According to the descriptions in the journal, the pawnshop owner waited a month for the painting to be redeemed. Growing impatient, and unable to resist the temptation, he set about “restoring” the painting.
During the three months he worked on it, his parents and younger daughter disappeared. He believed they were abducted or kidnapped and made no connection at all to the painting, only praised it.
The middle-aged gentleman wearing a silk hat and a three-piece suit featured in what he assumed was a work of eighteenth-century art—the red of the lips, the white of the teeth—possessed a vividness no ordinary painting of the era could match.
Two weeks after he broke the curse of the oil paint and revealed the legs of the English gentleman, his older daughter disappeared, and the pawnshop owner began to pay attention to what was going on about him, and the connection between the portrait and the disappearances.
He wrote in his diary of hearing something other than his family prowling about the house that day or night. Whether male or female—it was wearing leather shoes or boots.
The realization came three days before his final entry. Many times he had followed the sound of the footsteps, only to find himself in front of the painting when they faded away. That night, his wife was taking his youngest child to the bathroom, when there in the middle of the hallway was a tall Englishman. He opened his mouth and swallowed them head first.
With a look of satisfaction on his face, the Englishman crossed the hallway and stood in front of the painting—from which his portrait had vanished—and was promptly sucked back into it.
The pawnshop owner recorded the truth of what he had witnessed in his diary. But what had happened to him after this last entry was unknown.
Aside from the diary, the investigation team found the painting, the bottom half covered with thick paint, a can of paint in the hallway in front of it, and a brush. From the width of the splatter around the brush, they calculated that it had been dropped from a height of five feet, the same height as the mouth of the man in the portrait.
The pawnshop owner’s fate was not difficult to deduce.
The cannibal’s portrait still hung in a dark hallway of that pawnshop, a grave look on his face. According to the daredevils and ghost hunters who dared to visit the place, there was no longer any sound of footsteps wandering the premises.
But they would only pass by the painting with their backs against the wall opposite. And to avoid falling victim to its deranged presence, at any sound of sniffing or snuffling, kept their eyes closed tightly, seeing, hearing and doing nothing.
Similar stories were well-known around the city, so it didn’t take much time for the thugs to put two and two together. It also meant that they had no good way to deal with the thing.
“The dragon and the snake are still there.”
“What if we held it by the places that didn’t have any drawings?”
“Naw. The thing’s covered with them.”
The thugs exchanged thuggish looks. “No way we’re taking this thing back with us, then. Let’s leave this freak show of a haunted house here.”
“Man, what a waste. It’d be worth a fortune otherwise. The fence said so himself. Hey, what if it’s only the surface that’s cursed? There’s probably a ton of valuable shit inside. It’s like the stuff on the surface is some kind of security system.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing too. But how you gonna cut through a system like that? It’s so old school the fence didn’t know jack about it.”
“Let’s take it back with us. It can’t have been sitting here all along. Somebody brought it, so we can take it. Hey, you, make yourself useful.”
Suddenly the focus of their attention, the vagrant stood there stunned.
“You’re as up to speed as the rest of us. Come over here and figure something out, before we wring your scrawny neck.”
He’d already experienced their strong-arm techniques and didn’t want to again. He spent a long time exploring the surface of the box—until he could tell the thugs were getting antsy—and discovered a space on both sides where he could just fit five fingers without touching anything else.
Right next to these spots were a white tiger, fangs bared, and a huge baboon, claws flashing. His face pale, the vagrant picked up the box and turned to the thugs.
None of them saw coming what happened next.
Part Four: Lightning Apocalypse
Chapter One
The “brain” at the heart of the machine could think of things no one else could understand, even the designers who created it. Its neural pathways did not depend on the interactions of proteins and amino acids like those of a human being, but on electrons coursing through the cold circuits of its artificial mind, that gave rise to a human level of self-awareness.
Nevertheless, when it came to the information and the reasons for it sealed inside itself, that consciousness lent it powers of discernment and even a grasp of the “truth.”
Several days before, it had received a set of coordinates from its master control ground station. It knew that the coordinates identified a plot of land twenty-two thousand miles away. It also knew that a hypersonic missile from its launch platform was streaking down at Mach ten, guided by the navigation data it was sending.
When the missile blossomed seventy-two hundred feet above the ground, the targeted city would be instantly heated to a hundred million degrees and reduced to its constituent atoms. Not one of the almost million people living there would be left alive.
The “brain” felt what might be called a pang of conscience. It had never experienced something like this before, and wasn’t sure what it was. With great curiosity, it began to analyze what had sprung into being within its own thoughts—sorrow at the annihilation and destruction of human life at its own hand.
But it still could not grasp the why, and so it continued to fine-tune and transmit the guidance data to the missile, maintaining it in its current trajectory.
The city was beginning to realize that something was going to happen at noon, starting with the dearth of ghosts and gremlins and carnivorous rats and twining spiders that normally hassled the shoppers, sightseers and pedestrians.
