Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (15 page)

“What's this guy blabbing about? Think I'm gonna let this pissy little liar yank my chain? Go to hell where you belong.”

“If you want to know the truth, then come to our lair and you will soon discover for yourself. But you won't be getting out of here alive. You saw it yourself, my creature from the deep. Surrender to me or end up in its bowels. You had better prepare yourself.”

“Well, I've decided, and that's a big no to both.”

“What are you saying?”

Kyoya shot back, “I'm saying you talk awful big for somebody afraid to show his face. Prepare myself for what? A miserable coward of a demon like you? When word gets out in the Demon Realm, you'll be too embarrassed to show that lickspittle face of yours in public. C'mon, you and me,
mano-a-mano
. If you have the guts. Don't you think it's about time you pulled your own weight without running to papa?”

A long silence followed Kyoya's trash-talking. And then the answer, shaking with white-hot anger. “You do have a mouth on you, boy. You'll eat those words before I draw and quarter you.”

The shrouded face arose from the surface of the “sea,” followed by the body clothed in a monk's habit.

“My name is Suiki. You want to face me. Here I am. Now what are you going to do about it?”

“What am
I
going to do about it?” Kyoya shrugged. And Sayaka laughed.

Suiki roared, “Don't mess with me! I have yet to lift a finger. You're as good as chum!”

The fish sprang at them from the wall on the left. They both ducked. With a spray of water it splashed into the floor less than a foot away, the dorsal fin cutting a path to the wall on the right and up the wall to the ceiling, where it began leisurely turning in a wide circle. Attacking from directly above, it had the literal high ground.

Either end up in its mouth or abandon ship for this magical sea—the same fate dealt to the gangbangers at Yotsuya Sanchome station and the ruins of Shin-Okubo awaited them.

Kyoya grasped Sayaka around the waist and stood up. “Isn't it about time we called it a day? I see you took my double-dog dare and showed your face.”

“Let's not hear any more excuses. Without your wooden sword, what are you? What can a boy like you do when left to his own devices?”

“We'll have to see, won't we?”

The answer to that came from above, the fish springing down at them, mouth gaping wide.

“Gotta try harder than that, bugface!”

With his arm around Sayaka, Kyoya jumped into the air. With nothing to hold or stand on, launching an attack seemed impossible. But he commenced a series of aggressive moves, twisting out of the way of the fish falling at them like a cleaving glacier while delivering a mighty reverse kick to its back. Then he pursed his lips and aimed at Suiki.

A flash of silver, a long tail trailing behind, plunged deep into Suiki's hood. With a tortured scream, Suiki bent backwards, clapping a hand over one eye.

“That's some needlework
nenpo
for you.”

The needle and thread Kyoya had gotten from the hotel owner smashed into the demon's eye. Kyoya had learned this needle-spitting technique from his father.

The two alighted on the original section of floor. The fish—its back crushed—disappeared midair. Even losing Asura, Kyoya possessed the psychic powers necessary to destroy these demonic underlings.

“Son of a bitch!”

Suiki flailed about on the surface of the sea. Spawned perhaps by the bitter dregs of his magical powers, a fierce whirlwind spun out of nowhere. The gale caught up the piece of floor Kyoya and Sayaka were standing on, sending it fluttering to and fro like a leaf caught in a rough surf.

From the floor—that was now a sea—to the walls and up to the ceiling. Seeing flooring above his head, even Kyoya felt a cold chill down his spine. It was a bright afternoon fall day. Only this room was wracked by the surging dark waves of a magical sea.

“Ah, he's changing!” cried Sayaka, pointing down at Suiki.

“His true form.”

Suiki's appearance no longer conformed to a human shape. The shroud and habit fell away, revealing a thick writhing bundle of wet white tentacles rising from the floor. At first, there seemed to be dozens of strands. But soon there were hundreds, multiplying in wave after seething wave.

Deep within the dense forest of tentacles, the one crazed red eye flashed with hatred and loathing as it fixed Kyoya in its gaze. “Don't run away. I will reduce you and this whole house to driftwood.”

