Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 5 Omnibus Edition

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “Best to let sleeping dogs lie,” Setsura said, detouring around him to the left, which only prompted another exclamation.

  The log was lying there in the grass. The end on the right butted against the old man’s feet. But it was now fifteen feet long. Checking to make sure he wasn’t being followed, Setsura said to the old man, “May I pass?”

  The old man held out his right hand, like he intended to collect a toll.

  Setsura searched his pocket. “Sorry,” he said. Had Kongodai’s consciousness been present, he would have bitten his lower lip in chagrin.

  Go that way, said the old man’s gesture.

  “This presents a bit of a problem. I really need to go this way.”

  Setsura walked to the right. He would circle around the old man. Another surprise—the log inched along like a big worm, past the man and the tree, blocking Setsura’s path. It looked like it could stretch another hundred or thousand miles as easily as another dozen feet.

  “Well, that’s what four thousand years of Chinese wizardry will get you,” Setsura said to himself. “How about an IOU?”

  The old man smiled and shook his head.

  “Stubborn old goat. Guys like you are way worse than the typical enforcer.” An invisible thread shot into the air. “Now, if you would excuse me.”

  He rose into the air. And just as rapidly the log grew in diameter.

  “Well, shit.”

  As he rose vertically, the gray trunk of the tree swelled to completely block out his view. The branch he’d wrapped his devil wire around was beyond the log. They collided.

  “Oh, good grief.”

  He let go. Landing softly on the ground, he found himself face to face with the wrinkled, kindly old man, his leathery hand outstretched again. The legendary tax collector of times gone by. Setsura could tie him up or knock him out, though the powers of this tree probably operated independently.

  At this point, he was running out of options. He was about to cast out a devil wire and stopped. The old man certainly harbored no doubts about his own actions, and Setsura didn’t want to inflict any pain on that wrinkled, smiling face.

  Setsura turned around and started to say, “Why don’t we talk about—”

  He hadn’t finished the sentence before the old man spun like a top and puffed up like a balloon. And a second after that, popped and blew apart.

  Setsura jumped a half-dozen yards down and away. Fresh, red pieces of meat and bowels scattered at his feet. He leapt for cover behind another pair of cedar trees.

  Only someone exercising a powerful qi could disintegrate a person like that, without a sound or a shot.

  “That you, Yakou?”

  No one answered. The tree resumed its original shape, and then it too silently shattered. It was becoming clear that he had an invisible but frighteningly powerful bodyguard.

  Setsura sprang to the left. A gaping hole appeared right in front of him, without scattering so much as a grain of dust. Apparently, his bodyguard wanted him to get a move on.

  “Much appreciated,” he said, and set off running to his destination.

  A figure reared up on a rocky crag a hundred feet from where the exploded old man had set up his “toll booth.” It was Kikiou. He was wrapped in a long gray robe, but the black steel limbs poking out of his sleeves revealed his true form.

  He had twice come to the rescue of Setsura/Kongodai. But the eyes watching as the black-clad young man disappeared out of sight burned with hatred and loathing, the lips curled with the taste of bitter dregs.

  “Go. Save Demon City from destruction. That place is our destiny, our bloody Shangri-la. I shall protect it, no matter the means.”

  Applause welled up behind him. He whirled about in surprise. Here was the rest of the all-star team.

  “What a performance, Kikiou,” Princess said with a luxuriant smile. “I couldn’t miss it.”

  “The kind of proactive attitude I like to see in our senior citizens,” Setsura observed nonchalantly.

  Only Mephisto looked silently and without expression.

  “How long have you been following me?” he said, his face as white as a sheet of paper. He could not have imagined such a humiliating scene.

  “Right after you left the manor house. Relax. Our missing Yakou turned up as we were headed out. Seems he chanced across a lost old woman who gave him a bum steer.”

  “Well, well, well,” he said at last. “It’s about time the real Setsura and I settled our differences once and for all. Shall we?”

