Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The Sorcerer calmly took the blow with his bare head. The shock radiated through Asura and struck Kyoya’s entire body. He flew backwards through the air, barely managed to orient himself and land on his feet.

  A burning sensation screamed through his side.

  But that wasn’t what brought him to his knees. The nen concentrated in the blow was absorbed lock, stock and barrel at the point of contact into the Sorcerer’s soul. With every attack, he would grow weaker and his opponent would become all the stronger.

  “It is too bad. Possession of power and ability exceeding your father’s only guarantees that you will die all the faster. Shall I say a prayer for the dead? Perhaps the argument will sound more compelling after you have died.”

  The Sorcerer swung his sword, advancing as he delivered the creepy monologue. Shedding his pride and decorum, Kyoya rolled across the floor, scooted out of the way and somersaulted backwards while dodging each swing. His stores of mental and physical energy were drained dry. His movements had lost all of their elegance.

  His feet slipped from under him. He fell. The Devil Sword flashed down before his eyes.

  “Victory is mine, boy. Become a ghost and watch the world end. Then I shall send you on to the Demon Realm.”

  The Sorcerer drew back the sword with all his might. The next moment he would surely thrust it through Kyoya’s heart. Death loomed over him. Kyoya bit his lip in helpless frustration.

  The ground trembled violently.

  A fierce wind roared out of the circle of candles. Both the Sorcerer and Kyoya turned around reflexively. Fissures ran through the concrete. This was the earthquake that had saved Sayaka and Mephisto from Suiki’s attack.

  “Damn!” cried the Sorcerer. “It has already arrived!”

  Before the words had finished leaving his mouth, with a resounding crash thick chunks of concrete erupted into the air and a huge arm jutted out of the ground.

  The thing from the depths of the earth?

  Watching the sight unfolding before his eyes, Kyoya forgot even to get back on his feet.

  The arm raised a fist. And slowly unclenched it. In the massive palm was a rusty iron box.

  Kyoya understood at once. The thing from beneath the earth wasn’t the owner of the arm. It was the contents of the box! And it was his job to prevent whatever was inside from getting out.

  The Sorcerer whirled around. Kyoya rolled around the tip of the Devil Sword and darted toward the arm. The wrist alone was easily six feet in circumference, the palm as wide as a ten-by-ten foot room.

  He struck at the wrist with a shout, but it didn’t budge an inch. His nen, and his father’s nen, were both exhausted.

  Behind him, the Sorcerer laughed. “Such futility. President Rama will die in exactly thirty seconds. And then, no matter what, the box will open. The only thing you can do is kill me.”

  The Devil Sword slashed at his feet. Kyoya jumped onto the palm. It looked like living skin but was hard as steel. What was this earth spirit tasked with guarding the box?

  “Twenty-five seconds.”

  The Sorcerer sprang into the air, landing between Kyoya and the box, blocking his way. The Devil Sword whirled and hummed. Kyoya countered with Asura and parried with all his might, but was pushed backwards. Light warred with darkness as the blades clashed. The darkness swallowed up the light.

  “Five seconds.”

  Kyoya swept Asura sideways. The Sorcerer sneered and caught it with his left hand and flung them both away.

  There was no denying his overwhelming strength, and Kyoya couldn’t spare any more time sparring. He tumbled down to the floor. Steeling his nerves against the pain, he focused his gaze upwards, at the Sorcerer and the box behind him. A black seam appeared beneath the lid of the box. Inside something roiled and writhed.

  “Three seconds. You will die along with this world. Two seconds—”

  The Sorcerer raised the Devil Sword high above his head and pounced down on him from above.

  “One second!”

  Kyoya had already resigned himself to a certain death. His ego—his sense of self—was something apart from him now. The Devil Sword would intersect with his skull in another tenth of a second.

  The change that occurred next was wrought in hundredths—thousandths—of a second.