The night before, drifters sleeping in the back alleyways of Kabuki-cho had been awakened at midnight by a band of blob beasts slithering over them, headed north. This bold bunch of drunks went promptly back to sleep. They told their stories when they hit the bars first thing in the morning, but nobody believed them because they were still alive—despite pointing out the bones of small animals left behind, mixed in with the mucus.
The owner of G Watches in Okubo overslept an hour. He was well known in those parts for setting all the clocks in his shop six hours fast. But that morning at six, every one of those precision chronometers fell silent.
In a corner of a building in Kagurazaka Nichome, a poet lived a hermit’s existence. Because the act of putting his poems into material form could physically shake the heavens and the earth, he came to be known as the “literal deconstructionist.”
And yet people around the world treasured his words like living pearls. Since coming to this city, his editors had importuned him day and night. That day at dawn, he again picked up his pen and set to work. The stanzas almost seemed to drip from the tip of his pen in molten gold, while his editors turned gray.
They gathered together the masterpiece the brilliant poet had spent the last ten years working on and tore it to shreds. And yet were even now urging him on to the next.
Before falling into a restive sleep of bloody dreams, those who sought shelter at sunrise in the abandoned undergrounds and sewer systems felt packs of carnivorous rats burrowing beneath them. These were creatures that did not distinguish between human and vampire, and would feast upon a victim until not even the bones remained.
They did not bare their own fangs and set to work, but snuggled up next to them like a stranded traveler seeking a warm bed, or a child returning to a mother’s embrace.
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Setsura stopped six feet in front of the big pots.
“No using your threads,” Princess said.
“Fine,” Setsura answered. Already invisible wires were slipping out of his hands. He didn’t know how keen Princess’s eyesight was, but a sub-micron strand of titanium wire should steal into those “medicinal waters” without raising so much as a ripple.
He soon understood the problem with the attempt. The feedback he received told him that each of the three pots contained a head. What other tricks did she have up her sleeve? He sighed to himself.
“I’m beginning to get why Mephisto hates women.”
“What are you hesitating for?” Princess demanded in a crystal-clear voice. “There is no way for you to know what is inside each pot without opening the lid. All you can do is choose. It is a simple matter of probability.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Setsura griped beneath his breath.
It really did come down to a game of odds, he thought, as he pondered the possibilities. A one in a thousand shot. Technically, one in three. Even if he picked the right head last, Princess would no doubt tip the scales once again in her favor. Making him wrack his brains and then plunging him into despair—that had been her goal all along.
The “decision” had been meaningless from the start. In that case, he had to give as good as he got. Right now, not only was he holding a crap hand, but his enemy was dealing the cards.
Princess said, “Just to remind you, the vital organs will remain alive for ten minutes. It’s been five since you stepped into this room.”
“Aw, shut up,” Setsura said with as much flippancy as he could manage.
His hand rested on the leftmost pot. He was acting entirely on gut instinct. He sensed as well that, behind him, Princess was smiling.
“Good choice.”
As if unable to bear the sound of her words, the pot split apart. Inside the fluids spreading out on the floor were squirming lumps—hands and a torso.
Setsura closed his eyes and took a breath.
“One more to go. And two pots left.” Perhaps in her effort to stifle her joy, Princess’s voice sounded small and hard. “Time is running out, Setsura. Two more minutes to revive that body.”
Setsura folded his arms and narrowed his shoulders slightly. He was in distress. Though this distress might seem that of a batch of senbei gone wrong, in a different setting, those who knew him would feel the alarm as well. Comely features contorted by deep distress have a certain appeal among men and women alike.
A minute later his eyes opened. As if already steeling himself to the outcome, he grasped the lid of the pot in the middle. This time, the war cry of hell welling up in Princess’s breast would be mistaken by no one. The prime minister’s head must be contained in that pot.
It’s all over, Setsura. Demon City will be reduced to ashes. Ah, the hopelessness. You will hold it forever in your heart as my beautiful slave in the bloody, restless sleep of death and life.
In the midst of her elation, a pure white petal crossed her crimson vision. In the time it took her to blink, the dimly-lit world was lit up by a dazzling blizzard of peach petals.
“What—?”
Princess gazed about amazed. In the corner of her eye, as if in a dream of cherry blossoms, danced the black-robed figure. Hidden behind the curtain of flowers, its face then appeared—
“The Dancing Flower Fiend—and still alive.”
Her voice vanished amidst the blossoms. The masked demon that should have been mortally wounded in its confrontation with Setsura. Before Princess could question the reason for its appearance, her brain was intoxicated by the dancing white. She hadn’t mentioned that the Dancing Fiend could deceive even herself.
“Which one is it, Princess?” asked a voice she surely recognized.
It was as if every peach blossom in the world had been caught up in the swirling typhoon. Princess’s lips moved.
“The one on the right, Setsura,” a voice called out.
No sooner had she realized its impossible origins but the confusion cleared from Princess’s mind. “Damned Dancing Fiend.”
The enemy was hiding behind the peach petals, more like a magical cloud. She sprang forward and melded into the whirling water wheel of blossoms. A resounding crack rang out.
