“He is as you say.”
“Then hand him over to me.”
“I will do nothing of the sort. That is a topic you must take up with him.”
The white cape whirled as he turned his back to them and returned to the operating table where Takako Kanan lay. The sense that this was not the real Setsura was strong within him.
“Shall we do it here?” said Kikiou, still unaware that he was addressing Prime Minister Kongodai.
“Suit yourself,” said the prime minister, still unable to convincingly say that he wasn’t Setsura. “But how did you end up in such a sad state?”
Faced with eyes filled with honest sympathy, the veins stood up on Kikiou’s head. The only part of him right now that had any veins. The sight of him simultaneously sent a chill down the spine and tempted the observer to break out laughing. If the space allowed, adding a few more legs to the tube beneath the head would be even funnier—a caricature of robots from centuries ago.
After the body that Mephisto had previously fashioned for Kikiou had been destroyed on the bus, he’d had to make do with a temporary body he made himself. Which was bad enough, but facing off against the man who’d robbed him of his original inflamed his rage all the more.
“This is the Doctor’s sanctuary. Setsura, let us step outside.”
“Sure.”
Having become Setsura down to his thoughts and memories, Kongodai was no less confident. The assurance that he was the prime minister, kindled inside him with a single word from Mephisto, was now blown to the wind. Any uncertainty in his lucid face vanished. He accepted the challenge.
Supposing he was Setsura—if he was Setsura—he would certainly be aware of the gravity of the situation. In less than an hour, Shinjuku would be consumed in flames. A person closely connected with the dangerous state faced by Demon City would be having a stroke instead.
“Where are we going?” Setsura asked.
“Just shut up and follow me.”
Clanking and humming and buzzing, Kikiou exited into the hallway. Mephisto saw them off with a glance, and without another word, bent over Takako.
Chapter Three
Kikiou’s “body” raised a tremendous clatter as he guided Setsura along to a room filled with stones.
Not ordinary flagstones. Though man-made, these majestic “mountains” each rose to over six feet tall. The peaks of one were wrapped in mist. Down the slopes of another coursed long and narrow rapids, kicking up a fine spray, as if the great undiscovered waterfalls of the world had been miniaturized and collected here.
The columns and picture windows appeared now and then, but it truly created the feeling of being amidst the soaring mountains and deep valleys of another world.
Setsura couldn’t help smiling at the refreshing cool touch on his skin. “Impressive,” he murmured.
“So you appreciate the view, eh? Let’s get down to business.”
With a springing sound, Kikiou leapt onto a rock fifteen to twenty feet away. His metallic legs had five toes on the ends of their feet that would not seem to provide them a firm purchase on the smooth, damp surface. But they stuck fast as glue, a tribute to the wizard’s inventive mind.
“Impressive,” Setsura said again in open admiration.
If Mephisto were there, he would have been impressed for entirely different reasons. His tone of voice, the way his articulated his lips, was pure Setsura. No one could have believed he was the sitting prime minister in disguise.
“You get up there too,” Kikiou said, pointing at a rock next to Setsura.
“Naw.”
“What?”
“Never a good idea to start a fight where your opponent has the home field advantage. I’ll stay here.”
Kikiou momentarily showed a dumbfounded expression. Then his lips twisted into a smile. “Either way’s fine with me. Remain where you are. I will go up.”
“Go ahead.”
The air hummed. His next word on the subject was the deadly lash of his devil wire. This was the beautiful genie’s curt declaration of war.
Kikiou’s head disappeared—sucked down into the tube of his “chest.” The devil wire sliced through empty air. The strange torso and legs sprang blades.
Reeling the devil wire back without cutting anything, Setsura appeared slightly perplexed.
“Surprised?” came Kikiou’s very particular voice from inside the tube. “My torso and legs are made from ore mined on Mount Penglai and refined for a hundred years. Not even Xiang Yu’s mighty sword could scratch its surface. Neither will your devil wires.”
