Read Online Maohden Vol. 2 by Hideyuki Kikuchi - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Hideyuki Kikuchi
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mystery or miracle must be in the offing. But what did it mean to seize control of Demon City? And what would happen next?
“And yet despite all that, you two are fighting it out without actually knowing for sure?”
“That is what soldiers do. We are nothing more than the pawns being played on the chess board. Setsura and I have had this conversation before.”
“Gento Roran and Setsura Aki—” Azusa muttered in something of a daze.
When—in what era—were the cruel wheels of fate binding these two young and beautiful genies set in motion? And when would they come to rest—and in what shape and form?
Like the wan blue light around them, knowing about an unknowable war and its unforgiving conclusion wrapped Azusa more in sadness than in fear. When all was said and done, what then?
“Stop trying to figure us out or empathize. Simply answer the questions.” Gento’s voice seeped into her heart like the cool dirt. “Feel the ground beneath you. Do not answer me. Answer the earth. It mingled with my abode for fifteen years. Obstructed by the boorish concrete, it touched the earth directly. I will listen to the earth as well, and extract fiction from fact.”
Azusa thought back to her junior high school days, when one of her teachers taught them about Gaia and the Mother of All Creation. All that she was fused into the chill of the soil, became that something else whispering to her blood.
Of other memories, other individuals. The darkness covering them within those cramped confines. And inside, the writhing tentacles of the teaching machine.
Floating white against the curtain of the night, black thread-like lines raked across its face: eyes, a nose and mouth. The face of a man beneath a tousled head of hair—that seemed to disappear into the shroud of darkness. In fact, Azusa soon understood, it had been cleanly severed.
The head of an old man, as easily sixty as a hundred years old. Gento’s father.
“The earth is your ally,” said the pale lips, “holding fast to the history and knowledge of the Gento clan down to the last drop. You must wear that knowledge like your own clothing. Fifteen years before, you bid farewell to the sound of the wind and the rain, the warmth of the sun, and grasped hold of victory instead. You are no longer the man you once were, capable of destroying the Aki clan in ways I never could. I know. And so it must be. Because—”
“ Because— ”
By the time Azusa’s interrogative and the old man’s voice overlapped each other, the darkness had suffused the young woman’s body.
Chapter 3
It was three o’clock in the morning when the doctor got back to the examination room.
This was the time of day when the night made its futile last stand against the impending dawn. A time of day beyond the command of ordinary mortals. The ravenous, twin-headed dogs vanished from the streets, as did the patrol cars of the commando police.
Only once, five minutes before, near the precincts of Hanazono Shrine, had the doctor raised his head toward the sky. “This night is not the night of the falcon.”
The beauty of his face as he muttered those words was fairer than that of any fairy princess, who would think herself more akin to the frog in its pond by comparison.
His gaze soon returned to the road ahead, his cape fluttering out behind him.
The room was dark. Entering any of the other exam rooms, a sensor would switch on the lights automatically. But here the doctor’s own will ruled over all. In any case, he was a man more suited to the dark than the light.
He sat in a hard chair in front of the desk. A low voice welled up behind him. “I still don’t know where you live. You are a man with strange tastes.”
The doctor didn’t turn around. “Home is where the heart is, isn’t that what people say? More importantly, you seem to have run off with the grand prize.”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
With a flick of his right index finger, light sent the dark fleeing.
“And yet despite all that, you two are fighting it out without actually knowing for sure?”
“That is what soldiers do. We are nothing more than the pawns being played on the chess board. Setsura and I have had this conversation before.”
“Gento Roran and Setsura Aki—” Azusa muttered in something of a daze.
When—in what era—were the cruel wheels of fate binding these two young and beautiful genies set in motion? And when would they come to rest—and in what shape and form?
Like the wan blue light around them, knowing about an unknowable war and its unforgiving conclusion wrapped Azusa more in sadness than in fear. When all was said and done, what then?
“Stop trying to figure us out or empathize. Simply answer the questions.” Gento’s voice seeped into her heart like the cool dirt. “Feel the ground beneath you. Do not answer me. Answer the earth. It mingled with my abode for fifteen years. Obstructed by the boorish concrete, it touched the earth directly. I will listen to the earth as well, and extract fiction from fact.”
Azusa thought back to her junior high school days, when one of her teachers taught them about Gaia and the Mother of All Creation. All that she was fused into the chill of the soil, became that something else whispering to her blood.
Of other memories, other individuals. The darkness covering them within those cramped confines. And inside, the writhing tentacles of the teaching machine.
Floating white against the curtain of the night, black thread-like lines raked across its face: eyes, a nose and mouth. The face of a man beneath a tousled head of hair—that seemed to disappear into the shroud of darkness. In fact, Azusa soon understood, it had been cleanly severed.
The head of an old man, as easily sixty as a hundred years old. Gento’s father.
“The earth is your ally,” said the pale lips, “holding fast to the history and knowledge of the Gento clan down to the last drop. You must wear that knowledge like your own clothing. Fifteen years before, you bid farewell to the sound of the wind and the rain, the warmth of the sun, and grasped hold of victory instead. You are no longer the man you once were, capable of destroying the Aki clan in ways I never could. I know. And so it must be. Because—”
“ Because— ”
By the time Azusa’s interrogative and the old man’s voice overlapped each other, the darkness had suffused the young woman’s body.
Chapter 3
It was three o’clock in the morning when the doctor got back to the examination room.
This was the time of day when the night made its futile last stand against the impending dawn. A time of day beyond the command of ordinary mortals. The ravenous, twin-headed dogs vanished from the streets, as did the patrol cars of the commando police.
Only once, five minutes before, near the precincts of Hanazono Shrine, had the doctor raised his head toward the sky. “This night is not the night of the falcon.”
The beauty of his face as he muttered those words was fairer than that of any fairy princess, who would think herself more akin to the frog in its pond by comparison.
His gaze soon returned to the road ahead, his cape fluttering out behind him.
The room was dark. Entering any of the other exam rooms, a sensor would switch on the lights automatically. But here the doctor’s own will ruled over all. In any case, he was a man more suited to the dark than the light.
He sat in a hard chair in front of the desk. A low voice welled up behind him. “I still don’t know where you live. You are a man with strange tastes.”
The doctor didn’t turn around. “Home is where the heart is, isn’t that what people say? More importantly, you seem to have run off with the grand prize.”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
With a flick of his right index finger, light sent the dark fleeing.
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