“He was wandering about the forest, saw me and came closer. At that point, I only needed to look him in the eyes.”
Not waiting for her to explain her predicament, the bewitched bodyguard—once her inveterate enemy—had shot off the big branch the devil wire was entwined around and set her free.
“That one’s an unearned run!” Setsura shouted.
The one who answered was Yakou. “Give it up,” he called back, swooping down from the sky.
Part Five: Going to the Devil
Chapter One
“So, the sadistic minx and the traitor,” Setsura observed calmly. “It’s a good old family reunion.”
Facing off against these two was trouble enough, not to mention that waiting for him below was another quisling with a gun.
“Checkmate, Setsura. Give up. Receive Princess’s favor and affection as I have. You cannot begin to comprehend the joys you will thereafter partake of.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Setsura said to the triumphant Yakou. The particular quirks of this young man were such that intrigue suffused the question, not the expected stresses and strains. “Chasing tail and getting led around by the nose. What a fool a man makes of himself trying to impress the wrong sort of woman. Your father would weep to see you now.”
“Shut up,” Yakou raged in return. Though his will was under Princess’s command, his memories remained fresh.
“Hah. Where there’s anger, there’s promise. You should have your head examined by Mephisto as well.”
“Idiot,” Princess rejoined in wry amusement. “As long as you are not going there, we might as well kill him here. But promise to become my servant and I will spare the politician. Though only after Shinjuku has burned to a crisp.”
“Why are you so stuck on this servant business?” Setsura asked plainly. “Talk about one-track minds, looking at people and saying servant, servant over and over. So what do you do with these servants anyway? Short on doormen? Butlers? Chippendale bathhouse attendants?”
“What’s that?” she asked Yakou.
“I have no idea.”
Setsura harrumphed. “You’re not very bloody useful, are you?”
Princess said, the words dripping from her mouth like hot honey, “Your fate is set in stone. You will tend to me every night in my sleeping quarters. A glorious privilege. Zhou of the Shang and Jie of the Hsia obediently pledged their lives to me and received untold delights in return. I will give the same to you.”
“Princess, that is—” Yakou unexpectedly interrupted. “That is my role, to say nothing of the proper order of things. Why this man, of all people?”
“It is decided,” Princess said scornfully. “He is a hundred times more handsome than you.”
In the face of such coolly-stated and undeniable reality, Yakou was at a loss for words.
“You sure are hot to trot, Yakou. When are you gonna shake the scales from your eyes?”
“Be quiet.”
“The scion of the Toyama vampires is a fool for love. Except nobody would think that’s funny.”
“What are you going to do, Setsura? Stay here, all safe and warm, or attempt to safely escort him out of here?” She dared him as if the promised break would be complete.
“You keep talking about him so dismissively,” Setsura observed, glancing at the face of the gasping man on his back. “Perhaps you first ought to make sure you know who he is. As for us, we’re going to get our wounds taken care of.”
And so he played his trump card. Princess realized it several seconds later. The corners of her eyes lifted and she shouted, “Yakou! Look! That man’s face!”
The winged man plummeted down and grabbed the man’s head by the hair and jerked it up.
“No?”
Setsura smiled at the shocked demoness. Princess’s trembling hand pointed at him. “You picked up two masks in the mask maker’s village. The first was to drive away the villagers. The second is that one. If that man was the prime minister, there would be no need to transform him. Go to the manor house and I shall be nipping at your heels. The man in black you sent to the outside world—he was the prime minister?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson.”
“In which case, that face is the Dancing Fiend sporting your mask. But why go to such lengths? Had you left this world, I would have seen you off as promised. And that gait truly suggested a wounded man.”
“The wound was equally shared,” Setsura calmly explained. “The same as the Dancing Fiend. The same severity. It would have been best if we’d switched masks after leaving the house. But it took a little time convincing the ogre—the old man—he wasn’t me. Then the prime minister became me. Because he was me, he believed what I had to say.”
