The murderous rage flowing from the ten of them to the one of her stained even the darkness. These were those lured away by the sweetest potions—by the promise of sex and riches—in their pursuit of the dark arts. Turned once in that direction, they faced banishment from the discipline of magic. Discipline was hardly necessary in the pursuit of worldly desires.
And so they fled Magic Town and settled in places unknown, where they pursued the creation of various banned and forbidden objects. In order to do so, they repeatedly kidnapped and murdered and practiced human vivisection, making themselves into the worst criminal gang the Shinjuku police had to deal with. So the cops finally urged the manmade mutants to escape.
Making the attempt on an almost daily basis, they were drawn by their better instincts to the home of Galeen Nuvenberg.
Fearing the power of the Czech Republic’s greatest witch, the villains had done nothing until now. Now these sullied sorcerers bared their teeth at her front door.
“Whether individually or united as one, we possess powers that will not allow any objections. Does the girl made by Galeen Nuvenberg dare to stand against us?”
“If that is your wish.”
They advanced forward, as a single military unit, having no need to wait for somebody else to make the first move. They appeared to grow as a single mass, impossible to mistake for any group of normal people, pressing against the darkness with each step. In another second, their giant feet would swallow up the young girl standing there before them.
The enormous shadow and the single slight one were about to merge. The giant faltered. The murderous vibe lost its intensity and had already begun to dissipate.
“Who are you?” demanded the old man, his white beard wavering.
The doll girl felt a presence standing behind her. “You!”
“Who the hell’s that?” asked the guy in the body armor.
“I am a resident of this house.” His gaze pinned the ten giants like daggers.
The doll girl’s voice froze the winter night. “He is General Ryuuki, and in his lifetime he has commanded thousands upon thousands of soldiers and sorcerers.”
Part Ten: Demons of Desire
Chapter One
The sorcerers all exchanged glances. Searching his memories, a vague flicker of recognition clouded the old man’s eyes.
“General Ryuuki,” he said under his breath. There were echoes of fear in those two words. After two thousand years, the name still could not be spoken without respect and fear. “It is said that in your death throes, shot through with the spears and arrows of the Hun, you dismissed your subordinates and strode off towards the furthest reaches of the northern desert. That you continue to live should surprise no one. After all, our job as well is performing the impossible.”
He paused and looked straight at Ryuuki. “But even if you are that legendary hero, stand in our way and we will destroy you. Does the man named Ryuuki wish to make a stand here?”
“I do not desire to fight. I wish only to repay the debt of honor I owe this girl and this household. If you depart now, we need never meet again.”
“What a joke,” the sorcerer wearing the body armor said in a gravelly voice. “We’ll write a sad end to that story of yours, General. And leave a few marks of our own on that body tonight.”
The motors in his knees whirled as he took another step forward.
“Stop!” shouted the old man with the white beard.
“Kill him!” rejoined the person behind him.
Not waiting for the dispute between these two to resolve itself, the motorized sorcerer took off at a sprint.
Light leapt from the doll girl’s right hand. Rosebuds, glowing a vivacious ruby red in the dark. The mechanical silhouette stopped in midair, chest and stomach studded with roses, like a strange, postmodern work of art.
It was hard enough to believe those strong and slender stems could pierce the hardened ceramic plates. All the more so that the sorcerer, covered with almost a quarter-ton of armor could be brought to a halt, completely in defiance of gravity itself. But what the normal bystander might see, these scoundrels saw through in a flash.
The rosebuds were bound together by golden threads invisible to the naked eye. Suspended by one end in the air, they held up the flowers and the martial magician. A moment later, the miracle wrought by that combination of strength and precarious balance gave rise to another.
The rose stems ran along the threads among the buds. A magnificent bed of roses sprang up between these uninvited guests and the girl, turning the armored man in the air into a sacrifice upon an arboreal altar.
Here and there on the stems, the bright red buds opened. The secret behind such brilliant colors was the life blood being sucked out of the airborne man.
“Splendid,” the old man said. “What I should have expected from the creation of Galeen Nuvenberg. I am impressed that an inorganic object could master such magic.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” the doll girl said with a nod.
“However—”
Like the physical manifestation of an exclamation point, rose buds tumbled to the earth, scattering across the ground like red snow.
“Now the farce comes to an end.”
Still suspended in the air, the armored man shook his arms. All of the remaining flowers rained down. The stems and runners shriveled and died.
He floated to the ground and rolled his shoulders. “Sorry kid, but oil courses through my blood. Works well at keeping all my moving parts moving. Not good for watering the plants, though. Well, I guess it’s my turn then. Take a look.”
He reached out and seized Ryuuki and the doll girl by the necks. They were ten feet away. Ryuuki remained fixed in place. But the flexible, rubber-like titanium armor arm had already lifted the doll girl more than thirty feet into the air.
“I could send you to the stratosphere if I wanted,” the armored wizard said with a small gloating smile. “Now and then, you read about a body falling from a height of three miles or so in the Shinjuku tabloids. That’s my work. Oh, a squawking crow. A bad omen of your impending demise. Let’s see how well you stand up.”
