Maohden Vol. 1 Read Free Page B

expressions in fear. One by one, those heads rolled onto the floor, throwing off pinwheels of blood.
    The fountains streaked through the air, painting the floor and the walls. The blue air was filled with the golden dusk. The only sound amidst the quiet carnage came from that beautiful genie’s footsteps.
    The footsteps stopped halfway down the flight of stairs. A woman clung to the wall like a pretty moth seeking the flame.
    Noriko gasped, “You—you—pulled off—something like this—without a scratch—I felt it like—unbelievable—I— ahhh— ” Her hands reached up her skirt, caressing herself with ecstatic gyrations, getting herself off on the death and blood and beauty.
    Strange but true, a girl in her profession who didn’t trip out on blood and beauty in this city was the oddity. The young man continued on down the stairs without sparing her a second glance.
    “Hey—you—” Noriko called out. Absorbed in her self-gratification, the pleasure flowing forth from her dripping fingertips, the sensations amplified all the more by the appalling scene surrounding her, her voice took on a heightened timbre. “You’re just gonna leave like this? For the love of God, kill me—like them—when I can feel it like this—and die like that— ahh— ”
    He reached the landing and started toward the back entrance. Behind him, the crimson fountains collapsed into streams and flowed down the stairs. If nothing else, the blood of the gangsters was beautiful.
    With this accursed and bewitching scene as the backdrop, the man in black strolled indifferently into the sunset.
    “Wait—wait—please—” Arching her back as her self-ministrations continued unabated, Noriko cried out in a strained voice, “Please—tell me—your name.”
    The light streaming in through the door cast his long shadow on the floor. It was like the answer welled up out of it.
    “Setsura Aki.”

Chapter Two
    One particular group of tall buildings in Shinjuku had taken on a strange and abominable existence. This still-standing grove of skyscrapers was most famously identified by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex.
    Right now was the O-magatoki , that bewitched time of the day that lasted from four o’clock to five-thirty in the afternoon. The shadows of the skyscrapers reached all the further and fell on the earth.
    As a case in point, behind the Shinjuku NS building was the three and a half acre site of the former Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, soaring forty-eight stories into the sky. Its shadow fell across Chuo Park to the west and reached halfway across the Yonchome block in West Shinjuku.
    The sun setting in the west threw shadows across buildings further to the west—impossible anywhere but here.
    The air was thick with sprites and miasmas playing practical jokes on Mother Nature, altogether befitting to the Shinjuku dusk. If they could do that, what else might they have up their sleeves?
    This was the time of day when pedestrians quickened their pace. Here and there came the sound of shutters closing and doors locking. The old and established shops run by grumpy and stubborn old men were no exception.
    Panicked shouts rent the air, probably sightseers who hadn’t bothered to read the fine print in the Shinjuku Tourist Association’s indemnity clause. Now they had no choice at this point but to fork over a chunk of money and seek refuge in the closest shop or home—with only five minutes or so to conclude negotiations.
    Any longer and they’d stand a good chance of being robbed blind or else suffer a worse fate.
    The hems of his black slicker fluttering in the wind, Setsura Aki got home exactly three minutes after every other house in the neighborhood had battened down the hatches. The marquee on which the name of the establishment was written in the old cursive kanji style— Aki Senbei —shook as he brought down the shutters with a bang.
    In a corner of Yonchome in West Shinjuku, Mina Chiaki, the secretary for