  He was hardly asking permission. The smoldering anger and humiliation had reduced the great warlock’s scientific mind to a raging brush fire. What he wanted from Setsura was a place to let it all out.

  A look of anger grazed Princess’s features as well, and transformed into a smile of unimaginable evil. “Have at it. I’ll watch. Don’t hold back.”

  Apparently when it came to covering for Setsura, she’d had a change of heart.

  “You sure?”

  “Fight,” she said bluntly.

  “Fickle as a cat.”

  Setsura had no objection to taking out an enemy. He stepped away from the group and faced Kikiou. When one fight was over, it was time for a new fight to begin. That was how anybody living in Demon City counted the hours and the days.

  Setsura’s devil wire?

  Kikiou’s qi?

  The treetops swayed.

  The wind blew.

  In the midst of the forest, floating in currents of sunlight, an icy killer vibe bathed the figures of an old man and a young man.

  But then in no uncertain terms Princess stepped in to stop this otherworldly combat.

  “What’s going on?” Mephisto asked.

  “Something’s happened at the manor house. The consciousness of those two leapt out at me.”

  Those two?

  The three there besides Princess each harbored different doubts. And all came up with the same name. Her telepathic connection with Princess was a product of her vampiric nature.

  “What has happened to Takako Kanan-san?” asked Setsura, with a questioning glance at Mephisto. This whack job of a doctor must have been concocting one of his quack treatments, and his look said as much.

  The transfixing face of the doctor in white was as immovable as the darkness.

  “That bastard Yakou. I’m honestly surprised. I was going to have Mephisto restore his wings, but before that, I’ve got this to deal with.”

  “What kind of this are you referring to?” Setsura broke in, for once talking as fast as a normal person might. Carrying on a conversation with her was sheer torture. Ask about Takako, get told about Yakou. Such behavior rose out of his sense of irritation.

  She shut her eyes. “Hoh, the room given to Mephisto? It is burning. The floor, the ceiling. And the room with the stone walls, they’re melting. You mixed up some mighty curious compounds, Mephisto. What are those arms and legs? I recall seeing them somewhere. Oh, aren’t those Kikiou’s? What fine kindling they make. And who is the culprit? There she is! Standing there like Venus on the Half Shell. What magnificent breasts, Setsura. So ripe at that age. How many men would be entranced by those full, pink hips? Wouldn’t you count yourself as one of them, Setsura? But she is a beast. She threw that stone table across the room with one hand. And just missed Yakou. Stuck to the ground without his wings changes the equation. He must be fit to be tied. Shall we sally forth to save them, Setsura?”

  Setsura fixed his gaze on Mephisto. “What did you do?”

  “I treated her.”

  “And the result is a fight with Yakou? I had my doubts before, but you really are a quack.”

  “Rather than argue about it, let the results speak for themselves.”

  “If it quacks like a duck—” Setsura turned toward the manor house.

  “However mad she might be, she will follow my commands,” Princess said with undisguised pleasure, knowing how that would rattle this young man, who otherwise deported himself like an eternal
summer evening.

  Setsura stopped and turned around. “You would do so in a constrained manner?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Bitch to the core. That’s a four-thousand-year-old spinster for you.”

  “Kneel before me and plead, and I will do all I can to appease you.”

  “I’m too beat for this shit.”

  He kicked against the ground and started running. A voice brushed against his back like a quiet flute. “But can you?”

  He stopped abruptly and whirled around. Princess and Mephisto were facing each other. “What did you say?”

  “I only wondered if you could.”

  “My servant will heed my commands.”

  “Your servant apprentice might be the better term.” Mephisto’s face and expression revealed absolutely nothing. “Hence the effectiveness of my treatment. Did you order that outbreak of fury?”

  “No,” Princess softly responded, though a dangerous tone colored her answer.

  “Has the cause of her rage been quenched?”

  “No.”

  “Sir Mephisto,” Kikiou said, as if to interpose himself between them. This great Machiavellian was actually sweating. “This debate aside, I have my puppets inside the manor house. They can certainly control a single mad woman.”

