“Exactly.”
“She’s a babe. What do we do?”
“Kill her. Here and now.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Hayata raised his fifty caliber auto, aimed it at Yakou’s back and squeezed the trigger. The thunderous reports ruptured the stillness of the spring day. His back arched, Yakou whirled around.
Twelve spent casings fell glittering onto the grass. Hayata tossed the gun away and wiped the drool from his mouth. The high-powered gun that could stop a mad bull in its tracks should have turned Yakou’s torso into a sieve. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that Yakou was still standing there impassively, he tottered up to the beautiful dancing Princess.
He was not under the spell of the Demon Princess. Or rather, it was her dancing alone that intoxicated his senses. The iron will of a cop who cruised daily through the carnage of Demon City melted like warm putty at the sight of her willowy limbs and transfixing countenance.
“Make me your servant—”
Her pale hands flitted like swallows before his empty face. Then beside the dancing Princess stood a torso and a head flying into the air, connected by a tide of blood. The tide became a mist carried by the wind and washed over Yakou as Hayata’s head thumped as well to the ground.
“What’s the matter? Can’t come any closer?”
The rainbow danced on and the ominous taunt rang out, oblivious to the macabre scene.
Yakou couldn’t budge. Not because of fear. An utterly unique look shone in his eyes, that no man had ever shown to Princess before.
“I believe you may have leapt to the wrong conclusion,” he said in a low voice.
“What would that be?”
“We are birds of a feather. And there are those other things too close to see. The emperors you drove mad, did you seduce them out of love?
“Well,” Princess said coldly. “They were all the same to me.”
She glared at Yakou, her eyes spilling forth a fearsome light. “I handed over the girl. All there is left for you to do is leave.”
“Then I’ll leave with Setsura Aki-san,” Yakou said with a ghostly smile, showing the confidence of a man who had led that band of vampires since olden times. Once in the skies above Chuo Park he had bowed down before Princess’s evil eye—there was that lingering anger too.
Lightning wouldn’t strike twice. Providing he was not caught off guard, even an immortal, four-thousand-year-old vampire princess could not easily escape his qi cannon.
He had put together a dedicated band of brothers to deal with the creatures scattered across the Shinjuku night spawned by her. While preparing for the next encounter, a separate group arrived with news of the ship. This time, they would revenge themselves on the foe who killed the Elder and purge the humiliation of that defeat.
And yet Princess did not stop dancing, within the wind and light and peach blossoms, the symphony of spring. Far from being intimidated, she was hardly aware he was there. And far from being angered, Yakou was more taken aback.
Nevertheless, his hands shifted to a fighting stance, for he was the leader of the night dwellers. His hands reached out, spikes that could pierce a wall of steel. A silent, shapeless shaft of energy poured from his fingertips and shot towards the rainbow dancer.
In the multicolored kaleidoscope, a golden point of light flared up. And disappeared. One after the other, sparkling dots of light were absorbed into her body.
The Demon Princess raised her hand to her mouth and made a fist. Pursing her lips, she unfurled her fingers. Propelled by her breath, the peach blossoms wound around the trajectory of Yakou’s qi cannon and covered his face.
Yakou reeled back with a moan, his eyelids white, his eyes sealed by the blinders of white petals.
“If you cannot destroy me, you cannot remove that. So, Yakou, what do you think of your veil of darkness now?”
“I think this.”
Princess hadn’t expected that answer or his subsequent flight into the air. His face rendered expressionless, the winged figure rose elegantly above her and flitted off toward the far spring meadows.
“Bastard.”
In contrast to her execrations, with movements that did not disturb at all the flow of her dance up till then, Princess waved her hands. The sleeve of her gown sprang into the air like a flying fish and chased after him. Oblivious to the streamers hot on his heels, from the air Yakou thrust down his hands at a point below him.
“I found what I’m looking for, Princess.”
What had he seen with his unseeing eyes? What he had probably already sensed in the midst of the battle, using those senses that both he and Princess shared as creatures of the night.
Black splinter fragments erupted from the undergrowth as the multicolored band wrapped around his body. He heard the bones of his body breaking. Plunging abruptly toward the ground, what he felt was not pain. An intoxicating sensation coursed through the marrow of his bones and raced through his veins.
He could die like this. At that moment, the immortal young man longed for death.
Princess’s voice echoed in his ears from far away. “Emperor Zhou and Emperor Jie died the same way, the pain piercing their flesh and bones turning into tears of ecstasy. You are the Elder’s grandson. The least I can do is indulge you no differently than I would a king. You should taste the bitter fruits of an undying body all over again.”
Yakou was already writhing on the ground. The sunlight shone down on the trampled grass. He watched the demonic fairy floating though the spring dancing her eerie dance. The grass danced, the blood danced. Broken bones pierced his chest and viscera.
“How fare your heart and lungs? Ah, stabbed through and through. But your bones won’t kill you. The closer you get to death, the greater the pleasure you will feel. The dance is over. What do you say I assist you in these throes of bliss?”
She licked her lips, stopped dancing, and walked over to stand next to Yakou. With a lewd glance at his crotch, she knelt down. The mere touch of her hand drew from Yakou a low moan. The waves of unbearable pleasure pushed him inexorably toward climax. He did not right now possess the force of will to resist.
Using her forefinger like a stiletto, she slit his slacks in two. As if released from impatient seclusion, his member sprang toward the sky.
“Though I can’t so easily destroy you, I can drive you mad. Yakou, you will thank your stars for the time you stay sane.”
This woman, whose beauty like her evil knew no end, and yet might easily be mistaken for a heavenly nymph, wrapped her red lips around his aroused manhood.
Yakou twisted his body but he could not resist. His body could only move reflexively to the stimulus. She went down on him hard, and he came in her mouth. However pleasurable the sensation might be, all emotion vanished from his pale face. As if the wellspring of that pleasure itself had taken form within him, his vacant eyes froze in their sockets.
She pulled her moist mouth away and swallowed. Her throat quivered. “Once more,” she exulted. “Once more and Setsura becomes mine and you go out of your mind. Well then, who gets to go first? Who gets to watch? Of course, let’s start with you.”
Once again she lowered her debauched lips to him.
A sudden disturbance marred the quiet stillness of the spring day. With a start she spun around. A bright red line circumscribed her neck. Her head slid to the side. She raised an arm and returned it to its rightful place.
“You’ve woken up, Setsura?” Her indescribable voice carried on a fitful breeze toward the dark silhouette who stood beneath the distant peach tree. “No—you are—different. But the same Setsura. The man who once divided me in two.”
“You have met me, Princess,” he said, his countenance as cool and pale as the peach blossoms dancing and twirling before his eyes.