  Energy suffused his being. His exhausted nen, down to every cell in his body, unleashed a thunderous battle cry that announced his resumption of the contest. Kyoya knew the wellspring of his power—the great cosmic truth that from the beginning had warred with the darkness born at the same time. Though wounded and weakened, this was the purified power of goodness, of virtue, that always championed in the end over evil.

  For an instant, Asura was enveloped by a white beam of light. In his state of no-mind, it slashed through the Devil Sword in a single one-handed stroke!

  The Sorcerer’s soul and steel spine was neatly severed in two above the waist. Scattering blinding light, he toppled over, his soul evaporating without a trace.

  The crashing sound reverberating around him, Kyoya sprang to his feet and looked at the box. The lid was closing. Just in time.

  He didn’t know, but at the same moment in a hospital room in New York, attached to the World Federation building, one second before the appointed time, Master Rai unexpectedly died.

  The high council members staring at the monitors didn’t grasp this at first. Rushing into the room after the deadline passed, they observed the president resting peacefully, the mark of the hand gone from his throat, and shouted with joy. No one looked at the small man sitting there in the lotus position.

  Neither had they realized that in the final moment before that fateful deadline, he had channeled the boundless power of the cosmos into the body of a young warrior several thousand miles away. But his knowledge of the results was evident in the small satisfied smile on his worn and haggard face.

  Epilogue

  The three of them stood on the broad bridge adjacent to Yotsuya station, at the boundary between Demon City and the outside world. The borderline itself was a fissure in the earth over sixty feet wide and a thousand feet deep.

  Kyoya had the wound in his side again treated at Mephisto’s hospital and then got a ride back in a linear motorcar.

  “See you around,” said Kyoya, extending his hand.

  Mephisto didn’t move. “No need to make affectations you never would have otherwise.”

  “Yeah, there is that.” Kyoya grinned and stepped back. “I don’t care to see you or this city again either.”

  A wry smile creased Mephisto’s features. “As long as this city exists, as long as people continue to live here, that will surely appear again.”

  Kyoya couldn’t help starting a bit. He knew about the thing?

  The giant arm had disappeared back into the earth, the lid of the box still sealed, the hand still clenched around it. But Kyoya had grasped something of its true nature—behind the Sorcerer, the repulsive aura wafting from the slightly open gap. Fear and despair and malice and hate—every evil emotion hiding in the depths of the human heart.

  The Sorcerer had said as much, that human beings had once opened it before—Pandora’s Box.

  An ancient legend whose origins were lost in the mists of time. The gods, enraged by human pride, created a foolish girl named Pandora, and tricked her into opening a box filled with evil. Ever since that time, human beings have envied and lusted after each other, and taught themselves to curse and to kill.

  We have led an accursed existence from long, long ago, Kyoya thought, gazing at the streets slumbering beneath the morning sun. Little different than the citizens of Demon City. Or rather, entirely suited to them.

  The other pair of clear eyes looking intently at his shadowed profile belonged to Sayaka. Her shadow—restored upon the Sorcerer’s destruction—fell distinctly at her feet.

  Kyoya thought of the people of Demon City that he and the girl had chanced upon—the espers who had died defending them; the taxi drive
r who’d taken them to the DMZ; the ghost rider grateful to be sent to his eternal rest by Sayaka’s tears; and Doctor Mephisto — the mystery man healing the helpless and the wounded with his cold smile and ironic attitude and undivided attention.

  The power of good that toppled the Sorcerer dwelt inside all of them. Even the worst among them were capable of doing the right thing. As long as one good man remained, the world was worth preserving. The next time somebody arrived on the scene to destroy it, he’d be back.

  “Well, we’re off. I’m sure you have patients waiting.”

  Mephisto turned around.

  “Wait.” Kyoya again held out his hand.

  For whatever reason, Mephisto shook it firmly and then disappeared into the car without even the flicker of an eyebrow.

  They watched the car until it had become another dot on Shinjuku Avenue. Then crossed the bridge. Ahead of them awaited the resumption of the same old high school lives they had left three days before.