“You’re saying you are not in fact Setsura but this country’s head of state?”
“Though I can hardly say for sure myself.”
“How would the Dancing Fiend—the mask maker—play the part of the prime minister? A stroke of luck his face agreed with his name, but I do not think he could pull off the role so easily.”
For some reason, this observation left Princess in a good mood. Yakou was left to stew on his own.
“All of the masks remaining in that village are those of the villagers,” Setsura said. “Excepting him, the mask maker. I convinced him by letting him carve my face.”
“So you appealed to his sense of aesthetics?” Princess smiled and covered her mouth with her hand. “Yes, the man I insist must be my servant! But why send the prime minister alone to the outside world? Did you intend to bring Mephisto along afterward? Or has Demon City had a better doctor all along?”
In that instance, Yakou’s expression changed. “Princess, he has done nothing of the sort!”
“What?”
“Setsura has deliberately been keeping his distance from the manor house. He’s been buying time for the prime minister to get there!”
The light in her eyes changed in a flash from cool surprise to incandescent rage. Setsura’s relaxed grin smeared into a blur. In that same instant, Yakou’s wings separated from their joints. A startled voice descended downwards. The hands of the bodyguard dropped off at the wrists.
“He’s here!?”
Writhing in the air, Princess’s back was sucked up against the trunk of the tree she had appeared from behind.
Tearing the fabric he’d severed from around his torso, Setsura shouted in midair, “Idiot! Go!”
A short ways off, the branches creaked. “The manor house! Follow him!”
Princess’s order was aimed at Yakou. He bolted and then was flung back, red lines running across his chest and right knee. “Move and they’ll cut deeper, Yakou. Could you revive yourself minus your head?”
The web of devil wires wrapped around him must have come from both Setsuras, trapping the wingless vampire as if in amber.
“Fool!”
Princess shook her body. Whether pure rage, or a martial art, everything in her vicinity trembled like a mirage. The trunk snapped, shattered, and disintegrated to dust. The invisible wires were reduced to their constituent atoms. Her clothing met the same fate under the force of the unimaginable vibrations.
When the outlines of her body returned to solid form, she was naked. Perched on the large limb, Setsura stood there for a stunned moment. So did Yakou, beneath him.
Tantalizing flesh, and a body to entrance the mind, darkened only by the dusky triangle between her legs that she made no effort to conceal.
Princess laughed in a high loud voice. “The body that stole away the souls of emperors and kings! Setsura, do you wish to challenge it too?”
Chapter Two
The body that stole away the souls of emperors and kings. And not only them. Exposed to the full light of day, it could even have robbed the gods of their senses.
Her neck, shoulders, breasts, waist, ass and thighs, down to her ankles and toes, were all the more beautiful than before, none of them lacking the true essence of beauty
in the slightest way. Her skin glimmered as if baptized in the secret fragrant oils of eternal youth, cloaking her in unmarred brilliance.
The sensuality and lasciviousness that encompassed her body like a flowing rainbow, together with the mesmerizing movements of her limbs, brought to mind an expression of divinity conquered by devilishness.
Setsura and Yakou exchanged glances of blank amazement. Princess laughed again.
She hid nothing, Everything—from her breasts to her armpits to her rich, black bush—was on display. And yet, not only was nothing about her touched with bawdiness, but her presence left an almost cool and refreshing feeling of white clouds streaming across an endless blue sky above a deep green countryside.
This wasn’t simple beauty, nor was it ordinary voluptuousness. The flawless beauty of this woman—who had destroyed nations, entranced kings and slaughtered their subjects—was the incarnation of evil, the perfect reflection of a soul loyal only to her own desires.
“Feast your eyes on this, Setsura,” she called out, as if to throw not only her voice but herself at him. “And fall into my arms.” She spread those arms wide and waited.