  “And you should certainly try.”

  Setsura couldn’t help noticing now that Mephisto was actually enjoying himself.

  “Then do it. Know this, Mephisto: if Takako obeys, I alone will scorn you for the rest of eternity.”

  Chapter Two

  “I would have expected nothing less,” Mephisto rejoined.

  Kikiou responded with a hopeless look on his face.

  “Suit yourselves,” said Setsura, and sprinted again toward the manor house.

  Only Kikiou spared him a parting glance. “To the manor house alone, eh? Not only have they unbound that evil star, but opened the door and invited him in. Princess, I must return as well.”

  Princess ignored the old man sulking like a recalcitrant child. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the look would have caused any lesser of a person to shrink in fear. She scowled at Mephisto.

  “What did you do to that girl?”

  “I treated her,” he said, as if resuming the same line of inquiry that Setsura had started.

  “And will she follow you?”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “It is a natural phenomenon arising in the course of treatment, not something that anybody could have prevented, nor should anybody try.”

  “Hoh.” The murderous temper faded from Princess’s eyes.

  Observing that, Kikiou said with evident relief, and no longer able to refrain, “I’ll be going.”

  His head still slumped, Kikiou galloped off. Nobody watched him go.

  Princess continued, “If we stand by and do nothing, the manor house will be destroyed. If she runs into Setsura, she will attack him regardless. She has the soul of a devil today.”

  “Wouldn’t you consider that a stroke of good fortune, Princess?” Beneath the blazing sun, Mephisto’s features were cool and serene. “Setsura wishes to save the girl. She will exhaust every effort trying to kill him. If that wouldn’t gladden a tormentor’s heart, what would? If we’ve the time to stand around here and debate the matter, Princess, then let us repair to the manor house with Kikiou and observe the contest.”

  “You do have a point,” said Princess, her lips twisting into a small smile of satisfaction.

  A shadow passed across the sun. It was as if, within this forest, two unimaginably dark wills had found their kindred spirits. Princess raised her hand and touched Mephisto’s cheek. To imagine he would allow such a thing, even were those slender fingers fashioned from the most precious rubies.

  “I realized it just now, Demon Physician, how beautiful you are.”

  Was this how she took a liking to something? Her speech and tone of voice hadn’t changed, but there was an aura in the air and a scent on the breeze, so dense and penetrating that a bystander would have been knocked for a loop, suffused inside and out with all the symptoms of a deep lust and longing.

  If she said stand, he would stand. Kill, and he would kill. And if she so desired, fuck her for a hundred days and nights without ceasing. Such was the nature of this rarest of all harlots.

  Her finger traced a rainbow on that beautiful cheek—that must be thought of as a fond work of Mother Nature herself—until he grasped it.

  “Mephisto.” In her voice were the indistinguishable echoes of desire and disgust. Her red lips opened slightly as they approached his.

  Only the sharp force radiating down her finger stopped her. “Am I meant as a substitute for Setsura, Princess?”

  Mephisto softly let go of her finger.

  “Of course,” she said, just as calmly.

  “Such words come at a price. Becoming one of you gave me access to a great store of knowledge. Knowledge is a two-edged sword.”

  “Nobody is more aware of that than I am,” Princess said. “Don’t imagine that I spent the last four thousand years raiding hospital beds. Schemers and dreamers, wizards and alchemists, geomancers, necromancers—they all challenged me. They all failed. Then came the scientists and sages and mathematicians and theologians. Every one of these wise men bowed down before me, overwhelmed by what I knew. Knowledge polishes the lens of self-confidence with the cloth of pride. I wear it like a fine garment, its reflection in the mirror a thousand times more grand. It makes comprehensible the heavens in their courses, the changing of the seasons, the hearts and souls of men. Perhaps that should concern me, but what might be gained from ten thousand books and centuries of experience dwindles to dust with one look at my breasts. That is how it should be. That is what it means to be human. Mephisto, are you even alive?”

