Demon City Shinjuku: The Complete Edition by Hideyuki Kikuchi Page B

ravings of a madman. How your father would weep to hear you now. I could not imagine the son of Genichiro Izayoi betraying his memory so. A pity.”
    The Sorcerer grasped the hilt of the sword.
    â€œOkay. Hold on a second. One more question. Last one, promise. How many of those lackey monster bodyguards do you have, Boss? If you’re not gonna let me become a henchman, I guess that makes them my enemies. I’ll have to take ’em out too. So, for future reference, what do you say?”
    â€œThe damned fool still thinks he will be leaving here alive? Fine, I’ll tell you. There are three. Kaki, Suiki, Doki. Right now they are in a sanctuary elsewhere, preparing to offer another lass to the Demon Realm. We have two havens, tied to the movement of the stars.”
    â€œWhere is it? And what kind of powers can these three wield?”
    Though while posing the question, Kyoya could not help but regret that yet another innocent girl was being offered up as a sacrifice. Come to think about it, the proprietor of the Musashi Miyamoto said that two girls went missing every month.
    He did not know then that this girl was none other than Sayaka.
    The Sorcerer did not deign to answer this last question. He pointed the sword, still in its sheath, at the wall opposite where the marks left by freshly-applied plaster were still evident.
    â€œLet the undead come forth.”
    Amidst the eerie cries of the deceased, a fissure ran down the wall. With a series of dull thuds, the thick layers of plaster shattered and scattered across the floor. Seeing what was behind the wall, now revealed through the gaping hole, Kyoya grimaced.
    The bodies of the dead. Not a mere corpse. Not one or two. Dozens of decomposing bodies were packed into the cavern. Standing upright, kneeling, lying on their backs, slumped against each other—all clothed in rotting garb and crawling with maggots, eyeballs dangling from their sockets, the disintegrating flesh exposing their ribs and shoulder blades.
    Weeks must have passed since their murders, and yet the stench of death was almost non-existent. In fact, their chests seemed to rise and fall, as if they were breathing. They truly were the “living dead.”
    â€œSurprised?” prodded the Sorcerer, surmising that the silent Kyoya was dumbfounded by the atrocious sight before his eyes. He leaned forward and whispered, “The girls who visited with us here and the remains of their parents and brothers and lovers who stupidly came to rescue them. I laid them on the altar and performed my surgeries, the dark rites necessary to continue the covenant with the Demon Realm. Just thinking about it stirs the blood, blood offered up to the Demon Realm, and together with that luxuriating heat, the sum of their souls. Every last one of them begs for death before the operation is even half-complete. Relax , I tell them. I’m all ears. But give me your soul and I will put you out of your misery with a single, benevolent thrust . They consent, and on the altar they sign the proffered parchment with their own blood. And I keep my promise.”
    Recalling atrocities committed in the past, the Sorcerer’s face twisted with ecstatic joy. Spittle flew from the corners of his mouth. Kyoya looked on with a distressed expression as the heretical monologue continued on uninterrupted.
    â€œFrightened? So horrified you cannot speak? And so it is. But we have not yet arrived at the end. They are definitely dead. And though dead, cannot sleep well. Because I possess their souls. Their bodies will not disintegrate as long as their contracts remain intact. Arrested in the half-living, half-decayed state you have witnessed, never returning again to the dust, they remain plastered into the wall, confined and immobilized in the cramped darkness, consigned to the torments of hell.”
    â€œYeah, and what’s with that, anyway?” Kyoya asked in strangely subdued tones. “Once you got their