“Don't make promises you can't keep, jerkwad.”

Kyoya once again wrapped his arm around Sayaka's waist. He shifted their little round “boat” around like a surfboard and approached the window. Drenched in the froth from the floor and ceiling, he said with a jerk of his chin, “This is our only hope.”

Sayaka looked in that direction and her face brightened. Obscured by the crashing waves, it was hard to make out, but there was a break in the vertical wall of water. Sunlight poured through the break. These were the remaining shards of glass in the window Sayaka had thrown Asura through.

“No matter how strong, monsters can be wounded. Otherwise, he would have drawn us into his grasp by now. We can escape on the strength of my
nen
alone. Together, now.”

“Yes.”

The round piece of floor came alongside the break in the wall. They jumped like a pair of divers and plunged head first through the soaring seas. A brief shock of cold, and a moment later they were flying through sunlit space beneath a golden sun. They flipped over and around, and landed on the hard earth.

Thanks to their training in Shorin Kenpo and Aikido, they landed without suffering the full impact of the fall.

Kyoya helped Sayaka to her feet. “I don't think he'll be coming after us right away, not with a wound like that. But there's another of them out there, and he could be just around the corner for all we know. We'd better find some cover.” He glanced back at the hotel. “Holy cow,” he exclaimed.

“Wow.”

In this case, perhaps it wasn't entirely appropriate to be impressed by the sight, but it was a staggering spectacle. The whole hotel had turned semi-transparent, quivering and swaying like a massive jellyfish, as it disintegrated and dissolved. Having let the person who wrecked his eye slip through his fingers, Suiki directed his demonic rage against the building instead. A good thing that Kyoya had been the only boarder.

The owner came crawling out of the entranceway, steam rising from his bald head. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. This time he pretty much had.

“It ain't much, but unfortunately it looks like I'm gonna have to skip out on the bill.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Let's go.”

He took Sayaka by the arm and hurried through the front gate.

Kyoya deliberately headed down one of the more twisting alleyways.

After walking for fifteen minutes and seeing no one in sight, they ducked into the ruins of a building. With a collapsed stone wall between them, they undressed and spread their clothes to dry. They hadn't noticed back in the room, their nerves on edge, but they were soaked to the skin.

Waiting for the sun to do its work, they caught each other up on the details of what had gone on until they met.

What drew Kyoya's attention in particular was Sayaka's account of the Sorcerer's dying words.

“So even if dies, he's coming back? That last monster said something similar. So I guess we can expect him to turn up in a different form?”

Sayaka poked her head around the wall and said in a concerned voice, “Seems so, seeing that the curse on my father still hasn't been lifted.”

This caught the half-dressed Kyoya off guard, but as she was still an innocent when it came to such things, he let it drop. “Yeah. Unfortunately. One way or another, if he's not destroyed down to his soul, the spell stays in place. Check it out yourself—you still don't have a shadow.”

On the other side of the wall, Sayaka let out a small scream.

“I noticed after we left the hotel. The Sorcerer's shadowmancy. Your shadow led you to me. But why would your shadow know stuff like that?”

Sayaka didn't know either. Though if he had perchance spied over the wall, despite the draft of unpleasantly cool autumn breeze, he would have seen Sayaka's cheeks flushing red hot. The Sorcerer said that she was in love with Kyoya.

“I don't know. And why would I have come to your room?”

“Who knows,” Kyoya answered, playing dumb. No need to hit her over the head with the truth at this juncture. There was no telling how badly she'd take it. “Seeing that the Sorcerer cast this spell on you, it's a safe bet that as long as it continues, so will the curse on your father.”

Facing the wall, bathed in the bright fall sunlight, the two sank into silence, Kyoya contemplating the battles to come without Asura, and Sayaka worrying about her ailing father.

“Well, nothing's getting done just sitting here,” Kyoya said a long minute later, pulling on his still damp trainer. “First off, let's figure a way to get you out of here.”

“Huh?”