  Kyoya said in a teasing voice, but looking ahead with a straight face, “Mephisto told me—you took out Suiki all by yourself. You’re one scary woman.”

  “Well—no—it was nothing like that.” Sayaka blushed.

  “Nothing you have to apologize about.”

  Kyoya grinned, but he couldn’t see into her heart. What rose into her thoughts at that moment—the face of the man she loved—was not her father alone. But Kyoya as well.

  Now it was his eyes that sparkled, a knowing smile coming to his lips.

  “And what pleasant thing are you thinking about?” Sayaka asked coyly.

  “Oh no, nothing at all,” he protested—though probably a bit too much.

  He recalled the end of the famous fable, and the last thing to emerge from Pandora’s Box.

  It was called hope.

  Demon Palace Babylon

  Prologue

  Nothing terribly unusual happened in the world that night.

  In Paris, a terrorist planting a bomb at the base of the Eiffel Tower was arrested. In Saudi Arabia’s Nefud Desert, units of the Tezie Lancer Corps, attached to the Ethiopian Army, briefly skirmished with the Jordanian Holy Land Armored Division.

  During work to restore the Van Allen radiation belts, a NASA repair ship collided with an abandoned satellite from a certain other country, and Russia dispatched a Soyuz “Thunderbird” rescue craft.

  Otherwise, for the most part, the planet was at peace.

  It was the year 2030, the thirteenth day of the month, 2:55 in the morning. The city was Tokyo.

  In the skies above Shinjuku’s Chuo Park a helicopter was on its regularly scheduled patrol. Despite the faint starlight, the landscape below came alive in the night vision scopes. Spotting a strange human-looking shadow, the helicopter moved in.

  The gas turbine engine was equipped with noise suppressors. Even when the target had keen hearing or heightened senses, it could close within tens of feet before being detected. That feeling of being watched or the disturbance in the air would likely betray its presence first.

  And yet the helicopter had come within a dozen yards when, without a backwards glance, it—he—proceeded slowly toward the Koshu Highway on Twelfth Street in the old capital city center, between the fifteen-foot outer wall and the ruins of the Park Hyatt Hotel.

  He must’ve been drunk or high or have a few screws loose, except that he walked with a steady gait, which made the pilot and police inspector riding shotgun feel all the more uneasy. But what caught their eye—the scene as bright and distinct as daylight—was that the man was wearing what looked like a long gown.

  They couldn’t make out the face.

  This late at night, and where even robbers and extortionists and other assorted bad guys feared to tread, a solitary figure must be up to no good.

  “What do you want to do?” the pilot asked the police inspector.

  The man was exhibiting sufficiently suspicious behavior to justify a bit of “hovering” questioning, and a paralyzer gun would do the trick nicely. But a lone drunk was hardly cause for great alarm. Sending around a paddy wagon would take too much time. And anyway, after six o’clock in the evening, in or about the DMZ, the decision was left up to the cop on the scene. The rules of engagement for public servants were clear on that score.

  In other words, arrest him, take him into protective custody or leave him be—it was up to them. The inspector had started off thinking protective custody, then considered doing nothing, then favored arrest.

  He didn’t have any reason, except that the man didn’t strike him as a pedestrian or common drunk. The inspector tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Let’s at least pick him up for questioning.”

  “Roger that.”

  He dropped the helicopter down vertically as he answered, stopping fifteen feet above the man’s head. The swish of the rotors tousled his hair and tossed the hem of his gown. Now he looked up. The angle provided a clear look at the bushy black beard covering the man’s mouth. He was thin to the point of being gaunt.

  The inspector and the pilot were both struck by a grave and momentous vibe. They exchanged curious glances.

  The inspector thumbed his mic. “You there. Don’t move. Put your hands behind your head and lace your fingers together.”

  Normally he would have used much less polite language than that, but something about the gown-wearing man demanded a measure of decorum.

  “This is Shinjuku Police Patrol Helicopter SH 909. We’d like to ask you a few questions, purely on a volitional basis. You’re free to leave at any time. Answer in your normal voice. The audio sensors will pick it up.”

