The sound of something massive moving across steel plates. The footsteps approached, unimaginably heavy with physical weight and foreboding. Painful to hear—the long gap between each thudding step. And yet if the direction was true, it would arrive here inevitably.
By the time the human figure appeared from the depth of the shadows, Azusa was not as startled as she thought she would be.
A huge naked man ten feet tall. People that big were equally rare in Shinjuku, though their presence was hardly news to anybody. Not to mention that right before him was Gento, and he didn’t have a stitch on him.
He stepped into the dim slash of light slanting in from some unknown quarter.
The squawk of surprise squeezed out of Azusa’s throat was due to the small and wildly disproportional head perched on the giant’s shoulders.
He and Gento had gone their separate ways the first time they met. But not the second. This was Siegfried from the Coliseum, bearing Yamada’s head.
As he walked toward them, as if wading out of a black surf, that alone was not enough to provoke a reaction from Azusa.
The head was facing backwards. And what she could not have known—that the wound left by Setsura’s devil wires was knit together with an exceedingly fine thread.
“Human beings have made no headway when it comes to resurrecting the dead. That ability has changed not at all from ancient times. For the human to become more than human, those suitable and necessary measures first have to be taken.”
As if that included putting the head on backwards.
“To be honest, I have a hard time believing it myself,” Gento said, shaking his head. “Hardly thirty minutes have passed since I asked you to do a diagnosis, and you have already unraveled the art of necrodancing. Surgical tools could hardly be sufficient to pull off an operation like this.”
“Neither time nor fine materials are required,” Mephisto answered coolly. “Only the doctor and the patient.” Not a speck of pride or humility colored his voice. It was the same whether reporting news of a patient saved or a patient lost. Nothing less would be expected from the Demon Physician.
“And this test of yours?” Gento asked.
That was the signal. The giant jumped. Bounded, in fact. Propelling all five hundred pounds of his weight with a dexterity that approached that of a tumbling gymnast, he launched himself at Gento. The soles of his feet parting the air, the naked body soared over him.
Tucking into a crouch in the moment before he landed, Gento vaulted over his head, the head pointing oddly in the wrong direction. The invisible devil wires spilled out from his right hand. Gento saw them reflected in Yamada’s upturned eyes.
A surge of air buffeted him from both sides. The giant clapped his hands at an unimaginable speed around his flying frame. With unsparing herculean strength, those hands squeezed around the lithe body.
Gento’s countenance contorted, air whooshed out of his mouth. The speed of action here far exceeded that at the Coliseum.
But—then a red line circumscribed the right wrist. As the hand fell to the earth with a soft thud, Gento flew free. Kicking against the stump as it again reached up to grab him, pitching backwards and angling away.
He shook his head from side to side. At that moment, the titanium threads streaked down at the giant’s neck, too fine and fast for anyone to see. Gento spit them out of his mouth, bit down on the ends, and jerked on the wire lasso.
The giant sank down. The devil wires flashed fruitlessly over his head. For the first time, Gento’s expression took on an unsteady look.
The giant ran towards where Gento was going to land. With a split second to go, he didn’t have time to shake loose a new devil wire, and the giant’s speed put him a half-second away.
Throwing his shoulder forward with a force that could bust through a concrete wall, the giant’s inertia carried him a dozen feet beyond his intended target. His bare feet skidded to a ferocious halt, like sandpaper against stone. Blue smoke rose up from the flesh.
Yamada’s head looking back at where he’d been.
By the time he realized that Gento was floating there in midair, his stitched-together sections opened wide and came apart. Parting in two, his upper half slid off his lower half and fell to the ground like an installation of abstract sculpture.
“Splendid!” Mephisto said, though there was no telling from his tone of voice how heartfelt the praise really was.
Releasing the wire from a shard in the shattered ceiling, Gento set down on the ground. He pressed his right hand against his side.
“Hollow praise, to be sure. I cracked two ribs in the process.”
Mephisto had nothing to say about that. “If Hyota’s opinion of your condition is correct, then Setsura would have fared no better.”
“Installing radar detection in Yamada’s head, increasing the muscular reflexes and speed of nerve impulses fivefold—all this with a simple twist of the head. I have underestimated you, Doctor.”
“Most everybody does.”
“I expect you to outdo yourself next time,” Gento said emphatically.
Mephisto responded with a playful smile, the smile of a mischievous child, of a warlock who could turn the dead into supermen.
Gento’s voice grew brighter. “But I have a different end in mind.”
“If it has to do with that girl, then I decline.”
“This is completely separate.”
“Then I will perform the procedure at once.”
“I am deeply grateful.”
“In any case, what about her?”
“Apparently an acquaintance of Setsura. Slipped out of our net and back into it again. If it would prove useful, please help yourself to her heart, her brains, any other part that might come in handy.”
To this ghastly proposition, Mephisto answered, “All in good time.”
With this eerie reply hanging in the air, he walked over to the giant. After three steps he turned around, as if recalling something to mind.
“I would like to see this educational machine of yours.”
“Unfortunately, it has gone missing since dawn,” said Hyota.
“Has it fallen into Setsura’s hands?” Gento asked.
“That is yet to be determined. The concern right now is that the hearse did not take the appointed route. The road took it near Kawadacho.”
“Fuji TV, you mean.”
“That is correct. I took a quick look, but depending on the point of view, it might be considered the safest place for it.”
“Because of the watchman guarding it,” said Mephisto.
Except that no one there knew that was where Setsura was headed. What kind of reaction it would arouse if they did was another question entirely, but not one Mephisto was interested in raising right then.
“A hallowed principle of medicine is to avoid abusing the doctor-patient confidentialities and extracting information from third parties irrelevant to the diagnosis, but if you would permit me one question—”
“Go ahead,” Gento said breezily.
“Of the two dreams you mentioned earlier, what was the substance of the other?”
“Does it concern you?”
“Well, it is a dream dreamed by Gento Roran.”
“I dreamed of Setsura.”
“Hoh.”
“At some future date, I am sure we can find the time to fill you in on all the details. But not now. Let’s first straighten up all the loose ends before us.”
“Fine,” Mephisto quickly agreed.
Gento directed his attention to the two others standing there. “Hyota, have you enjoyed yourself with that woman?”
“Yes,” Hyota said, nodding. Azusa felt herself blushing a bit despite herself.
“I suppose you should be on your way. See to the retrieval of my abode.”
“As you wish.”
His arm locked around Azusa, Hyota disappeared into the gloomy darkness.
“Well, then. The fee for your medical expertise.”
Gento stood and climbed up the mountain. However he made his way, he did not leave a single dent of divot behind in the smooth surface. The summit of this small mountain was shaped like the top of a cone sliced off. Mephisto watched with curious eyes as the young man lay face down.
“Whatever strikes your fancy,” Gento said with a coquettish lilt.
Without another word, Mephisto knelt down next to him.