Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“My, my, my,” Kikiou exclaimed in a hoarse voice, tinged by both curiosity and fatigue. “Trees, shrubs, grasses—billions of them. How to go about replanting every one?”

The color of the world changed again. The spectrum of the sun hadn’t altered. The sun alone poured down its light with an intensity that made him squint.

“Oh.” Kikiou’s lips trembled. “Finally, the day has come. The heavens are opening.”

What was he looking at? The sky, the infinite blue sky—it was being torn asunder. A band slowly traversing the heavens and the earth in unison, of infinite width and length, as if drawn by a giant brush wielded by a great and whimsical god. From it poured forth a languid light tinged an ugly orange.

“A room,” Kikiou said to himself, though his meaning was not immediately clear.

At that moment appeared a giant sphere. The vertical edges of the sphere were cut off by the band, placing the sphere beyond it. The sphere glistened, as if submerged in water. Inside it—that could be just as well described as jet black—eerily shimmered another sphere twice as small.

The only agitation and movement, in fact, came from the fluid that contained it. The small sphere didn’t move at all.

But the most unsettling thing in view stretched out behind the sphere, garish red threads like radiating electromagnetic waves. Strange and spindly limbs of varying thickness through which, it became clear, flowed a liquid of the same color.

Now the band of light changed to white. And yet the unsettling orange glow from before continued to spill in and stain the world below.

For a moment, the big black star glared down at Kikiou and the world. A moment later, a pink cover or membrane or something fell from a great height, extinguishing everything in front of the band of light.

And then a moment after that, jutting toward him from that base of that membrane, was a line of tall, black, pointed pines. At the same time, the upper part of the band fell, narrowed to a line, and vanished.

Kikiou’s view was again suffused with blue. As if shrugging off a fleeting dream, the world regained its original color and configuration. He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes. He knew that these strange phenomena he’d just witnessed were closely intertwined.

“That this world would be touched by the likes of that. White tiger, dragon, what are you slacking off for? This is the one time you should be making your appearance.”

A strong current buffeted his face, the wind kicked up by the movement of that membrane. The gale roared through the upside-down forest and faded off into the distance.

“That was one big blink,” he said to himself.

The old man stuck his right hand out the window. Less than ten seconds later, a soft cooing and the beating of wings came to rest on the tip of his finger.

The silver bird deftly folded its metal wings. The joints in its tiny legs bent and flexed as it scurried from the fingers to the wrist, up the arm and came to a halt on his shoulder. Kikiou cocked his head to hear what the whispering clockwork voice said.

“I see. Mephisto and Yakou too. Princess never left the hot springs. Setsura alone got out. A good thing I wasted no time constructing you. Don’t forget the task ahead of you. Now go.”

As if following the intent of his waving hand, the steel searching bird glittered beneath the sun and fluttered back into the sky. It soon became a dot in the distance and disappeared from view.

Having once allowed Setsura to invade their precincts as far as Princess’s mausoleum, and in order to prevent any additional blunders from not detecting his presence, he’d made and released a hundred of these birds into the air.

Their eyes peered into every nook and corner of the world, relaying everything they found to their closest compatriot and so on until the information reached their creator’s ears.

Kikiou left the manor house a dozen minutes later. He was wrapped in long gray robes, his favorite staff in hand, but there was no telling what was up when it came to this old man. Only that this was the world he had created.

After strolling unconcerned through the upside-down forest, the wizardly figure arrived at the Crystal Pavilion where Mephisto was being held.

The great warlock opened the door. There was nothing about the place to indicate that it had been affected at all by the strange phenomena. Without hesitation, he marched into the room.

As expected, he found Takako Kanan asleep on an old-style ebony bed. After her doppelganger had arisen in the Demon Pavilion, the little birds had told him that Mephisto had moved her here for further treatment. She lay there in a thin silk gown, appearing to not even breathe.

“Princess has disappeared. The doctor and Yakou are gone. Before I follow them, something must be done with her.”

His narrow eyes narrowed even further. A fearsome glow poured from his eyes. An almost blinding qi radiated from his body, as if fringed with white fire. Then it vanished, replaced by a different kind of light—not so much ferocious as confused—something that had welled up in his memories.

“I have lived for over four thousand years and have encountered such an illness but once.”