  “Understood.”

  A low and dignified voice radiated from the speakers, that made the inspector wonder for a moment if this was a job better left to the chief inspector. But he mustered his courage.

  “What’s your name and address?”

  “I have no good name to call myself. My address is here.”

  “C’mon, no playing games,” the inspector said, with more anger than the situation required. That recoiling sense of unease had left him since seeing the man’s face, and he seized at the opportunity to overcompensate. “You want to settle this with a tranquilizer dart? Name and address. Identify yourself.”

  “In that case, I shall think of a name henceforth.” As calmly as ever. “My address is here.”

  The man reached into the collar of his robe and took out what looked like a cheap memo pad, the kind of thing sold at any stationery store. The men in the helicopter felt a slight sense of relief.

  The voice that followed was full of confidence and light with laughter. “Shinjuku Ward, West Shinjuku Nichome, Chuo Park.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have any other questions?”

  The police inspector mulled it over in silence. Then demanded, “What in the world are you doing at this time of night?”

  The man gazed curiously at the white wall. It was covered with talismans and sacred symbols of all sorts. They were there to keep the magic inside from getting out.

  “This is my house. It will soon be complete. I’ve been strolling around inspecting it.”

  “What are you talking about? Chuo Park is the property of the ward. Besides, the DMZ is the no-go area for a reason.”

  The man didn’t answer. Then he smiled. A hair-raising aura filled the cockpit of the helicopter. As if trying to expel it, the inspector pressed, “To start with, where is this house of yours? And how do you intend to finish it soon?”

  He didn’t think the man was crazy and so took what he said at face value. Again, there was something about him that demanded it.

  “But of course. Construction hasn’t yet begun. In two more minutes.”

  The two men in the helicopter finally grasped the man’s nature. Madmen wandering about the DMZ late at night—this was why they had to make sure. They aimed a different night scope inside Chuo Park. The dense canopy of trees moved. There was no wind.

  Shadows roamed the winding
paths. There should be nothing living there. Attempting to surmount the wall, the cloudy forms sprang up from among the trees and were flung back—evil spirits repelled by the talismans.

  Apparently detecting the invisible electromagnetic waves employed by the night vision scope, an eerily familiar voice barked from the speakers. “This is the Shinjuku Police Headquarters. SH 909, proceed into the park.”

  The two ignored it. The first ploy the ghosts of Chuo Park used to lure fresh victims into their lair was to mimic an authority figure known to the listener.

  Those who heeded such commands and stupidly entered the grounds of the park found there—nothing like any houses or dwellings. The only “buildings” were the ruins of the library and a Tokyo Electric underground substation, also in ruins.

  The pilot flipped up the protective cap on the joystick, revealing the trigger buttons for a 30mm Vulcan cannon and a tranquilizer gun powerful enough to sedate an elephant. The heads-up display projected the aiming and firing data inside the helmet visor.

  A square floated in the middle of the display. When the square aligned with the center diagonal, the weapons system locked the guns on the target. The firing computer was linked to the night vision scope. The aim followed the pilot’s vision, making it impossible for the target to escape.

  “Ten seconds,” the man’s voice said, reminding them of the number. The time until this so-called construction began. But what? Not a single pillar or column stood in the park. And anyway, the ward certainly hadn’t issued any building permits.

  “Eight seconds, seven, six—it might be dangerous for you there. You should come down.”

  The helicopter didn’t move. “Here goes.” The pilot’s finger pressed against the button.

  “Hold on,” said the police inspector. “At this point, we might as well make sure of what we’re shooting at.”

  The year 2030. The thirteenth of the month, 2:55 in the morning. A bar in Mejiro. It was called “Junko’s Jail.”

  “I’m bored. Let’s go someplace more exciting.”

  A girl in a sailor suit yanked on his hand. The boy in a high school uniform almost fell off the bar stool. He managed to catch his balance and resolutely shook his head.