Maohden Vol. 1 Read Free Page A

angle and slammed into the wall with a loud thud ! The claws of the paw dug into the wood paneling—sans the rest of the arm.
    The bear howled. A shower of blood spurted from around the claws pressed against the miraculously-severed stump. The beast reared back. Changes arose in the outlines of its huge frame.
    The fur grew lighter in color, shortened. The body shrank as well, turning into a different living thing.
    “Son of a bitch !”
    A shout mingled with pain and articulated after a very human fashion. The speaker launched a backhand blow at the young man with the hand covering the wound. It never connected. The arm from the elbow down tumbled through the air.
    Ducking the arcing splash of blood, the young man knelt down next to the girl. She was lying on her back and gasping for breath. He’d pulled the red dress over her shoulders when a crash rang out behind him.
    The bear toppled over in the genkan . The impact was much lighter than expected.
    The young man picked up the girl and was getting to his feet when he reached out with his left hand and caught something falling through the air. The bear’s hand—though this was clearly a human forearm.
    Drained of blood, it turned as gray as the concrete of the genkan . The young man tossed it aside. It landed in a big trash can in the corner of the room. It’d give the janitor a start to be sure, but refuse was refuse.
    With even strides, he stepped down into the genkan . The bear paw sticking to the wall revealed its true form and dropped to the concrete floor.
    “If you would excuse me,” he said, nudging aside the obstructing body in front of him with the tip of his boot.
    The bear was gone. Lying in the round pool of blood was a small, thin man in his late thirties or early forties. The owner of the hostess club and boss of the Terumoto Gang, Ryo Terumoto. The ashen face suggested there was little chance of keeping the Grim Reaper at bay.

    He lifted his head. His bloodshot eyes—the only part of him that retained any vestiges of the bear—shot a piercing glare through the younger man’s back.
    “ Bastard—wait— ” A barely human voice suffused with bitter maledictions. “Too bad for you—I injected her with so much aphrodisiac—right where it counts— heh —no treatment can keep up with it— heh —didn’t know she had a man waiting out there—she’s dead to that world—a creature of this city now—”
    The young man didn’t move for a minute or two, digesting what Terumoto was saying. Contemplating this final retribution, his face twisted into a wicked smile of death.
    Like stop motion, the smile froze on his face. The young man looked back at him. Nothing about his countenance had changed in the slightest. Nevertheless, Terumoto’s consciousness, already starved of blood, awoke to a new sense of fear, his terrorized instincts confirming the impossible turn of events in front of him.
    This was a different person.
    “Too bad, then, that you have met me ,” the young man said, the warmth of his voice alone growing icy cool. A me that was not him . “Death from blood loss would at least be a peaceful one. But you should leave this world with a clear view of hell.”
    Before he’d finished speaking, the air hummed. Before the air stopped humming, the armless Terumoto’s body jumped up. Having already lost half of their functioning in the drowsy prelude to death, the nerves of the naked body lit up with a charge of pain like nothing in this world.
    Being driven mad by the pain was reward enough. That in fact was what happened—he was sucked into the whirlpool of chaos—and a moment later the pain itself had restored him to “normal.”
    The young man paused to gaze grimly upon the gangster, writhing wordlessly, weeping from the unending agony, and opened the door. The underlings from before were below him, still bound hand and foot. He said, “You are in my way.”
    Whatever they saw, the sight erased the pain and stiffened their