He’d barely spoken the last word when he froze. A current of energy raced through his body from his hand around the man’s neck.
“Damn—you—”
The gurgle became a scream as his wrist twisted like a pretzel. The one-armed man looked up.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” came a cheerful answer from high in the sky, beyond the reach of normal human vision.
“I’ll leave what is up there to you. Leave what is down here to me.”
“I appreciate it.”
Ryuuki released his hold on the sorcerer’s hand. Without waiting for the unconscious man to slump to the ground, a bald man shot a wave of energy from both hands at Ryuuki. Not bothering to dodge the blow, Ryuuki turned his arm toward the sorcerers.
The direct blast of demon qi bowed back the old man on the right. The second and then the third were forced to retreat. Four others chanted incantations.
Fire erupted from Ryuuki’s mouth and stomach and climbed into the air. Inside the flames, the fearless face smiled. His arm reached out to them. They stood there unable to move as every cell in their bodies died.
The fifth was preparing his own magical specialty: “Dark knife and fork.”
A white-hot stab of pain shot through Ryuuki’s skull. Red lines crisscrossed his chest from the base of his neck on both sides to his hips. The invisible pair of knives ripped him open. Blood gushed out as Ryuuki clapped his arm across his severed torso. His closed his eyes. The blood faded, then disappeared.
“Get back!” the old man shouted. “I should have known, General Ryuuki. You are not a man to make an enemy of. We’ll meet another day.”
An invisible current struck him in the head.
Two minutes later came the flapping of wings. The big raven returned carrying the doll girl in his claws. The ground below was utter
ly still.
“What a freaking mess,” groaned the raven, scanning the dead bodies strewn across the ground.
Nothing—no one—was left in one piece. Withered, twisted and desiccated, bodies had come apart as they hit the ground. Among them, the bottom half of somebody slanting out of the ground, no doubt dealt a death blow while burrowing into the earth.
“As magnanimous as a man such as General Ryuuki may be toward every kind of enemy, he becomes a demon of unparalleled proportions when confronting the killers of women and children. Our mistress said as much, and it appears to be true.”
Hearing footsteps proceeding to the house, the doll girl turned around and asked, “You are coming back?”
“I have nowhere else to turn. Besides, I should not be allowed to seek blood as I please.”
Without waiting for her to answer, the sturdy naked man passed through the front door and into the foyer.
“What a guy,” said the raven, flapping its wings. “Our mistress and even Setsura say he’s the one fellow they wouldn’t mind having over for dinner. Hey, even I got a thing for him.”
“That man is our enemy,” rang out a voice like a bell, cold and hard. “And he must be destroyed. Better that he never came to our city in the first place.”
They gathered in one of the narrow back alleyways in Yocho, men clothed in black. Even their pale faces were shrouded by the darkness.
“Tonight, this whole area,” said the rugged man who appeared to be the leader. “Spare no one. They’ve got nothing to do with us. They are insects devouring this world.”
The shadows around him nodded.
“Before dawn—at four o’clock—return to the vehicles. Go.”
The shadows melted into the night.
A handful of people arrived at a nearby street. They moved to the intersection and looked around with intense and focused eyes.
“What are you guys looking for?” came a voice from above them.
They looked up—a kid wearing a polo shirt; a mutant studded with electrodes; a garishly made-up girl naked from the waist up; an housewife in a dress—a normal slice of Shinjuku street life that otherwise would have hardly drawn a second glance.
Their bared their teeth. The moonlight glittered off their fangs. They saw something in the sky. The mutant’s body quivered all over. Blue light rose into the air.
“Hey!” came their startled responses. The light spread out in a kaleidoscope of colors. Several black figures descended to the street on rudimentary flying devices spouting jets of fire. Releasing their hold on the hand-controlled balloons, silently, like prowling cats, they closed in on the vampires.
These were the men who had assembled in Yocho only minutes ago.
What made the vampires stop and cower was not only the murderous intent of the assailants, but something else their transformed senses told them—they were vampires too.
Streaks of light—that solidified into stakes of white wood—pierced them as they crouched there. As the vampires arched their backs, clutching at the stakes, their attackers dropped to the ground behind them and severed their heads with huge Chinese broadswords.
“Nothing personal, but chaps like you are ruining this city.”
“We finally found a place where we can live in peace. We don’t want the likes of you fucking it up. You all deserve to be killed on sight.”
Their identities could be easily ascertained from their motives—these were the residents of the Toyama housing project, the vampires who had assimilated into Demon City.
The Elder was dead. Yakou had not returned. Their homes had been destroyed by a nuclear blast for reasons unknown. Right now they lived in a building leased to them by the ward. Every night they went to work hunting down vampires.
They knew better than anyone that the number of new vampires was outrunning their abilities to eliminate them. They were equally hindered during the daylight hours, when vampire hunting was the most effective. Not to mention lingering doubts about the source of the nuclear strike.