“That’s for me to find out, I guess,” Setsura said. Small sparks lit up on Kikiou’s body and legs. Direct hits by the devil wires, so fierce that a blue fire enveloped him.
“Idiot.”
The ground beneath Setsura’s feet crumbled. In a flash, the mist shrouding the peaks of the rocks was far below him, covering not only the foot of the “mountain” but engulfing the floor like a sea of clouds.
He didn’t have time to jump back. He fell. There was no floor beneath him, only the white clouds. The devil wires sprang from his fingertips and lashed around something. He rebounded from the impact and then fell back again and stopped.
“Beware a false sense of security.”
Now was hardly the time to intone stock catchphrases.
A stiff wind blew the mist from around Setsura. “Whoa,” he said, despite himself. He was surrounded by several thousand feet of empty air, though the scene before him suggested something more akin to tens of thousands.
A craggy mountain wall soared upwards six feet to his left. His devil wires wrapped around a pine tree twenty yards above him. The trunk of the tree jutted outwards, keeping Setsura away from the wall. With every gust of wind he swayed back and forth.
He looked down. Beyond the cottony clouds were smaller peaks. Further below were winding blue lines. Rivers. He could let go and enjoy a good five minutes of uninterrupted free fall. It must be one of Kikiou’s illusions.
Loud laughter thundered through the air. The pine tree swayed. Small stones grazed Setsura’s nose and fell out of sight. A huge Kikiou rose from beneath the clouds.
“Game over,” he roared. His voice shook Setsura like a bagworm moth in a windstorm. “Cut that wire—pull out that tree—and you will fall forty thousand feet to your death. Need I say more?”
“Um—” said Setsura, hanging there by one hand.
“What?”
“Is this reality?”
“Not at all,” Kikiou quickly answered. “A complete illusion. You are only a few inches off the floor. As far as your body and soul are concerned, though, you are truly at an altitude of seven and a half miles. Let go and see for yourself whether a few inches is the same as a few thousand feet.”
“As if.”
Kikiou’s smile deepened. A giant arm reached out, larger than the heavens or the earth. A red cross welled up on the tip of its index finger, staining the world red. The rush of blood spilled down like those mountain waterfalls, the roar shaking the firmament, and vanished far below them. From that crimson world rebounded a human-shaped red dot.
Setsura flung a devil wire around another tree higher up the wall of the cliff. From there he switched directions, evading Kikiou’s eyes. His objective all along.
“Bastard!”
The bloody finger scraped against the cliff wall, opening up a horizontal fissure. The rock face crumbled like pie crust, tearing the tree out by the roots and sending it cartwheeling through space.
Tracing a graceful arc, Setsura’s trajectory abruptly spun out of control. “Whoa,” he shouted. From a height of tens of thousands of feet, he fell like an ominous black bird to the ground inches below.
A moment later, the air whirled about. Rolling to the horizontal like a gymnast, he was caught in a pair of black arms.
He looked into his own face, a single drop of blood on the tip of his own nose. “There you go,” Setsura Aki said, as if meeting a long-lost frie
nd.
“But of course, the mask of the Dancing Fiend—that a mere human was able to cross swords with Kikiou to such an extent,” said Princess, sincerely impressed.
“Princess—that is—?” cried out Kikiou. He was perched on the rock—on top of the miniature mountain—his head now exposed. “I was about to defeat Setsura—him. Why did you not clear such obstructions out of my path?”
Kikiou was almost at a loss for words. He knew she was a whimsical woman, but to exercise that whimsy at a time like this?
“Ah, he pulled a fast one on me, and did it with the leader of this country and the Dancing Fiend to boot. I am so intrigued. So I decided to grant his wish.”
“His wish? What wish?”
The great warlock looked back and forth between the two Setsuras, trying to grasp what Princess was getting at.
“Besides, Kikiou,” she said with a smile. “Your overwrought attempts to vanquish this Setsura failed. Because, in any case, he holds the fate of Shinjuku in his hands.”
