A beautiful moon hung in the night sky.
Kyoya opened his eyes. He was sitting on the rock, legs crossed in the lotus position. The discipline and training required to amass spiritual power was entering, as planned, its final stretch.
Up till now, unbelievable things had occurred around him. Hungry wolves had crept onto the promontory and prowled around, growling in their throats and sniffing the air. And yet they didn’t once dare bite.
It was like Kyoya didn’t exist there. Or rather, that his presence meant more to them than the trees or the stones. Gnashing their teeth, they left and went elsewhere to fill their bellies.
From time to time, when Kyoya climbed down from the rock and strode around the promontory, he noticed he was walking through the boulders. A mind cleared of all mundane thoughts can quench fire. When Nobunaga Oda attacked Keirin Temple in the province of Ka, this was the incantation chanted by the monks perched on the gates as he attempted to burn them alive.
Though in this case, even the rocks began to fade at his touch. Such was the result of spiritual training in the ultimate mountain aesthetic of the Himalayas, and absorbing the energy of the universe pouring down.
Of course, he came down from the rock to exercise his kenpo.
There was a graveyard next to a village at the foot of the mountain, haunted by the usual evil spirits and residual ghosts, or restligeists. Kyoya purified them all. They thanked him and left. At one time he would have simply vanquished them. That alone was evidence of an increase in spiritual strength.
But it still wasn’t enough.
In order to counter the masked lord’s secret ability to send his own psychic energy back at him, Kyoya had no choice in these three final days but to shoot for the top in one fell swoop.
There’d be no taking it easy. Not to mention, according to the newspaper Tarta had brought, the weird goings-on in Demon City. Even Chief Yamashina had gone to check it out. Things were growing stranger and stranger and there was still no word from Mephisto. Similar messages were coming into the bureau on a daily basis.
In any case, only Kyoya’s character could have brought him this far. His cells had activated in a flash as they absorbed the energy filling the universe. For over two weeks, he hadn’t drunk a drop of water.
This energy of the universe was suffused with the pure powers of creation. If anybody else—witch, warlock, psychic warrior—whose psychic powers were not matched to its nature, the result would be instant death.
In that sense, there could be no one more perfectly attuned than Kyoya.
Now he opened his eyes. Oddly enough, a color approaching fear rose to his face. He quietly turned precisely in the direction of Tokyo.
“This feeling—” he muttered. “Today is the day.” He bit his lip. “But how do I return?”
He heard footsteps. Not along the ridgeline. From the ravine below, traveling up the gentle slope. A single pair of footsteps in the snow.
Kyoya waited silently. He knew who he was waiting for. The strength of the approaching spirit raised goose bumps on his skin. A concentrated lump of malice.
The figure that soon appeared behind the stone pedestal was covered in armor and carrying a long lance under his arm. It was Valen. Valen’s ghost carried about him a fierce and evil power that buffeted him.
“I’ve come to renew our contest,” said the voice of the ghost.
“Let’s have at it, then,” Kyoya answered without hesitation. Saving hate-crazed souls was the province of nenpo as well.
He descended from the stone table and settled into a fighting stance. Nothing fancy. He wasn’t showing off. The normal en garde position.
Valen said nothing. He let the lance speak for him. Kyoya batted it away, and felt a cold chill run through him, the violent manifestation of Valen’s malice. Slipping through the garden of strange stones, Kyoya pivoted to his right.
The lance pulverized the boulder and arced through the air. Kyoya parried it left and closed the gap between them in a flash. Valen pulled back the lance. Drawing him in, perhaps. The parry had left Kyoya’s right hand numb.
A stone Buddha stood between him and Valen. That was when he heard a strange voice. He heard it because of his now heightened senses.
Kyoya-san, come quickly. Sayaka’s voice. Those words crystallized in his being. He took off at full speed. I’m coming, Sayaka-chan.
When he’d cleared the row of stone columns, the enchanted lance came at him. Asura sprang out. The tip of the lance flew into the air. The sword swept down from above his head and struck Valen’s neck straight on.
The powers of his thought flowed forth and annihilated.
Kyoya was alone. The moon came out. The stars twinkled in the sky. A holy night in the Himalayas.
“I guess he’s really gone,” he said, in tones as relaxed as his features.
At the last moment, he knew he had heard Valen’s voice. Thank you. He too had been freed from the destructive delusions of the world.
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” A fierce sense of conviction colored his face. It was soon replaced by one of human concern. “But how the hell do I get back to Japan?”
Doctor Mephisto gazed at Sayaka in front of him, wondering what to do next.
During this month, the experiments with the spirit of Semiramis taking control of Sayaka’s physical body had continued. Today the time had come. Not even Mephisto knew what the golden mask intended to do with Semiramis once she had fully reincarnated. The question hadn’t been asked. The answer hadn’t been offered.
He had been present during every experimental session, and so was fully apprised of their progress. But it appeared that for all his abilities, the lord of the Demon Palace could not easily revive a soul and command the physical body of another.
Sayaka’s soul resisted with a strength that surprised even Mephisto. This willowy young woman had a spine of steel.