In the year 1704, in a remote village in the Kingdom of Prussia, a fourteen-year-old girl by the name of Ingrid suffered such a split personality. While her body lay upon her bed, her exact double roamed the village, indulging in unspeakable acts of lewd and lascivious behavior. As debauched as the everyday Ingrid was modest and devout, she indulged in every imaginable act of sexual congress with every male from five to ninety-two. However their wives and mothers tried to protect them, she would pass through walls and floors.

“Just before her spirit returned, her body was burned by the enraged villagers. We shall never know what kind of woman she would have been after waking up. No one can say to this day.”

Kikiou spoke these words aloud in a curiously cool voice. The dark and murderous rage directed at Takako was muddled by an equally deep and abiding intellectual curiosity.

He stroked his jowls in an expression of contem-plation. Soon he smiled. “According to the little birds, Setsura still remains here. There is no need to panic. The girl may be useful yet.”

Setsura sneezed and said with a sniff, “Somebody’s got to be pulling my leg.”

More than a hour had passed after the Demon Princess had disappeared from the hot springs. He spent that time looking for Takako. He’d left his clothes to dry on a tree limb and sat down on one of the black rocks and sent his devil wires out to do the scouting.

All he’d gotten back for the effort was this sneeze. Now dressed, his clothes still felt damp. “That woman disappeared from the hot springs. Kanan-san must have gone as well.”

Setsura shivered and stood up. They’d been in the water and were just about to go at it when a powerful vortex sucked Princess right out of that existence. Everything around the hot springs remained unchanged, so it could not be a simple freak of nature. The vortex had been too selective in its target.

If he was going to have any luck ascertaining Takako’s whereabouts in this world, he’d have to ask Kikiou. That was a pretty outrageous conclusion, but the manor house was where Setsura’s feet were taking him. The sheer outrageousness of a proposition wasn’t the kind of argument likely to sway the thinking of this young man.

He’d proceeded through the forest for five minutes when something strange came to his attention.

He was soaking wet.

He thought at first his clothes were still damp. But that didn’t seem to be the case. Nor had he suddenly walked through a very deep puddle. No, it was as if his body had become water.

“That’s funny.”

He touched his cheek. His finger sank through the skin. He lowered his hand. The flesh of his face had lost all color and melted like ice. And when the movement stopped, the torn cheek restored itself in a flash, skin and muscle fusing together.

“I’ve somehow turned into water,” Setsura muttered. This, at least, surprised him.

There could only be one cause. That warp in space had rearranged the molecules of the water and his body. Turn into a dream or water, he was a man in a hurry.

“At this rate, I’ll have to see Kikiou or Mephisto. I’d better get a move on.”

An invisible thread jumped out from Setsura’s right hand and wrapped around the branch of a tree. The man in black lifted easily into the air. His wires should have also transformed into water. Either way, they continued to work as well as could be expected.

Five minutes later, Setsura set down on the roof of the Crystal Pavilion.

First and foremost, he was concerned about Takako’s physical well-being. When Princess and the rest of them had left the Demon Pavilion, the devil wire he’d twined around Takako’s ankle communicated movement toward the Crystal Pavilion.

He descended from the roof, exercising all due caution, though it was not clear what kind of caution he ought to be exercising. He cast in another strand from the window to confirm the occupants inside.

“Good,” he said, in English for some reason. He landed inside the front foyer and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Setsura entered. The familiarity of the voice aroused no suspicions. Checking the layout of the rooms, he headed straight to the bedroom.

“Yo,” he said with a smile and a raised hand. He had the sense that Takako was being looked after.

Doctor Mephisto looked up from the table next to the bed and said in his refined manner, “Welcome back. Did you find Kanan-san?”

“Nope,” Setsura said bluntly, as if to say obviously he would have brought her with him if he had. “That woman ditched me as well. It’s just not my day.”

“This isn’t like you’re baking senbei, you know.”

“If you want to go tracing this thing back, we’d find your goofball treatments are to blame. Is Kanan-san’s soul coming back anytime soon?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

Setsura glared at the doctor in white. Hardly a menacing glare. More like a gun ready to be cocked and fired, Doctor Mephisto knew.

“So what do you plan on doing next with that fighting spirit of yours?” The look he gave Setsura was as piercing as the question he asked was light. “You collected something else along the way instead of Kanan-san. It’s getting a bit humid in here.”

Setsura turned the other way and started whistling softly.

“I would think a man of your age would have a less embarrassing repertoire than a nursery rhyme like Cooing Doves.”

Mephisto drew closer to him. Setsura hastily backed away. “What are you doing?” Though it was Mephisto who asked, not Setsura.