“What are you talking about?”
“According to the reckoning of the outside world, a nuclear missile will destroy Shinjuku today at noon.”
“What?”
Even Setsura, the real Setsura, was a bit surprised by this particular revelation—that Princess had not told Kikiou of the threat faced by Demon City.
“W-When were you informed of this?”
“Oh, a long time ago.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were so attached to the place I thought reducing it to ashes might do you a little good.”
“W-W-What do you mean—?”
“You’re so startled. After all the time we have spent together.” Princess laughed silently. “What about Mephisto?”
“An attack from the sky was expected,” the man in white said from the back of the corridor.
“Your divining powers must have been on hold.”
“Definitely, but—”
“Enough. The pretender he’s holding will save your beloved city. Setsura, Mephisto has apparently finished his treatment. I don’t imagine there’s a second to lose.”
“Now and then you do say the right thing.” Setsura put down the Setsura he was holding. “Do you understand, Prime Minister?”
“Yes.” Kongodai/Setsura nodded.
“As soon as you arrive, have Mayor Kajiwara remove the mask. And then follow his instructions.”
“What if I remove it here?”
Setsura cast a sideways glance at Princess. “Best you keep on your toes until you leave this world.”
“I understand,” said Kongodai/Setsura with another nod, and set off in the direction they’d come in.
“When you leave the manor house, take the road west. That is the fastest way.”
“Understood.”
“That is a lie!” Kikiou shouted. “Princess, this is no time for such capriciousness. The exit is to the east!”
“Of course,” said the other Setsura. He glanced at Kongodai/Setsura. “Nice to know that somebody has our backs in this world. You’d better go east.” As his double set off at a run, Setsura glanced at his watch. “He should make it.”
“One way or another,” agreed Mephisto. He was, after all, a resident of Shinjuku. “What comes next, Setsura?”
“I say it’s time to bring out the wrecking ball.” He glanced from Princess to Kikiou to Mephisto and said with feigned ignorance, “Seems we’re one short. Hey, Yakou!”
Princess called out, “Yakou, you should have arrived already.”
“I don’t suppose he stopped by the blood bank on his way in.” Setsura suggested meaningfully, “Something must have happened.” But nobody agreed with him. “Boy, you’re a cold-hearted bunch.”
“I shall go find him,” Kikiou said.
Princess was taken aback by the offer. “Hoh, now you care about what happens to Yakou? Fine. Off you go.”
“Princess, you must take care not to let Setsura out of your sight.”
“Like I don’t know that already.”
Kikiou answered her radiant smile with a dim look of disbelief, and then with a parting I-won’t-forget-this scowl at Setsura, left the room.
“Really think he’s going to?” Setsura asked Mephisto.
“No.”
“Me neither. Better not leave him to his own devices.”
“And where are you off to?” Princess asked curiously.
“Oh, you’ll see,” Setsura answered with innocent eyes.
Setsura/Kongodai raced through the forest. He wasn’t running along the ground. Since leaving the manor house, his feet hadn’t once touched the ground. Rather, what appeared to be a black cloth pendulum traced out a successive series of arcs.
As he approached the opposing crest of an arc, Setsura would cast off an invisible wire to a branch dozens of yards in front of him, swooping like a swallow in flight.
Swinging above the treetops, he could make out the escape path Kikiou had described. Taking a shortcut, he was conquering the distance at an accelerated pace.
A strange kind of discord seized his chest. Two personalities and two minds—he was Setsura Aki and he was Prime Minister Kongodai. Through the magical powers of the Dancing Fiend’s mask, Setsura Aki’s mind and personality controlled his body. At the same time, Setsura was persuading his true self—the prime minister of Japan—of the absolute necessity of stopping the noontime missile attack.
Persuaded him, but without true comprehension. Setsura didn’t fully believe he was the prime minister, but neither could he deny this desperate desire to save Shinjuku.
