Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition (19 page)

The sound of the engine came closer. A strange noise, going up and down, left and right. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. He was starting to think the thing was alive.

He concentrated his senses, but couldn't pin down its location. “Whoa!” he shouted, falling to his knees on the road. A freezing breath—devoid of any physical presence—sank down to the center of his brain. Though his fatigue had something to do with it, it was in any case an extraordinary strong spear of pure malice.

The lingering resentments of all the people who died here
. There was nothing to be gained fighting them.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the source of the roar and the malice contracted.
Above!
He looked up, toward the roof of the Sumitomo Building, fifty-two stories and seven hundred thirty feet above him. Perched there was the silhouette of a rider astride what looked for all the world like a 750cc motorcycle.

Kyoya hadn't been in the DMZ two hours, and the battle was about to begin.

The rider must have spotted him from the start. He looked a mean son of a bitch. Kyoya didn't know how he got up there, but he had the feeling he'd be coming back down, and Kyoya didn't plan on sticking around.

He changed directions and ran toward the staircase. He wasn't trying to hide. His instincts told him that there was a time to stand and fight and a time to turn tail and run, and this was clearly the latter. That guy had bad luck written all over him.

Kyoya hadn't gone more than a yard when the rider and the bike landed on the ground with a thudding explosive impact, and stood there motionless between him and the stairwell. He'd fallen fifty-two stories and didn't bounce once. The glistening black machine unleashed an ominous rumble. There was death in its echoes.

The rider was wearing black leather and his face was hidden behind a racing helmet. It was the pure malevolence radiating from his body that froze Kyoya in his tracks.

Kyoya raised a hand. “Just a sec. I'm guessing you're a dead guy with a really big chip on his shoulder. But you just can't go around attacking people at random. Though from the vibe you're giving off, I don't imagine you're the type to listen to advice.”

The 750cc engine roared. Kyoya leapt sideways and out of the way. Before the rider could turn the bike around, he vaulted over the wall around the stairwell and landed on the road below. He felt a sharp stab of pain as his knees absorbed the shock, but didn't hesitate, jumping to his feet and heading toward the Mitsui Building.

The shocking scene before him brought him to a halt before he could get going. The roadway and sidewalks were strewn with white bones. They'd been run over, crushed, the clothing torn asunder, the remains robbed of any lingering humanity. The fate of people unlucky enough to wander in here unawares. The skeletons of children were there as well.

Kyoya shook with anger. Damned vengeful ghosts and their grudges. How did anyone with a human heart end up like that?

A memory from his training on Mt. Daisetsu sparked to life. Coughing up blood, under his father's verbal lash, day by day he'd experienced the feeling of moving toward a higher mental plane. And behind him, buried in the depths of the human heart, was a black clod of resentment pushing him along.

You and me both, bud. So who's the real human here?

Kyoya sprinted to the left, into the road. A black bolt of lightning skimmed past him. He rolled and came to his feet. His legs hurt like hell. Jumping down from Tenth Street was bad enough. He slumped to his knees. At full strength, he could handle a fall of three hundred feet without a problem, but his
nen
was slow coming back to full strength.

The 750cc bike whirled around without losing speed, caromed off the retaining wall alongside the roadway, and came at him straight on. Kyoya didn't have time to correct his posture. Instead, he tucked himself into a ball, arms over his head, and concentrated all his psychic energy. In the moment that the tires were about to roll over him, he sprang vertically with all his might.

Kyoya's loud shout rang down the street. The ghost rider should have sailed over him, done a one-eighty, and landed on his head. Except the rider and bike did another half-turn the moment before contact, kicking his foot against the ground. The same as when he'd fallen from the roof of the building, landing with an eerie kind of gracefulness.

Even so, perhaps equally startled by Kyoya's moves, he didn't continue the attack right away. They faced off less than six feet apart.

Kyoya felt for the first time in his life that this was a confrontation more than a
metaphorical
matter of life and death. This was one bad dude. And Kyoya didn't have the psychic strength left to go another ten rounds with him. He'd have to end it with a single, clinching shot. But use that, and things could get even worse from here on out.

