Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 5 Omnibus Edition

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  They were comrades in arms. Blood brothers. You are and will always be one of us.

  He turned right onto Yasukuni Avenue. The night dwellers flocked there as if to watch a parade going by.

  Returning the way he’d escaped three days before, Setsura thought about where Princess might be secluding herself, but couldn’t come up with any new ideas.

  The other Takako had vanished from the Nuvenberg house as well. Kikiou had probably liberated her when he fled with Ryuuki. That she hadn’t gone on a killing rampage since was strange and a bit unsettling.

  Passing beneath the Shinjuku overpass, he heard someone singing a sad melody. By the time he entered the ruins of the bus terminal at the west entrance of Shinjuku Station, it stopped. A warbling, reed-like voice rose up in its place, but that too soon vanished. Perhaps the sound of someone weeping.

  He finally arrived at the boat. The ground moved beneath his feet. Without looking, he knew it was flowing water. The lighting poured out of the vessel here and there as if preparing to leave port.

  “Where are you going?” a voice behind him called out.

  He turned around. There was a man dressed in a tuxedo and a bow tie. Setsura could only imagine he worked at a hotel somewhere. Around him were many others, their red eyes glowing in the dark.

  “I’m going up,” Setsura said with a jerk of his chin.

  The man seized his shoulders, as if gripped by fear. “You are going to see the sire?”

  Setsura set off without answering.

  “She is a very frightening person. You won’t return. Neither you nor us.”

  The voice chased after him. Setsura stopped in front of the lobby doors. Glancing up, the rising stone facade was absorbed into the night sky. He didn’t crouch or jump, but shot up and landed on top of the lobby and walked over to the vertical facade of the hotel.

  A strange thing happened as soon as his toes touched the stone. Without falling over, the black clad figure stepped onto the side of the building. Standing perpendicular to it, he strode upwards as if walking along a road. The scene was enough to suggest that, struck by his commanding presence, gravity itself had become confused about which direction it should flow.

  Arriving six hundred feet above the ground, Setsura vaulted over the railing and landed on the roof.

  The surface was riven with cracks. The night wind wafted through the rubble. In the center of this desolate scene lay a naked woman on the ground.

  Setsura ran over to her and called out her name. She didn’t move. Her skin was unusually cold, though she continued to draw in thin breaths. She had not completely become a vampire.

  He stood up and looked around him. “So here I am. Now what?”

  The night wind sang out in answer, a single pluck of a string that brought Setsura to one knee.

  “Like the legend of Rip Van Winkle—or in your case, Urashima Taro—shall I put you to sleep before the second act begins?”

  The question came from the top of the stairwell leading up to the roof.

  The Demon Princess stood there, Silent Night in her arms, her long black hair and gown fluttering in the breeze. The gown was slit all the way to the hips. Her thighs shone like polished porcelain in the moonlight.

  “For three days you have anguished over her fate. It’s written all over your face.” She smiled a bewitching smile. Her glowing face was more like the moon high overhead.

  “Yeah, and I’m sure that made your day.” Setsura said with a jerk of his head, “So take a hike. That ship is getting ready to set sail. Captain down to the deckhands, Kikiou’s gotta be one busy boy. Who are the passengers?”

  “There will be at least two going aboard, me and my new servant.”

  “Screw that.”

  “And how will you? I had forgotten about the you that is not you before, but not this time. I will now deliver your last kiss. Can you resist the music of Silent Night?”

  She plucked the strings again. The notes rang out like pearls of sound. Setsura fell to both knees.

  “Return Kanan-san.”

  “I can’t do that. I did once. I won’t twice. I will make her my maidservant before your eyes. And after, I will take hold of her true heart. My hand is as good as a stake of fresh wood. Hoh, you came here without any recourses, all for the sake of a woman, and to no avail.”

  She strummed the koto. The strings rang out. Setsura closed his eyes. Only for a moment, but when he looked again, Takako was in Princess’s arms. A mere ten feet separated them.

