The world was wrapped in light and dark. Where they overlapped shades of gray arose. Responding to currents of air that would not disturb a chick’s down, the layers of dark swirled and twined. The light shattered into a kaleidoscope of colors.
Here was an everlasting twilight zone filled with two sounds, the far distant fall of the rain and the closer hum of electricity and electronics.
Behind the silhouette of a man hard at work, another figure approached. Next to him was a large shadow.
“How is it faring?” Gento Roran asked. He was wearing an Inverness topcoat like Hyota’s.
“If perfection is what you are after—” said Mephisto.
“Yes.”
“Well, then. It couldn’t be worse. Shall we take a look?”
“By all means.”
Mephisto took several steps back, and switched on what appeared to be a generator. A grating mechanical sound was followed by the flashing of lights here and there in the dim surroundings. Near and far, far and near, with no sense of depth and distance. Perhaps nothing more than phantoms and will-o’-the-wisps.
Lying on the operating table, the giant rose up. He was human. He was in the shape of a human being. Except his upper half exceeded five feet. There were always conditions attached. Here especially. Demon City Shinjuku in particular. And without question when it came to this synthetic person.
The giant Siegfried bore the head of Yamada, wielder of the Dimensional Blade. The head had died once, and now came back to life on the shoulders of the man already killed once.
Blessed with a splendid physique from the start, the body of the giant boasted a remarkable symmetry. The small head aside, he projected a beauty that almost exceeded the sense of menace.
“And all in an hour. Your skills outdo even the rumors,” Gento remarked, observing that not a scar marred the neck. “Do the dead rejoice or live on in eternal sorrow?”
It wasn’t clear whether he was praising the brief amount of time required to bring this resurrection, or the exquisite nature of the surgical work.
The two turned their attention to the head. Yamada’s slender eyes were shut. “Time to wake up,” Mephisto cooed. “Your master has arrived. You should say hello.”
Yamada’s eyelids fluttered, the brain still arousing itself from its slumber. At last they opened. Siegfried slowly lowered his huge frame from the operating table.
That movement alone kicked up a breeze that stirred Mephisto’s and Gento’s hair. Considering the fighting abilities he’d had to start with, how much more intimidating he must be now.
Even Gento, who boasted being every bit Setsura’s equal, had only recently tossed his hat into the death ring, as was evident from the pale limbs poking out from the topcoat wrapped in white bandages. He’d broken a few ribs during their last face off.
Yamada’s head angled down. More faltering than a child remembering his manners, the cruel lips quivered. “Pleased—to—meet—you—”
Mephisto’s eyes gleamed. “Your master killed you. Revenge yourself.”
The provocation was unmistakable. Gento didn’t move, deporting himself as a master. A clear sense of will stirred in the giant’s turbid eyes, circulated like poison through his veins, swelling and expanding every cell in his body. In front of both Mephisto and Gento, the giant seemed to double in size before their eyes.
“You claim to be Setsura’s equal. You have prevailed previously, but what about now? Wouldn’t your death sing praises to my skills?”
Did Mephisto mean to kill Setsura himself?
Gento didn’t answer. The giant stood erect. Once again—no, adding the battle in the Coliseum, the third time or fourth time—this pair was destined to fight. Gento had carried the day so far, but now Doctor Mephisto’s demonic surgery had been added to the mix.
A spectator to this grotesque combat, the doctor’s eyes were as cool to its consequences as ever.
The giant’s lips moved. “Master—”
“Yes,” Mephisto whispered. “He is your master. And the man who killed you.”
“Who—killed—me—”
“Yes. Revenge yourself.”
“Revenge—”
“Strike now while you can.”
The doctor’s words flipped a switch in the giant’s brain. He roared, the echoes of which practically shook apart the very molecules of the air. Here and there where only the darkness should rule, painful growls and cries arose, and then just as quickly stilled.
The disturbed atmosphere struck the cheeks of Gento and Mephisto and left behind white vapor trails. The giant’s vocalization had changed even the composition of the air.
“Master,” he muttered, and jumped forward, a perfect physical form that might contend even with Michelangelo’s David. Not an single abnormality marred its outward appearance.
Beneath him, Gento flowed like water. The giant’s right hand carved out an arc like the pendulum of a huge grandfather clock, the scooping fingers brushing Gento’s hair.
In a flash, the two switched positions. They faced each other, Gento next to the operating table, the giant standing where he once stood. A strange aura enveloped them—the burning fire of joy.