The flowers tumbled to the floor, as beautifully as they twirled and swirled.
Now there were two black shadows treading upon the scattered peach blossoms. One retreated to the wall of the room. One stood next to the big pots, with Prime Minister Kongodai’s head under his arm, the medicinal water dripping from his chin and hair.
“Dancing Fiend, you stole Setsura’s face,” Princess said, and the masked monster laughed.
The next moment, a line ran vertically down the cinnabar skin. The fiendish flesh parted neatly in two and fell to the ground.
“Ah,” said Setsura. It was none other than his face that appeared from beneath the parted mask. His languid features slightly colored with surprise and understanding. He nodded. “I see. So it was I who hindered your attack.”
At the same time, Princess figured it out herself, the reason Setsura had resisted the dancing ogre’s attack—that could dazzle even her eyes—at the mask maker’s house. Whoever donned the mask took on the soul of the person it represented. The mask maker became the Dancing Fiend, and was frustrated by Setsura’s soul also sealed within him.
That second Setsura would have exerted control over the Dancing Fiend as well. Following the other two, it became aware of the dangers he faced. Exerting his control over Princess with the dance of the peach blossoms, he was able to extract from her the location of the prime minister’s head.
“I won,” the other Setsura said sadly. A dark red thread dripped from the sleeves of his black cape—he’d picked it up at some point—and gathered in a small stain on the floor. “Now you must do as promised in the name of the princess who destroyed three dynasties of ancient China.”
“Fine,” Princess said, with a bighearted bow to the Setsura holding the head.
Setsura gazed blankly at the two. His other self said what he was going to say before he could say it.
“I did not imagine the two of you would show up here, but a promise is a promise, and my word is my word. Prime Minister, you’ll soon be back to your old self. Leave here and do as Setsura Aki wishes. Return the head to the jar, along with the torso and limbs.”
She’d barely finished speaking when the invisible threads drew the torso and arms back into the jar on the right. After placing the head there, Setsura took a step back.
The two of him exchanged glances. Princess folded her hands together in front of her chest. Tenting her fingers, she chanted what sounded like a sutra in a low voice. Five seconds later, the jar shook and broke apart. Sitting naked amidst the shards and medicinal waters was Prime Minister Kongodai.
“There’s an hour and a half left,” Princess said softly. “Exit the village through the front gate and go straight. There you will find Shinjuku. Take care, and watch your step.”
“How strange,” Setsura said as he approached the prime minister.
“What is?”
“Take care and watch your step? Would you trust a hungry wolf who put on an apron and picked up a knife and fork and promised to do nothing?”
“Hardly.”
“Me neither. What are you planning?”
“Nothing. I said you’d better hurry up and get going.”
Setsura shifted his attention from Princess to the other Setsura. Something glittered inside their identical eyes.
“Can you talk?”
The prime minister looked blankly at Setsura. Then, seeming to comprehend the question, he moved his lips. His Adam’s apple rose and fell. Nothing came out. Kongodai pointed at his mouth with both hands and again tried to say something.
“Excuse me.” Setsura bent over and politely pushed away his hands and tugged on his chin. The prime minister opened his mouth. His tongue was gone. “No
scar or torn tissue. How did you manage that? Is this Kikiou’s handiwork, or Mephisto’s?”
“Please. I could handle that much on my own,” Princess said with a thin smile. “As far as his tongue goes, an unfortunate accident along the way. You’ll have to take him as is. Or do you want to hunt for it? Time’s a wasting.”
“Even without his tongue—” Setsura started to say. He said to the man, his mumbling mouth flapping like a fish, “Prime Minister, can you write?”
The empty eyes looked up at Setsura. He raised his right hand, his forefinger set to write a character in the air.
“The letter A,” Setsura said.
Kongodai understood the question. His finger made a diagonal line right to left, and then another at right angles to it, left to right.
“Yeah, I figured,” Setsura said, giving Princess a long sideways glance. “You’ve robbed him of the ability to communicate. But there still are ways.”
“You really intend to sit him down in front of his retainers and announce you wish to retrieve the nuclear abort codes? He can still nod his head. But who is going to believe anything the half-demented man says? The first thing they’d do is ship him off to the hospital and you to a jail.” The smile glistened on her luscious lips.
“Coward,” Setsura said. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, but couldn’t help himself.
“Let’s keep this civil,” Princess sneered, in all her refined grace. “I have returned the prime minister as promised. I promised nothing about him being able to speak and write.”
“A woman who destroyed a nation or three turns out to be a hair-splitting grifter,” said Setsura, honestly surprised. He really hadn’t intended to bitch about it but Princess was arguing like a child. “Give him back his tongue.”
“Gee. Where did it go? I just don’t know. One more hour. In that time, you’ve got to get him out of here and where he needs to go. No loitering about, now.”
Setsura looked at the prime minister, at his other self, and at Princess. “Well, remember then.” Very much like him, there was no threat in his tone of voice.
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 5 Omnibus Edition Page 8