And Setsura—perched on the big limb—Setsura blinked two, three times, and took a casual step towards her. That monster of jealousy, Yakou, had a crush on her down to the marrow of his bones, and even now his intoxicated expression didn’t waver.
“Yakou! Go!”
As if struck by an electric shock, the man in the black three-piece suit took off for the manor house. A glistening trail chased after him, only to disintegrate in another burst of intense vibration.
“How about I stay here?” Setsura said, watching Yakou’s back. Princess’s reprimand seemed to have brought him back to his normal self.
“And leave you behind? Idiot,” Princess said with a smile. “I have at least plumbed the depths of your mind. The kind of mind who would go out of his way to hide a dead body while starting a world war. I could get to like you.”
“What a nuisance.” Setsura frowned. “Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we? I don’t exactly have a lot of time.”
“As far as your wire-wielding friend is concerned, I have no worries. He has certainly arrived at where you wished him to go. The question is what happens after that. Kikiou is in the manor house. You haven’t seen them for yourself, but his private army is there too. Besides, there’s no telling if that doctor you trust so much can do what you’re counting on.”
“I believe he can.” Setsura believed in the man he casually called a quack.
“You say with such cheek,” Princess scoffed. And then she said something rather strange. “But how will it turn out? Let’s find ourselves a seat and watch the show.”
“What? You’re not going to do it yourself?”
Princess wordlessly raised her hand and pointed in the direction of the manor house. Her hand seemed to absorb the light of the sun, scattering the light across her chest.
The manor house bustled with forces mustered to meet these unexpected intruders. The black-clad figure burst into the hall. A swarm of lizard creatures flew at him. In a flash they were sliced to pieces.
“You’d better come out or the same thing just might happen to you.”
“You are in awfully good spirits,” said the doctor in white, descending the staircase from the second floor. Three of the supporting pillars had been severed. The sections anchored to the ceiling leaned at a dangerous angle. When no answer was forthcoming, he said, “What, cat got your tongue?”
Instead of nodding, “Setsura” opened his mouth. Mephisto peered in. “Hoh,” he said. A patient and a doctor who could both say a lot with a little. Setsura shut his mouth and Mephisto said in a strangely soft voice, as if a shadow had suddenly shrouded the world, “So I take it you are not Setsura?”
Setsura folded his arms, drew his brows, and with a confused expression on his face—nodded—as if to say, no, but in fact, yes.
“Hmm. You can’t say for certain yourself. You do seem the real thing.” Mephisto silently inspected the black-clad man. He swept back his cape. “Had you presented yourself to me in such a form, you should have received your just dues. But seeing as you have come for treatment, you are my patient, and I will do what I can. Come along.”
So this Setsura wasn’t Setsura after all. He’d donned the mask carved by the Dancing Fiend and wrapped the black cloak around him—this was none other than Prime Minister Kongodai.
But why had he returned to this world after leaving it? “Setsura” had convinced him—the Setsura who was not Setsura but was in fact the prime minister. Restoring his voice required the skills of the Demon Physician secluded in Princess’s mansion. Having drilled that into his head, Setsura sent him on an outward trajectory. Then while he set up a diversion with the Dancing Fiend, the prime minister was to sneak into the manor house.
But the prime minister had taken a detour on his way there to save Setsura after Princess bound him to the tree. His current consciousness told the prime minister that he couldn’t abandon himself when he was in danger. His ambiguous reaction when revealing his true identity to Mephisto was a consequence of the same.
One of the Dancing Fiend’s skills was that a mask imbued the wearer with the characteristics of the person represented. Mephisto had seen through the facade soon enough. There might have even been the touch of a smile in his voice as he made the invitation.
The two of them entered a room on the second floor. The room—a cross between a laboratory and a doctor’s office—was stocked with tools and mechanisms that were all a curious fusion of the ancient and the ultra-modern. In the center of the room was an examination table, already occupied by a pale body. Setsura’s expression shifted.