Such a clinching shot required tapping the spare reserve of
nen
in Kyoya's subconscious. He couldn't control it. All he could do was deliver it all in one blast. After that, he'd be spent for the next twenty-four hours minimum. A literal last shot.

A weapon sure would come in handy. Kyoya glanced to the side. The machine charged him. He jumped, throwing a kick at the rider's head. The sideways glance was a bluff.

But the soles of his feet met only empty air. The rider flipped over his head and with perfect timing landed back on the speeding bike.

At the same time, Kyoya splayed backwards onto the ground, grunting in pain. During his leap, the rider had flung a hidden chain around Kyoya's throat, and dragged him along the pavement.

The back of his trainer ripped open, rubbing the flesh raw. He wrapped his hand around the chain, but couldn't budge it. Without using his
nenpo
, there was nothing he could do. Right now, Kyoya possessed the fighting strength of a normal human being.

The rider spun around, clearly intending to crack the end of this whip against the retaining wall.

Time to call on his reserves!

Kyoya's thoughts were interrupted by an arrow of light. The chain broke apart, sending him tumbling across the ground. He absorbed the blows and turned his attention toward the source of the light beam.

Standing at the foot of the stairs was Sayaka, her right hand pushed out in front of her. The laser ring on full power melted the chain in two. Considering who was doing the shooting, he wasn't surprised that she hadn't aimed at the rider. Though her aim was remarkable.

The rider turned his attention from Kyoya and accelerated his machine at the new opponent. Sayaka couldn't press the button on the laser, assaulted by the onrushing tide of malice. Drunk with the joy in slaughter, the monster bore down on her.

He was practically on top of her when his back bowed, his head flew back, and the bike zipped out from under him, banking to the left for several yards before spinning around uselessly as its innate ferocity drained away.

“Kyoya-san!”

Sayaka came back to herself and ran toward him. Observing Kyoya getting to his feet, apparently unharmed, she instead approached the rider. He'd been thrown from his bike. A bone was buried deeply through the black leather covering his back. With her life in the balance, Kyoya had imbued the bone of a nearby victim with his spare
nen
and flung it at him.

For the first time, the rider's voice escaped the confines of the helmet. “Hit the ground and it's curtains for me. But I cannot die. They won't let me sleep. I will surely return.”

Sayaka felt a shiver down her spine, knowing the Sorcerer in his hideout had said the same thing. Nevertheless, she knelt down on the road and laid his head in her lap.

Kyoya came up to them.

“Kyoya-san, this man—”

“Yeah, he's dead. He died a long time ago.”

Sayaka nodded. The previous dousing of malice from him told her that much.

“How did you get away from the taxi?” Kyoya asked under his breath. He wasn't angry. He'd escaped a certain death thanks to her. If anything, he was too tired to be angry. He could barely manage a hoarse whisper.

“I had no intent of fleeing to safety by myself. So I melted the door lock with my laser.”

Kyoya shrugged. “I feel sorry for the cabbie. Well, water under the bridge. Let's go.”

“Wait. We just can't leave him here.”

“Hey, show a little discretion when it comes to spreading the love around. Take a look at those bones over there. That guy ran over anybody who came in here. The beast should die the death he dealt to others.” The skeletal remains of the children still lingered in his mind's eye. “Heaven's judgment.”

“And if it was you?” Sayaka quietly fixed her eyes on him.

Kyoya reconsidered his first retort and smiled wryly. “All right then. Go ahead.” He sat down on the sidewalk.

With a small smile, Sayaka touched the helmet. It was coated with dark red from the crown of the helmet to the bottom edge.

“It's useless,” the rider moaned. “This helmet is stained with the blood of those I ran over and crushed to death. It won't come off until they release the curse. Their anger burns.
Kill him
, they say.
Drag him down, trample him underfoot—
”

“You are an unlucky man,” Sayaka softly said. “Begrudging others, stealing away their lives, and now cursed by them in turn.”