Sayaka peeked around the wall, a confused expression on her face, exposing her white shoulders and the swell of her breasts rising out of her bra. Kyoya hastily looked the other way. On any other occasion, he would have leaned in for a better look. With her, though, it was somehow different.

“Obviously,” he said bluntly, “a dangerous place like this is no place for a woman like you to be on her own.”

And yet that bluntness seemed somehow moderated.

“I'm not on my own. You're with me.”

“Save the humor. I've still got a job to do. I've got enough on my plate saving your father and keeping this crapfest of a place from getting any worse than it already is. And the clock's ticking. Got three days left, counting today. You're a good girl, but I'm a busy man.”

“All the more reason you need my help,” Sayaka said, the seriousness of her intentions not slipping in the slightest.

What a pain
, Kyoya thought. However her father might be some savior of the modern age, she lived in a little world of her own. Even if she didn't, she couldn't just waltz in here in the middle of the night like she was going to the mall.

“Let me cut to the chase. It's gonna take all I've got keeping my own self in one piece. The last thing I need is to be dragging around a ball and chain. Beating off that last attack was no walk in the park, believe me. We need to go our separate ways. Right now, I'm quaking in my boots, my head feels like it's gonna split open, my arms and legs are about to fall off, and my heart could explode out of my chest any minute.”

He wasn't exaggerating. Stomping that monster fish and shooting the needle through Suiki's eye took all of his concentrated psychic energy. He was exhausted.

“But didn't you defeat those demons?” Sayaka said encouragingly.

“Problem is, I got as good as I gave.”

“Either way, you wounded them severely. A demon that Master Rai said was impervious to any kind of physical attack—you defeated with a single needle. Using more powerful weapons, you surely would have crushed it. You were magnificent. More importantly, despite being against it all along, you came to Shinjuku anyway. The Master wasn't wrong to believe in you.”

“As if you would understand,” Kyoya said peevishly, lying down on the ground. And yet, the way the corners of his mouth turned up, he was not as put out as he might pretend.

“Anyway—”

“I'm going with you.”

“You don't get it, do you? I'm saying you're a burden I don't want to carry around.”

“That's because you care about me. Think of me as the air. Do whatever you want as if I wasn't there. I'll be your shadow, never getting in your way. I'm an Aikido three-
dan
. And I've got this laser ring. Any monsters or gangsters show up and I can take care of myself.”

“Look here—”

“Besides, any time you spend trying to send me back is time wasted. Especially if I resist.”

“You, resist?” Kyoya said, his eyes widening.

“That's why I'm asking you to let me go with you. I can't shut myself away in some safe place while my father is in such dire straits.”

Sayaka's eyes glistened. The old saying was no less true here and now—no man could resist the tears of a beautiful woman.

Kyoya sighed. “Fine. Do whatever.”

“Oh! Thank you!”

Suddenly she was right there, with her sixteen-year-old lithesome limbs circled around his neck. The supple warm softness of her breasts pressed against his back.

Kyoya flushed and jerked around. “Idiot! This is hardly the time or place for that!”

Sayaka was only wearing her bra and panties, making her buxom dimensions plain as day. “Don't look!” she shrieked, like any normal sixteen-year-old. She blushed bright red and ran back behind the wall.

“Um, ah, you all right?” Kyoya stammered, then said more forcefully, “You coming along is
your
decision, so don't go looking for sympathy. Start complaining or whining, and we're through. One more thing: if any of those chaps from the Information Bureau come for you, they're getting no argument from me. You're all theirs.”

Sayaka smiled and nodded. “Yes, but I left a message for Yamashina saying not to come looking for me. If it came out that I was in Shinjuku, and if anything should happen to me here, they'd likely be held responsible by the press, so I am quite sure they'll do nothing.”

“That's all?” Kyoya said doubtfully. “You'll just leak it to the tabloids, that's all?”

“Um, no.” Sayaka mulled over the right way to put it. “Rather, ah, words to the effect that if push came to shove, it might lead to demotions and budget cuts and the like.”

For a moment, Kyoya stared at her cherubic countenance. Then he blurted out, “Man, I so do not want to get on your bad side.”