“As you can see, I am currently treating a patient,” Mephisto said, as if to convince Takako Kanan of the fact as well.
Restore the half-vampire human to fully human without destroying the sire. The Demon Physician had taken up the gauntlet of slicing through a Gordian knot no one had ever cut before. Setsura/Kongodai was equally intrigued by the challenge before him.
“Humans don’t turn into vampires because of a poison, but because of a curse occasioned by their behavior itself.” Mephisto’s voice was the crystallization of a dark winter’s night. “The breaking of such a curse is not the province of science. But she shall be treated.”
He said it would and so it must be possible. This was Mephisto, after all.
“And when will that occur? Does not your face and soul pose the question, wearer of Setsura’s face?” When the black-robed man nodded, Mephisto said, “Then let us tell the real Setsura, my client who requested this treatment.”
He did a half-turn and stared intently at Setsura’s face, who retreated a step without realizing it. Mephisto grasped his hand. “To tell the truth, were you to insist that you were you, even I would harbor doubts. I do not charge my patients, but for the crime of reproducing his face, I shall demand a fee.”
A countenance inhumanly handsome approached one of otherworldly beauty. Anybody could have imagined what would come next. But an unexpected interruption occurred just before those two faces melded together.
“Sir Mephisto,” called out an older man.
The urgency in the voice made Mephisto turn around. The great warlock was no longer only a head. Four “legs” jutting from his thick tube of a body raised him five feet off the ground. The joints of the “pelvis” and “knees” and “ankles” flexed and bent with an impressive dexterity as he scampered up to Mephisto.
“What do you intend to do with him? However irreplaceable you may be, Setsura Aki remains our sworn enemy, our unlucky star. Do not forget that. A friendly reception is the last thing he deserves. Stand aside and I shall deliver the coup de grâce.”
“This man is my patient,” Mephisto replied, meeting the blood-red loathing in Kikiou’s eyes with cool resolve. “No matter the shape or form, he who seeks the help of Doctor Mephisto shall remain in my care until a compl
ete recovery has been achieved.”
The great warlock fell silent. The desire to sally into battle burned brightly, and such a contest would have created a most interesting spectacle, but he turned his thoughts in a different direction.
“Forgive me. This old man is cursed with a short temper.” The half-human bowed his head.
Mephisto answered with a silent bow of his own, then said to Setsura, “Have a seat over there.” He indicated a chair in the corner of the room. “Make a tongue? Or swap voice boxes? It won’t hurt. The former will take a tad more time. The faster the better, I presume? Though it will take a bit of time getting used to.”
Setsura bobbed his head.
“A fake, but the substance is the same. I don’t know whose handiwork this is, but there are many frightening people in this world.”
Mephisto seized Setsura’s jaw, the light of pure intrigue shining in his eyes. For a moment, a what-the-hell look flashed in his eyes. Then he obediently raised his head, exposing his pale throat.
Mephisto was a vampire. Only one thing could follow. Except that it didn’t. All that trailed down the skin was a white finger. Setsura hunched his shoulder. Because it tickled.
“You must suffer, unable to speak on your own.” Any sense of danger vanished from Mephisto’s expression and tone of voice. This was the Doctor Mephisto that always appeared before a patient.
His finger stopped on Setsura’s throat. Without the slightest sign of tension on the skin, the finger sank down to the second joint. Anybody would have started with surprise, but the finger withdrew before he could blink.
Examining the throat and finding not even the hint of a scar there, Mephisto asked, “How do you feel?”
“Hey, watch where you put your hands.”
“Good.”
As Setsura put his hand to his own throat as if making fine adjustments, Mephisto stepped back and said to Kikiou, “The treatment is complete.”
“That was impressive.”
The old man’s gaze was wrapped with icy bands of destruction. No matter what the realm, Kikiou now defined himself by his desire to destroy Setsura. He said, as if unable to wait any longer, “And now he isn’t your patient?”
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