“If this is the work you truly have wrought,” Gento said, “then we may yet defeat Setsura. But that is enough for now. Call off this contest.”
“You said it yourself. You are the master. If the servant does not hearken to your voice, then you can hardly deport yourself as such. Relax. Changes can still be made. Including you.”
Gento smiled. “In that case—” He sprinted at the giant before the sentence left his mouth.
The giant’s right foot swung in a roundhouse kick, its speed turning the leg into a blur, strong enough to crack a concrete pillar. The blow didn’t connect, but the giant stepped back faster than Gento advanced.
The stabbing nukite thrust aimed at his rippled abdomen fell several inches short. Gento missed the expected step and momentarily faltered. With a dozen feet now stretching out between them, he prepared to cast out his devil wires.
The hands of the giant hanging by his side looked peculiarly shapely and slender. Yamada’s hands!
Brimming with confidence, they rushed at Gento’s head. Residing in real time and space, while moving through a void of its own making, this was a martial wizardry that could slice through titanium steel, the Dimensional Blade.
With no place to turn, the crisscrossing motion tore vertically and horizontally at Gento Roran’s body. A moment later, a black line bisected Yamada’s smiling face from his forehead to his chin.
The giant raised his hands and squashed the wound closed as it burst apart at the seams. Clearly nursing a literal splitting headache, the giant looked at Gento Roran and his eerie smile.
The topcoat fell into four pieces at his feet. He surely never saw it coming, but the clothing was rent apart not only down his front but across his back as well.
Nevertheless, he had just managed to dodge the fearsome Dimensional Blade, causing the giant to miss his target. That smile of satisfaction spoke to his quick footwork.
Due to the giant’s surprise and the severity of the wound, the dark red splotch widened, his face grew ashen. Gento grinned at him like a jovial angel of death.
“Drop your guard for a second and lose your life. But call it a day now and what would we have brought the good doctor all the way here for? Once more into the breach, shall we?”
The meaning of that we soon became apparent. A red cross stained the bandages covering Gento from his belly button to his chest, thickening by the second, already spreading out and seeping down.
The giant hadn’t missed his mark after all.
Gento raised his hands and pressed them against his temples. “The terms here are the same,” he said. “Unless we hasten quickly to a conclusion, we will both go down together.”
“Master—” A voice dull-witted, ominous, and sad all at once.
The top of the giant’s head opened wide. He reached out to the right and left, arms parallel with the floor. Sensing what was coming, Gento sank down lower to the ground.
As the giant turned, a red line welled up around his waist. Gento’s devil wire. But instead of dismembering, it cast off blood like a water sprinkler as he spun like a top.
Devices within the arc of his spinning hands shattered. Flames erupted from the floor. The operating table split in two. Fresh lacerations marred everything the Dimension Blade touched, before cleaving in two.
Mephisto observed the gruesome sight without so much as the flicker of an eyebrow.
Gento danced on the wind, shooting out devil wires. Every last one of them cut apart by the raging Dimensional Blade, humming as the air rushed into the vacuum in its wake.
Gashes opened up on Gento’s forehead and ankle. Blood showered into the air and sprinkled to the ground. But knowing the meaning of his own defeat, a small smile welled up.
The floor beneath his feet ripped apart. Cracks ran up the wall to the ceiling. Weaving among the intervals in the increasingly hectic attacks, Gento sprang up.
Casting out the devil wires from his right hand, he saw the key to victory within his grasp. The rapid rotation sparked strange changes in the giant’s body. With the red at his waist marking the boundaries, his top half faced Gento while his bottom half turned toward the gloom behind him.
He swayed and fell like a tree, splitting in two and shaking the ground upon impact. Sparks showered down.
“Doctor!”
Forgetting to tend to his own deep wounds, Gento cast his eyes at the arc of the giant’s left hand, in the shape of the Dimensional Blade and Mephisto right in front of him.
Mephisto cupped his left hand around his right shoulder. Gento ran up to him, reached out and touched his shoulder. It slid apart.
“Doctor—”
“It seems to have been severed. But no need to worry. Fixing it myself is much simpler than leaving it to others.”
“That is a relief.”
Mephisto returned the arm to its joint. He looked down at the giant with almost tired eyes. “You will live again, but I’ve given you all the power you can handle. No matter how much we have of anything, we’ll always want more.”
“I am still alive. It follows that Setsura would be too.”
Mephisto nodded. “How do you wish to proceed?”
“There is something I would like you to get for me.”
“What is it and where?”
A mechanical scream drowned out Mephisto’s words.