  The crimson lips sucked at her neck.

  “Plead, Setsura. Beg. Become my servant for her sake. And when you do, you will learn to heel like a good puppy. Bend your knees and beg. Lick the soles of my feet.”

  “Princess,” said Setsura, lifting his head.

  “What?” Her voice broke into a smile of victory.

  “What happened to Ryuuki?”

  Her immediate answer was a look of surprise. Uncertainty flickered in her eyes. In that instant, Silent Night played out an altogether different tune. The strings broke one by one. And then as if pulled by invisible wires, Takako’s body flew out of Princess’s grasp and into Setsura’s arms.

  A second later, Setsura had bounded to the edge of the roof. One more jump and flying through the air, he should be able to catch hold of one of the wires he’d left behind while climbing up here and safely make his escape.

  Supporting the wires was the Shinjuku Station building, Yodobashi Camera at the west entrance, Nomura Securities Building, the Sumitomo Building, Shinjuku Police Headquarters, Kogakuin University, and a good hundred more. He wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

  Setsura jumped.

  To think she could stop that body in midair through the sheer force of will. As soon as Princess’s shining eyes glittered red and her gaze pierced his back, Setsura’s will became her own.

  “Cast her aside and come back to me.”

  To think that Setsura would comply. She gestured to him. He left Takako there and staggered towards her. Without another word, she placed her hand on his shoulders and tore open his black collar.

  The pair of teeth marks pulsated there like a poisonous hickey. The fourth and final kiss would be planted there.

  Setsura abruptly shifted the position of his head. Princess did not pull back her head reflexively, but burning with anger, pressed forward—as Setsura attached his lips to hers. Princess opened her mouth and beckoned in his tongue. In it came—but not what she had expected—a cool, refreshing liquid.

  She swallowed. She didn’t spit it out. After all, she had confidently informed him that no poison should be able to harm her. Should be able to—then what was this substance scorching her immortal body from the inside out?

  Unleashing a wild cry, she tried to retreat. Two red lines crisscrossed her body, from the crown of her head down to her crotch, from the right side of her waist to the left.

  A second later, the most beautiful woman in the world was transformed into four chunks of fresh meat that tumbled onto the concrete.

  With a sigh, Setsura slumped to his knees. He reached up and felt the side of his neck. The accursed scars had faded to half their color and form.

  “So half isn’t enough?” Setsura murmured. “I guess I was bitten one time too many.” He tossed the bottle in his hand to the ground.

  Mephisto had given Setsura the bottle back when he was a vampire. The contents contained a drug that prevented vampiric transformation, something Princess would not have imagined coming into play.

  Setsura had never gone anywhere without it, and had drained it down while leaping from the building with Takako, swallowing half and saving the other half for Princess. He’d calculated that playing the bad boy would cause her to lose her temper, and she’d come after him before finishing off Takako.

  On a night like this, in a contest like that, fair was foul, and foul fair.

  By having his blood taken by Ryuuki, Mephisto had seen a path to perfecting a treatment appropriate to that
level of vampire. He’d given it to Setsura instead of using it on himself, perhaps because of the strange world filled with mysterious wonders he saw then through the eyes of a vampire.

  Though when it came to this doctor, it was always hard to tell the cart from the horse, whether the desire to become a vampire was principally another way to amass knowledge far beyond human understanding, or the only way to save the soul of Setsura Aki.

  In any case, the drug saved Setsura in his moment of extremis, and seared the heart of the Demon Princess. That an anti-vampire compound would prove such a potent poison to this particular vampire was clear from the evidence. Drawn and literally quartered, the body of the Demon Princess showed no signs of reincarnating itself.

  “I have to wonder if this will do the job. Maybe if I ground her up and burned her to ashes?” Setsura glanced down at Takako in his arms. “More importantly, taking care of her takes priority. Mephisto or the cops should arrive any minute. I can’t leave Princess here by herself.”

  Setsura took a credit card-sized cell phone from the breast pocket of his black shirt.

  “Oh, what a curious device!”