That might explain the shadow that crossed his face, and why the sunlight playing across his features lost its tints.
Regardless, he would act as if convinced entirely, and had every intention of leaving this world and continuing on to the Shinjuku ward government building.
A cool sensation touched his spine. His heightened senses—in his capacity as “Setsura”—reached out around him. The presence of pursuers, fifteen yards or so behind him. Eight in number.
Glittering objects flowed to his left and right, like scythes, suffused with an intent to kill. He instantly selected a sheaf of devil wires—also transferred to him from the real Setsura—and scattered them behind him. Each about two feet long, a thousand threads were drawn into the currents of wind raised by his pursuers and should make short work of them.
He felt the bursts of pain radiating from his targets. Three vanished.
“Hoh,” Setsura said.
Five more continued after him, without hesitating or slacking in their speed. Such endurance was hard to believe. Soon they were swinging from tree to tree using only their limbs. They were speeding up and steadily closing the gap.
“Whoa,” Setsura said next. He let go of the devil wire, trusting his trajectory to the centrifugal force carrying him forward. A cool sensation grazed his back. A scythe. He dropped thirty feet toward the tall undergrowth, gently coming to a halt just as he plunged in, six inches above the ground, braced by devil wires cast out to trees on either side.
The threads set about performing their next duty, raking through the undergrowth around him. Flashes of silver shot down from the treetops and disappeared in the undergrowth.
Then came the savage roars as two gray objects fell backwards to the ground in mists of blood. Two dull thuds, then silence.
Setsura didn’t move. Disturbing the grass with the devil wires, he’d invited the attack then traced back the trajectories to the location of the enemy, and unleashed a little hell of his own. Two more down and three to go. But that trick wouldn’t work twice.
A small bag floated down from the canopy. The grass wavered. Then soon settled. Setsura heard a faint sound. He couldn’t make out what it was at first. Then he knew.
In a flash the grass collapsed, shrank, and disappeared. In the air, a mass of green specks, darker than the undergrowth, grew exponentially. Straining his eyes, a mist seemed to coil a
round blades of grass, to the stems and roots—a great swarm of tiny insects. Thousands, tens of thousands, millions of them, devouring the plant fiber with their mincing jaws.
According to the Compendium of Demonic Insects, published in the Ming Dynasty, during the Hsia, Shang and Zhou dynasties hermits thought to bear the blood of both man and ape often showed up in the mountain hamlets to trade and barter. One of their most popular—and highest-priced—items were “hungry bugs” that cleared wild land for cultivation by consuming every weed and tree root.
What Setsura heard were the sounds of consumption.
In the shadows of a large limb, three hirsute hands regripped the handles of three scythes.
Setsura felt the dull ache in his toes, the pain inexorably ate into his bones. On the verge of losing control and thrashing about—three gray shadows tumbled from the treetops raising bloody yells, into the middle of the wasteland that had suddenly appeared there.
The quivering bodies contracted almost instantly, the flesh torn asunder, the organs chewed to bits. Then disappeared, not leaving a single drop of blood behind.
Setsura dug the tips of his toes into the ground, crushing the source of the pain, and darted off through the underbrush. Moments before the assault would have proved successful, the enemy had been felled by person or persons unknown. It was hard to believe that he had allies in this world. And if this was another foe, it was a far more powerful one.
The thought occurred to him to retrace his steps and finish the job. He was still Setsura. But that thought soon vanished. If by chance he really was the prime minister, only thirty minutes remained until the destruction of Shinjuku.
Part Six: The Puppet Masters
Chapter One
Setsura’s feet stopped in sync with the next word out of his mouth.
“Eh?”
Ten yards ahead of him, an old man in Chinese dress was sitting at the base of a big cedar tree. A log lay at his feet, eight inches in diameter and six feet long. The old man seemed to be taking a break from a busy schedule. Puffs of smoke rose from a long, thin hookah.
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