When Setsura regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was the black rocky ceiling. He tried to sit up but couldn’t move a muscle.
The reason why quickly became apparent. His body was covered with devil wires, strapping him to the earth like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians.
“That little bitch. She’s the death of any party.”
He quit struggling and gazed into space. Though he couldn’t move his hands or legs, strangely, he didn’t feel any pain.
His eyelids dropped and he focused all his faculties on the invisible colors and the silent sounds around him. The sensations from his back and the scene before him said that he was still underground, in the culverts extending out from the underground water treatment facility.
This was a natural cavern not constructed by human hands, or a hole dug long ago and abandoned.
A small noise reached his eardrums, the sound of running water, an underground river or water still coursing through the ruins of the culverts and sewers. That life should go on in a place like this was hardly surprising in Demon City. It was always better not to jump to conclusions too quickly.
Without any presentiment, a pale face gazed down on him from above. “Can you move?” the Demon Princess cheerfully asked.
“What do you think?”
“Well, at least you didn’t drown.”
“That was the dragon’s flood?”
“Yes. Had I not intervened, you would have ended up another Dozaemon. Though that might have proved no less interesting an outcome.”
“Never a dull day for this busybody of a princess.”
Dozaemon was a famous sumo wrester who had drowned. The name had once been synonymous with all those who met their end in a similar fashion. Setsura couldn’t help being a little impressed that anybody in this day and age would use the metaphor.
“I really could have drowned to death like that?” He smiled like a flower. “If that’s what you want, then let’s do it and get it over with already. Why come to the rescue?”
“Because such a demise would hardly begin to assuage my feelings. You are the only man who ever severed me end to end.”
“What’s with this personal grudge business?” Setsura said with an air of disdain. “Man, I don’t get women. Always obsessed with the details, never seeing the big picture.”
“Why do you keep getting in Kikiou’s way? Is that your way of saving this city?”
“Speaking of which—” Setsura paused and thought for a moment. “That doctor—the one who went all in with General Ryuuki—made it my job. And then he went and got mixed up in all this mess and became one of you.”
“According to Kikiou, he did it all in a quest for knowledge. What do you think?”
“Doctors and long-lived women remain a mystery to me.”
Princess laughed. “You will continue to pursue me on account of a man like that?”
“You are not a friend of me and mine.”
“Hmph. You mean that witch?”
Princess frowned, the kind of frown that would make a masochist come. “Pursuing me to revenge such an insignificant speck of a life sounds an awful lot like a personal grudge to me.”
“I suppose so,” Setsura confessed.
“At any rate, you are a strange one. Such a pretty face on a head filled with such puzzles. It’s like you spend every day staring at the sky watching the clouds go by.”
“I could almost agree with you. But every new day is another day going to the mattresses with the uruchimai.”
Princess knit her brows. “What’s that?”
“Ah, your education is lacking. The non-glutinous rice used to make senbei.”
“Senbei?”
Princess looked all the more confused, as if she was playing hooky the day the subject was covered in school.
“A confection, a kind of rice cake seasoned with soy sauce and baked.”
“Sounds like something girls would play house with.”
“I suppose so.”
“What a way to earn your daily bread. You truly lead a pitiful life.”
“Give me a fucking break,” Setsura shot back. He had no use for pity from the person he was trying to kill, though he wasn’t all that put out. Princess really did seem to be sympathizing.
“Why not give that miserable life of yours a fucking break and come to my world? You could watch the clouds go by for ten thousand years. Bow down to me and ask nicely and I will make such wishes come true, just like that.” With a snap of her fingers.
“That’s one thing I would rather you not do. To tip one’s head to this personification of perverse pride is the last thing on earth anyone should do. Besides, I like making senbei. It’s fun. You should give it a try.”
“Maybe so.”
“So, now what? Boil me or bake me, whatever you want to do is up to you.”
Were he some over-the-hill made man, the line would be pitch perfect. But coming in the languid words of a half-asleep youngster, the effect was altogether odd.
“Fine. I’ll kill you then. But first, do you remember what I told you?”
“When, and about what?”
“About tormenting Takako and my promise that you would bend your knee to me.”
“Oh yeah, that.”
She might as well be talking to a brick wall, and it was getting her dander up. She drew herself to her full height. “Enough! If that’s how it’s going to be, then before getting down to business with you, I’ll bring Takako here. You will watch me drink her blood with your own two eyes. Then we’ll see what that smart mouth of yours has to say.”
“Do you know where Takako-san is? She’s got a literally split personality right now, remember?”
“I don’t know where she is here. I haven’t tasted her blood. But I do know where she is there. In my kingdom. What do you say? I’ll go fetch her right away.”
“And I’ll take the opportunity to escape while you do,” Setsura said in a threatening manner.
With a dismissive glance, Princess put her fingers to her mouth and whistled. In front and behind him, out of his line of sight, a pair of growls rose up from two creatures.
“We have our watchers. Especially the one whose legs you cut off. I’m sure it didn’t take it kindly and isn’t about to forget. Besides, can you move? The devil wires binding you are your own.”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Then you’d better think of it before I get back.”
The Demon Princess strolled away.
“Hey!” Setsura called after her. “You know, it’s still light outside!”
“Do you think me as vulnerable as my wretched servants?”
Her figure was swallowed up by the darkness. When the sense of her presence had vanished as well, Setsura’s thoughts returned to the nature of his predicament.
A fierce growling came nearer. The white tiger, Ko. Setsura could hear the loathing in its voice, the pain. Things were not looking up.
Princess had told the cat to kill him if he tried to escape. She hadn’t told it not to if he didn’t. In this condition, move a pinky and the animal was unlikely to resist the urge to sink its teeth into his flesh.