“I met you in a room in Mephisto Hospital, and—” Princess stopped mid-sentence. “No, fine. But I cannot stand this face. I cannot forgive this face. I cannot make you mine with this face!”
“What are you saying, Princess!” Kikiou cried out in a strangled rage perfectly appropriate to the situation. “Drink his blood! Make him your servant! The two of you and I will hold this city, and then the whole world, in the palms of our hands. If you cannot, then kill him! Kill Setsura Aki!”
“Is it all right if I kill you, Setsura?”
“Whatever spins your pinwheel,” he said with a shrug.
“You really don’t give a damn, do you? Mark my words, the time will come when I will eat you.”
The great vampiress spun around.
“Princess!”
“We are going. Kikiou, make the ship ready to depart.”
“We can’t. This is our only true home. Only Demon City Shinjuku can make our dreams come true. If we leave here, we must inevitably be eternal wanderers. That cannot be. That simply cannot be.”
At that moment, a commotion swept up the street below, cresting over the railing like a tide and spilling across the roof. From the chorus of voices, one stood out in particular.
“Destroy her.” The waves of sound crashed again. “Destroy. Destroy. Destroy.”
Princess perched nimbly atop the railing and stared down at the ground. The squirming mass of humans circled the hotel, looking up at her. Their eyes all glowed red.
“She is there.”
The words spread like a current. Hands reached toward the sky, the fingers themselves seeming to speak.
“Destroy the sire.”
“Destroy her.”
“Destroy her.”
“So my servants have finally been roused to action,” Princess observed calmly. “And they cry out to kill me. The Hsia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties—it was the same there too. It started with the high and mighty, but in the end my servants and slaves were the ones calling for my death. This is the end. Kikiou, supposing I wished to carry out your vision, it becomes impossible with no one here to carry out my commands.”
“Destroy her.”
“Destroy the sire.”
The cries billowed up like an evil miasma, stained by the colors of an infinite loathing. She had created her minions from the citizens of this city and then cruelly dispatched them with the same whimsy. This was their accursed coup d’état against her.
A heartbroken Kikiou slumped to his knees. This old man, the first and last hope for Shinjuku’s triumphal vampiric transformation, was seeing his dreams dashed before his eyes.
“Let’s go,” said Princess.
Kikiou pressed his cane against Takako’s throat.
“Are you disobeying me, Kikiou?”
“Disobey? I am!” the old man shouted, gritting his teeth. The defiance called out from his very blood. “This once I will turn my back on you. That dark star that turned my plans to dust—I shall not depart this world leaving him behind unscathed! I will never rest until he tastes the dregs of our despair, even if it be one ten-thousandth of our pain and anguish. And this girl’s life is the first place to start.”
The sturdy shaft of wood bit into her white throat. The cane split neatly in two—Kikiou’s body lifted into the air and sailed over the railing—it was hard to tell which happened first.
The Demon Princess listened entranced as Kikiou’s screams faded into the distance below them. She reached her hand to her throat. “Why leave this intact, Setsura?” she asked. “You didn’t save Takako, but punished the traitor who turned against me. Go ahead and cut away. The results will always be the same.”
Holding one end of the invisible wire, the beautiful silhouette stood there, not moving, as if transfixed by the moon.
“I’ll be going then. After giving my servants below a taste of my own medicine, I will set forth on a long, long voyage. I won’t return until after you are dead. At that time I will bring Kikiou’s prophesies to pass and build him his citadel. Adieu.”
In that moment, Princess’s head flew into the air. The story would be told from that moment on that another pretty half-moon was painted in the sky.
Like a fountain of fresh black ink, her blood erupted upwards. The headless torso balanced a moment longer on the railing, swayed in the manner of a woman too drunk to catch herself, pitched forward, and was swallowed up by the darkness.
Once upon a time, foretelling her own destruction, the Demon Princess had told Setsura that she would die only when she had lost the will to live. Knowing that moment had come, and allowing Setsura’s attack to proceed—there was no way to truly comprehend what manner of mind she possessed.
Shinjuku was no less a Demon City to demons.
“It is over.” Mephisto’s voice came from the stairwell behind him.
Setsura didn’t turn around. “How long have you been there.”
“I am sure you noticed.”
Setsura didn’t answer. The two approached the steel railing and looked down at the world below.
“The ship is on the move,” Setsura said.
The white foam rose on the road, covering the feet of the retreating figures assembled there. The road became a canal and the ghost ship set sail. It turned left at the intersection and headed back to the world from which it came.
Kikiou stood on the bow of the ship. Next to him, the exquisite limbs and head were laid out in the manner of a pious offering.
With the fallen Takako in his arms, Mephisto looked down from the railing just as the ship turned past the Mitsui Building. Kikiou glanced up and called out to them.
“What did he say?” Setsura asked.
“Hmm,” Mephisto answered.
“Like, see you around sometime?”
“Hmm,” Mephisto said. He glanced at Setsura’s neck. “I couldn’t make out what he said at first, but I think he said you look awfully worn out.”
He would have continued but clammed up. His one weak spot, the lips of that strikingly cool countenance moved and the verses reached his ears.
✦ ✦ ✦
Crossing the waters we’ve crossed before
Seeing the flowers we’ve seen once more
Spring breezes along the river bank roads
Before we know it, we’ve made our way home
✦ ✦ ✦
He added, “We’ll have to hope they don’t drop by again anytime soon.”
Setsura had greeted this same ship upon its arrival, and with the same verses. By the time his final farewell reached the ground, the roads were dry again. As if taking those words as a signal, the people there on the street trudged off into the dark to the streets and the houses they called their own.