Nevertheless, the Toyama vampires not vaporized in the attack had come together and now cooperated with the authorities in patrolling the Shinjuku nights. They knew as well that Shinjuku was their last refuge, and there was no compromising with this new breed that recklessly hungered after blood with no other end in mind.
“There’s that abandoned building down the street,” called another group from the other end of the alley. “The basement door is secured. No doubt about it.”
“Make it quick,” the leader said to his colleagues.
They neatly lined up the severed heads and bodies. On each of the still and quiet faces of the dead they placed a peach, wards against evil. But the white smoke rising from their own hands betrayed their own natures.
“We’re done.”
“Good.”
They raced down the street like a black wind. Ahead of them, their eyes were drawn to a point of glimmering blue light. It was a woman. Her naked limbs swaying in the watery glow appeared as delicate as blown glass. Her face was shining so brightly her beauty was difficult to ascertain.
These men weren’t the easily surprised type. If anything, what caught them off guard was the intuition that she was one of them. And the indescribable power she must possess.
And all the stranger, the leader couldn’t tell whether she was friend or foe. She emanated the aura of a “virgin” vampire, that yet possessed an indescribably cool and refreshing feel.
This woman—it wasn’t possible—was she in fact Princess? No way. That woman was said to be the rarest beauty in the world.
Without coming to a decision, the leader ordered his men to deploy. They rapidly formed a cordon around her at equal distances. She stood there, unmoving, her features blank. The leader’s killer instincts wavered.
“Lady—who are you?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t look at him. She took a step.
“How do we handle this?” asked one of his men, brandishing a stake.
“We don’t know if she’s with us or against us. Take a breather. It looks like she’s lost her memories. Hey, can you hear me?”
She silently walked forward, the silhouettes around her keeping pace.
“Get her,” the leader commanded. In this situation, that he didn’t say to kill her was more than generous.
The men tossed peaches at her. They passed right through her and rolled up to the men opposite.
“Figures. Some sort of ghost or dual personality.”
“If we leave her be, it’s hard to see how she could attack anybody. Let’s get to that building.”
“No,” the leader objected. “There’s no way for us to know what kind of threat she poses. This is Demon City. She could be packing one mean punch. Ren—take care of her.”
“Roger that.”
From in back of her, he vaulted over her, slapped a paper talisman against her head, continued in his arc and stuck the landing. This evil-countering talisman could affix itself to even a transparent wraith.
The ghost here was not necessarily evil, but the existence of anything here that did not conform to natural law could inflict mental and physical confusion upon the surrounding environs. For starters, most humans who witnessed such ghosts would experience a dangerous drop of blood pressure and body temperature.
The woman’s feet stopped. Her features gradually emerged from the blue light. The leader and his subordinates were visibly shaken.
“You?”
They were familiar with the face of Takako Kanan. Then her eyes flashed red.
“Halt!” cried out the leader.
The blue light rose up before him. Red stained the blue with a fleshy thud. Gouging at his neck, her arm around his waist, Takako pressed her lips against his throat.
Half a dozen stakes split the air, sinking through her back and protruding out her chest. The leader’s body shuddered. Takako released her hold. Her pierced body staggered and collapsed, her face turned upwards.
“Crazy bitch.”
The men ran forward and peered down at her face. Amidst the pool of dazzling azure light only her mouth gushed red. Though they stood there transfixed by the strange sight of terror and beauty, they too were vampires. They set upon her at once, full of hostility and vengefulness.
But even as they drove their fists and stakes into her, Takako’s hands and fangs tore at their throats without the slightest show of consternation.
Who would have believed that the best and brightest Toyama had to offer could be so easily rebuffed? As the cold ground absorbed the last of their convulsions, from Takako’s mouth poured thin, high, ear-shattering laughter.
Ah, she sounded so much like Princess in that moment. Still laughing, Takako started walking again. Her vacant face and distant eyes were once more surrounded by the blue light.
“Yes, keep on going.”
These words were suffused with infinite loathing. Thirty feet behind her stood another naked woman. However, the limbs and the contours of this bewitching body seemed shaped by the hand of God himself, while set into a countenance of heaven-blessed beauty were eyes of unparalleled evil.
Princess.
The light dimmed as she turned the corner. Following after her, Princess looked up at the eastern sky.
“The day is dawning. This night is dying. Where will you rest your pretty head? Remember—from tomorrow night onwards, this place becomes a literal city of death. She will see to it. I will see to it. I have destroyed kingdoms and empires. Do you think I will be outdone by the likes of her? Yes, let madness reign. Seek the blood of all living things. I will paint this town red. Hoh. Kikiou, it looks like I will bring to pass your dreams, perhaps even despite myself.”
She was certainly the one person who could make the words of indescribable evil cloaking this hideous pronouncement come true. She was certainly the one person who would. She would not be outdone by Takako. This would be a contest of massacres. What manner of fate had just been called down upon Demon City?
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 5 Omnibus Edition Page 20