  Takako gleefully clapped her hands. The Takako that came wrapped in blue-white light, the alter-ego that escaped from the Nuvenberg house.

  Takako reacted first. Snatching the other Takako from Setsura, she planted her hand against his sternum and pushed. Not hard, but he was thrown a dozen feet backwards.

  He managed to roll with the impact but still landed hard on his back, eliciting a grunt of pain.

  “My kindred spirit. It is only logical that I should take possession of her,” Takako declared in sinister tones, holding the other Takako to her body. This was as well a scene of breathtaking beauty.

  “Do you remember, Setsura-san? What I said when you grabbed me last? That I would tear you apart someday? Since I ran away from that house, I have been keeping my eye on your place and Mephisto Hospital. I kept quiet and waited for my chance to strike you down.”

  These words from the mouth of the woman with exactly the same face as Takako, that radiant smile no different from that of any college co-ed.

  “And now that time has come. Your right hand first. Then your left. And then I’ll divide you in two like Princess-sama there.”

  The corpse of the Demon Princess lay on the ground to Setsura’s right. He furrowed his brow. In two?

  The blue light filled his field of view. The color quickly lost its intensity. The blackness flowed back around them. Blue Takako reeled backwards.

  “Kikiou, eh?” came a voice above him.

  More than the kaleidoscopic human figure coming to her feet, Setsura’s attention was drawn to the two Takakos, and ten feet away, a white-haired old man.

  “Wow, good timing. You showed up at just the right time,” said the amazed Setsura.

  There was nothing inherently “amazing” about this situation. This young man was somehow missing the gene for strained nerves.

  “Those two are the products of Mephisto’s experimentation,” said the great warlock and scholar. Using a normal arm—he must have reattached a pair back in the ship—he jabbed a gnarled cane at Takako. “This must have been the only way of stopping her in the process of becoming one of Princess’s tribe. At least her other half remains intact. I came back here to see to it that you do not interfere again, and to that end I will make you whole.”

  “No!” shouted the blue Takako. “No! No! I don’t want to go back! Please, old man. If you help me, I’ll do whatever you want.”

  More than the desperate look in her sidelong glance, what caught Kikiou’s attention were those words.

  “You’ll do anything?”

  “Sure. Fuck me silly, if you want.”

  “Kill Setsura Aki.”

  “I intended to all along. You’re the one who got in the way, old man.”

  “I had considered Princess there, but for now Setsura Aki will do.”

  “Fine with me. Hey, can I do it any way, using any method I want?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Oh, boy! I really like you, old man.”

  Takako flashed her blue teeth and turned to Setsura.

  A howl rent the night air first. “Kikiou, kill her!”

  “Princess?” the old man cried out. “But—but—”

  “Kill her!”

  The menace rang out from Princess’s clear voice. Faster than Takako could make sense of the developing situation, Kikiou’s cane sank in between her full breasts. Blue Takako faded without a sound, and then disappeared, a wry smile on her lips.

  “What of the girl?” Princess asked in primly satisfied tones.

  “For all practical purposes, she will be the same as she always was. One of an infinite number of personas has disappeared. That is all. There should be no lasting effect on her body or soul.”

  “Well then, good for her. Setsura, shall we pick up where we left off? To start with, we’ll make that girl your servant. You will drink her blood.”

  “My my, the bitch is back, and thinking awfully high and mighty of herself.”

  “Still with the name calling. Too bad you’ve used up your magic potion. The ship leaves soon. You will live forever in its hold dreaming wonderful dreams with me. Dreams of pleasure and ecstasy. Hoh. My victory is complete.”

  Princess glided forward and fixed him in her gaze.

  “Maybe next time,” Setsura said. “This dream looks like a freaking nightmare to me. Wouldn’t catch a wink sleeping next to a face like that.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Princess raised a hand to her cheek. She froze like a stone statue, as if Medusa had suddenly appeared before her. That heaven-blessed beauty had hideously melted away from half of her face.