  “Well—”

  “I know—the nature of your predilections, the extent of your beauty, the personification of an accursed perfection that exceeds even Setsura’s and yet that loathes the female sex. It is well, Mephisto, that you should return having partaken of a separate knowledge here. Go, to the manor house. Hoh, the pleasures only increase.”

  Setsura entered the manor house through a window on the second floor. From the forest to a tree in the courtyard, wrapping his devil wire around a banister on the third floor, he became a bird in flight.

  The hallway was wrapped in black smoke. His objective was Mephisto’s laboratory, specifically the adjoining room. Flames poured from the door. He got there in a little over five minutes. Strangely enough, nothing else along the way was scorched or scarred. The ruggedness of Kikiou’s handiwork was something to behold.

  The heat beat against his face. He soon encountered Yakou. “Good job,” Setsura said.

  “She’s in there,” Yakou said, not turning around.

  The air howled within the spouting, crimson flames. The experimental apparatus and mechanisms fused together in odd shapes and wavering silhouettes. Setsura cast out a devil wire and cocked his head to the side.

  “She is sitting in the midst of the fire in the lotus position. She seems to be enjoying herself.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “See for yourself.”

  Setsura gave Yakou a push. Yakou twisted around. “I was tending to my wings when she grew restive. I don’t understand why.”

  “The reasons may be unclear, but the screw-ups are obvious.” He looked at Yakou’s back. “Thinking you could slap a Band-Aid on that was pretty naive to start with. A pair of pigeon wings would be a better fit for a man who can’t handle a single girl.”

  “She isn’t the same as the rest of us.”

  More than the words, the way he said it caught Setsura’s attention. “Meaning what?”

  “Though we will recover, fire will scorch or burn us. Does she bear any scars at all?”

  Yakou seemed to have grasped that Setsura’s devil wires told him as much. However a captive of the enemy he might be, th
e Elder’s grandson was still working on all cylinders.

  “No.”

  “On top of that, her strength is a thousand times my own. And if you ascribe her actions right now to madness, such a mental maze might be unraveled, but the physical aspects remain a mystery.”

  “And if we extinguished the flames?”

  “Why do such a thing, when not a single hair on her head is singed? Right now, the better course is to observe. What is she doing?”

  “You are beginning to resemble a certain doctor.”

  The irritated Setsura and passive Yakou stared at the whirlwind of fire. Two seconds later, Yakou said, “She’s moving.”

  Setsura noticed that as well. Takako stood up and was walking toward them. What had she accomplished sitting in the lotus position?

  A woman’s unblemished arms materialized from the curtain of combusting chemicals, followed by her breasts and face, and thighs and legs. It was undoubtedly Takako Kanan.

  She looked at Setsura and smiled, flashing her unsightly fangs. “We meet again, Aki-san. No, Setsura-san. There are so many things I want to do with you. Such nice things. Once and you’ll never go back.”

  “True enough, Setsura,” said Yakou, jabbing him in the ribs with his elbow.

  Setsura answered with a return jab of his own. Gazing at Takako with his always languid eyes. “Who is your master now? That woman or that quack doctor?”

  “Neither. I belong to me. My will is your desire, Setsura-san.”

  Her breathing was labored, this beautiful naked young woman continually aroused by her own passionate desires.

  Yakou spun around behind Setsura and pinned his arms behind his back.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, though not in a panicked manner. Neither did he attempt to jerk free.

  “You are an obstruction between me and the woman I love,” Yakou said, and Setsura didn’t doubt a word that he said. The vampire looked perfectly serious. “Princess is stuck on you. That makes you my rival.”

  “You definitely spent way too much time in England,” Setsura griped as Yakou dragged him ever closer to Takako. “Whether love or infatuation, being able to blurt out stuff like that without chagrin is evidence enough. Pretty soon you’ll be going on about even more embarrassing things like chivalry and manly pride and camaraderie.”