Human emotion filled the rider's voice. “How strange. When they hear your voice, they do not draw near. Stay by my side. Don't leave me alone—”

“I'm here. Tell me about it, what is so painful and so sad.”

The rider explained. The day of the Devil Quake, he'd turned eighteen and could finally have the Kawasaki he dreamed of. He'd worked his fingers to the bone, barely eating even, to save up the money.

And on that fated night, racing along Tenth Street, the Devil Quake threw him to the street below, crushing his body and snuffing out his life. Astride his beloved bike, the happiest man alive, he could not accept the hand that fate had dealt him and cursed his death.

Then the haunted miasmas invaded Shinjuku, turning the skyscrapers into an ancient stone circle that in turn triggered more ghostly and occult phenomena. All those with lingering regrets and attachments to the mortal world—vengeful ghosts, the souls of suicides—gathered there in the heart of Shinjuku and began to curse and possess any who ventured there.

With his particularly strong regrets, he was transformed by the unearthly winds, becoming a physical manifestation of all those grudges and regrets, with his beloved bike mowing down everyone he found wandering there. In the end, possessed by maledictions of the slaughtered dead, the mad blood condemned him to hunt down new victims until the end of eternity.

“How tragic.” Sayaka's tears fell onto the helmet.

A moment later, she gasped. Joy flooded her features. The bloody, immovable helmet loosened slightly. Kyoya stood up, a disbelieving expression on his face.

“They—they disappeared. All of them—gone.” Happiness suffused the rider's voice. He grasped Sayaka's arm with a hand clad in a worn leather glove. “Thank you. Thank you. Now I can truly die and leave this accursed place. You should leave quickly as well.”

“First there's something I'd like to ask you,” Kyoya said, coming to his side. “Do you know where that pan-dimensional thing called the coin purse disgorges its contents in the DMZ?”

The rider gestured with his right hand toward Chuo Park. “The library in the forest. Near there. But be careful. The forest is home to nests of haunted creatures and angry ghosts far stronger than what you'll find here.”

“Thank you,” said Kyoya, from the bottom of his heart. “I am very grateful to you.”

Strength seemed to seep out of the rider's body. “No—problem. You—could I get your name?”

“Sayaka.”

“A name like a pleasant breeze. A good name. My name is—”

His voice stopped. His hand fell to the ground. The ghost rider had finally earned his eternal rest. His head in her lap, Sayaka hadn't moved the whole time. Kyoya looked on with a sense of awe.

The espers in the market plaza—this vengeful ghost rider—the girl's touch turned evil to good. Perhaps as much could be expected from the daughter of a “holy man,” but a valuable gem in any case. Perhaps her touch could transform even Demon City.

A little while later, Sayaka quietly got to her feet. “What if we removed the helmet?”

“The curse seems to have been broken. I think he would want to sleep like this.”

“You're probably right.”

Kyoya's eyes were drawn to the bike. At some point it'd become covered with red rust. The bike was following the rider to the grave.

“There's some open space over there. We can bury him and the rest of the remains. After that, we'd better go back inside the building. The night around here is too dangerous to go running around. We'll wait until morning.”

That was when Sayaka noticed their surroundings were wrapped in a falling dusk. The stars of autumn twinkled in the darkening sky. Unaware, the time had slipped past six.

Filling in the grave, Sayaka appealed to Kyoya, “Please don't tell me to go again.”

“I couldn't do that to the person who saved my life. Besides, I don't think it'd do any good.”

“Thanks!” she said, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Yow!” Kyoya grunted. The bruises from the chain on his neck were still raw, as were the scrapes and road burns on his back.

“S-sorry. Those wounds look bad. They need to be treated.”

“I'm okay. Wherever we camp out tonight, we should be able to find a first aid station. Albeit thirty years old. So, where shall we stay?”

Sayaka looked in the direction that Kyoya seemed to be avoiding. “Isn't that a hotel over there?” The Keio Plaza Hotel, the lingering effects of the auto-suggestion machine.