  Setsura couldn’t help imagining that white doctor smothering a private smile at that moment. Of course, he didn’t know that Mephisto had treated her after confessing his love for him, or that he had made sure that in the moment Princess’s victory seemed all but complete, the cure would crumble before her eyes.

  “What—What is this? You tricked me, Mephisto!”

  This cry of despair made the night catch its breath. Setsura couldn’t help furrowing his brow in pain. Kikiou stood there like a ramrod.

  But Princess’s frenzy soon ended. As if admonished by the moonlight, she stopped in her tracks and whirled around to face Setsura.

  “How ugly is this? Do you think me ugly, Setsura?”

  At that moment, he didn’t have much of an opinion on the matter.

  “Answer me! Please answer me!”

  Something close to anguish filled her voice. Certainly no one had heard anything like it from her in the past four thousand years.

  “I can’t honestly say I’m eager to look at you again,” Setsura said calmly.

  The Demon Princess answered with equal alacrity and serenity. “Of course. Makes sense. Yet I am sure I can make others my own, this face notwithstanding. You’re different, Setsura.”

  “Really?” This young man aspired to remain calm, cool and collected, twenty-four seven, a dormant butterfly tucked inside its chrysalis until called into action.

  “I met you in a room in Mephisto Hospital, and—” Princess stopped mid-sentence. “No, fine. But I cannot stand this face. I cannot forgive this face. I cannot make you mine with this face!”

  “What are you saying, Princess!” Kikiou cried out in a strangled rage perfectly appropriate to the situation. “Drink his blood! Make him your servant! The two of you and I will hold this city, and then the whole world, in the palms of our hands. If you cannot, then kill him! Kill Setsura Aki!”

  “Is it all right if I kill you, Setsura?”

  “Whatever spins your pinwheel,” he said with a shrug.

  “You really don’t give a damn, do you? Mark my words, the time will come when I will eat you.”

  The great vampiress spun around.

  “Princess!”

  “We are going. Kikiou, make the ship
ready to depart.”

  “We can’t. This is our only true home. Only Demon City Shinjuku can make our dreams come true. If we leave here, we must inevitably be eternal wanderers. That cannot be. That simply cannot be.”

  At that moment, a commotion swept up the street below, cresting over the railing like a tide and spilling across the roof. From the chorus of voices, one stood out in particular.

  “Destroy her.” The waves of sound crashed again. “Destroy. Destroy. Destroy.”

  Princess perched nimbly atop the railing and stared down at the ground. The squirming mass of humans circled the hotel, looking up at her. Their eyes all glowed red.

  “She is there.”

  The words spread like a current. Hands reached toward the sky, the fingers themselves seeming to speak.

  “Destroy the sire.”

  “Destroy her.”

  “Destroy her.”

  “So my servants have finally been roused to action,” Princess observed calmly. “And they cry out to kill me. The Hsia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties—it was the same there too. It started with the high and mighty, but in the end my servants and slaves were the ones calling for my death. This is the end. Kikiou, supposing I wished to carry out your vision, it becomes impossible with no one here to carry out my commands.”

  “Destroy her.”

  “Destroy the sire.”

  The cries billowed up like an evil miasma, stained by the colors of an infinite loathing. She had created her minions from the citizens of this city and then cruelly dispatched them with the same whimsy. This was their accursed coup d’état against her.

  A heartbroken Kikiou slumped to his knees. This old man, the first and last hope for Shinjuku’s triumphal vampiric transformation, was seeing his dreams dashed before his eyes.

  “Let’s go,” said Princess.

  Kikiou pressed his cane against Takako’s throat.

  “Are you disobeying me, Kikiou?”

  “Disobey? I am!” the old man shouted, gritting his teeth. The defiance called out from his very blood. “This once I will turn my back on you. That dark star that turned my plans to dust—I shall not depart this world leaving him behind unscathed! I will never rest until he tastes the dregs of our despair, even if it be one ten-thousandth of our pain and anguish. And this girl’s life is the first place to start.”