“Getting away from you.”

“Why?”

“Hands off, okay? You got that look in your eyes, Doctor.”

“I only wish to examine you. Hold out your hand.”

“The only one here you should be examining is Kanan-san.”

“She is resting peacefully. For the time being, I can do nothing for her. You are the greater concern.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Be a good boy and come here, else I won’t be able to give Kanan-san the attention she deserves.”

“Cheap shot.”

“I am not the kind to ever leave a patient behind.”

Setsura stopped. The white hand touched his forehead. “Seems you went for a swim.”

“Yes.”

“Seems like you drowned a bit in the process.”

“A bit.”

“Took in considerably more water than air.”

“Rub-a-dub-dub.”

“You must be treated right away.”

“Enough with the bad jokes.”

“I have not told a joke since the day I was born,” Mephisto said coolly. “I have crossed a hippopotamus with a shark on occasion, but with concrete motives in mind. I am always serious.”

“Yeah, I should have known.” Setsura clapped his hands with obvious irritation.

“I will prepare the medicines right away. Wait over there.”

“There’s no need for that either. I’ve got to get my hands on Kikiou.”

“Why?”

“To get the hell out of here. That woman and Kanan-san’s spirit must have been caught up in that space-warp thing.”

“Kikiou is not here presently. I went looking for him about a pressing matter and found that he had left.”

Setsura cocked his head to the side. “Damn. Well then, whatever I guess.” He sat down in the chair on the side of the table opposite Mephisto. “How long is that going to take you?”

“Kikiou is a great alchemist. So it comes as no surprise that the place is well stocked. Preparing the compounds should take but a minute or two.”

“Hey, close is good enough, so don’t dawdle.”

Setsura furrowed his brows and rubbed his shoulders. Where his fingers pressed against the skin shimmering drops of water welled up, creating small wet stains on the floor. The one flowed into the other until a rather large dark shadow had formed.

Call it the drippings of a ladykiller and the metaphor would come too close to the real thing, as if attired as stylish young men do, it sprawled on the second floor of a small restaurant to the accompaniment of a samisen, one after the other leaving their effusing essence behind.

Mephisto turned to the laboratory equipment arrayed on the table next to the bed and began mixing the compounds. To ordinary eyes, his hands would have moved in a blur.

He selected a bottle, opened the top, measured out a quantity into a sterile measuring spoon and poured that into a mixing mortar. This process took less than three seconds. It was only the white doctor’s hands that switched into a fast-forward mode. And suddenly returned to normal.

“Done.”

Mephisto got up and went over to Setsura and held out his right hand. There was a white capsule in his palm.

“Just one dose, but the efficacy is guaranteed. Go ahead.”

“Yes, yes,” said Setsura, taking it.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

“Done,” Setsura said, popping it into his mouth and holding up his hand.

“The effects should become evident shortly.”

“What effects?”

“Your body temperature will drop, and your breathing will grow ragged.”

“Jeez.” Setsura’s body suddenly stiffened.

“Then you will feel an intense pain in your heart. I could address it, but there is not enough time. After that, you will be the same as any normal dead person.”

Setsura lay down on the table, his body twitching. The spasms were intense enough to make the table shake.

“How are you doing?” Mephisto asked, turning to the door. Though the real Mephisto should have been, like Yakou, drawn through that warp in space.

“Good show,” said the silhouette filling the doorway. Kikiou strode over to Doctor Mephisto. “I’d heard that the director of Shinjuku’s hospital had his own double. Making my own in half an hour was quite an achievement, if I say so myself. Instilling the proper memories was a challenge, though.”

Kikiou patted Mephisto on the back. This time, everything was going according to plan, and he had every reason to preen.

The first thing on Setsura’s mind would be Takako Kanan. Knowing that he would seek the assistance of Mephisto, Kikiou exploited that chink in his psychological armor to plot his extinction. In fact, he had no concrete methods for achieving the latter. The poison could be nothing more than the product of calculating backwards from Setsura’s abnormal change.

“I had intended to make use of the young woman, but that appears unnecessary. So leave her here or take with?” He thought it over for a minute. “Leave her. Having joined Princess’s brood, Doctor Mephisto should return here. But no matter how many of you there are, lacking my powers, the question remains whether you can return her to her original state. In the meantime, let us finish him off. If you would, Mephisto.”

“Understood.”

The white doctor hoisted Setsura onto his shoulders and slipped out of the room, Kikiou following after him.