of the jail cell, “Are you sure about this?”
“I have never been so certain in my life. Ever since the day I was spared by Princess at the border of the wastelands, I have been driven mad by the smell of blood. I would have otherwise chosen death by my own hand long ago.”
“And now you cannot?”
“It is too late for that. This body is resistant even to my own efforts.”
“Such a task would be no less difficult for us. You could reconstitute yourself from a nuclear blast. You no longer can be classified as an ordinary living thing.”
“That is why I requested you. Only you could deliver the coup de grâce to this accursed body.”
The doll girl said, “We have only met once, without evil befalling any other party. Do you remember?”
“Ah, the house of that innocent girl. Shuuran told me about it later. You staked me in the heart.”
“That is correct. Nevertheless, you came back to life. What other methods might we avail ourselves of?”
“I see. So there are none?”
“Only one: vanquish the one who first took your blood.”
“That is impossible.”
“Setsura Aki is attempting to accomplish the same.”
“No matter how powerful the magicians in this city, Princess cannot be destroyed. She will be removed from this Earth when she herself despairs of living any longer in it. And I have never met anyone who desires to live more than she.”
“How enviable,” the doll girl said. “In this city, those people who go on living despite their despair are as numerous as the sands in the sea. If despair alone is enough to wreak the wages of mortality upon her, then she surely must be cursed.”
“The thirst for blood will return to me tonight. It would take only a moment to tear out enough throats to quench the desire. When that happens, I will leave here and shroud this city with the wings of death. Nobody will be able to stop me.”
“We can only do what we can do,” said the doll girl, casting her eyes downward. “We cannot save your heart or your soul. But a defiled body ruled by a craving for blood—there is much we can do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then I leave everything up to you.”
No one noticed Tonbeau agreeing until she spoke. “The compensation is always dear, my dears, especially when a murderer is involved. Ten million, for starters.”
“Fine.”
“That’s only to satisfy the cops. Your portion comes to thirty.”
“I’ve no objection.”
“Paid up front.”
“Everything I had on me was burned. When my body is rotting in the grave, the koto Silent Night is yours to do with as you please. It is a great treasure, with which you can reign over the human heart at will. It should be worth a billion or ten.”
“Agreed. You all heard him,” she said, grabbing the officer forcefully by the arm. “That man’s koto belongs to me now.”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” the officer babbled, as if she were dragging him off to the altar. “But we’ll need him to sign a transfer of property form.”
“No problem. I’ve been forging signatures since I was in d
iapers.”
“She is such a dependable resource,” the doll girl said sarcastically. “But how shall we proceed after this?”
“Release him into our custody.”
The officer shook his head. “Absolutely not. A face-to-face meeting is one thing. Releasing a hardened criminal is quite another.”
Tonbeau nodded. “I figured you’d say that.”
She lowered her head like a bull and drove it into the officer’s solar plexus. He dropped like a rock. Before he hit the floor, Tonbeau got her shoulder under his arm and whispered in his ear, “Listen closely, dearie. You’re not a public servant, you’re my servant now. First, open that door.”
Setsura followed Princess along the mist-swept road. They’d long since passed the point at which the road turned toward the sculptor’s house. He could swear they’d been walking for an hour or more, though he couldn’t be sure about the passing of time.
“How long is this going to take?” he asked.
“Hardly a minute has passed.”
Setsura stumbled a bit. There was no end to the mysteries of China’s past four thousand years. But he might as well keep on walking, he resolved uncharacteristically.
“We’ve arrived.” Princess stopped and glanced back at him. “Are you dissatisfied about something?”
“Not at all,” said Setsura, looking up at the building towering before them.
The scale—big enough to swallow up five or six of the surrounding houses—was evident through the haze. The windows were few in number and small.
“A warehouse?
Princess said, “The raw materials for the mask makers are stored here.”
“The prime minister is inside? Is that any way to treat a nation’s leader?”
“Differently than you would?”
“Ah, probably not.”
“Compared to the tyrants whose hearts I have stolen away, what passes for this country’s king is a field mouse peeking out at the world from the weeds, thankful simply to have a roof over his head.”
Setsura couldn’t really disagree with that assessment. She opened a wooden door. He went in after her.
Thanks to the windows, he could clearly make out the dim interior. The smell of earth tickled his nose. It wasn’t a bad smell—compared to that of blood.
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 5 Omnibus Edition Page 6
