Maohden Vol. 2 by Hideyuki Kikuchi Page A

Its motor functions had long ago ceased, but a strand of devil wire imparted to the skull those same necrodancing skills that made the dead spring back to life.
    Skills that had once been the province of Setsura alone.
    Gazing down at the naked Mayumi, the owner of that fearsome visage said gently, “We meet at last. Fate has blessed me with my holy seal.”
    A spark of volition lit up Mayumi’s vacant eyes, like the glowing wick of a candle about to be blown out. “Who are you?”
    “My name is Gento Roran. I am the man you were predestined to meet.”
    “What do you intend to do with me?”
    “The question I’d intended to ask you. Do you not feel anything of meaning at this moment?”
    Mayumi answered him with a puzzled look.
    “In any case, let us be on our way. Oh, but before we go, there are a few loose ends that need tying up.”
    Gento looked up as Setsura approached. Cloaked in his black slicker, his legs appeared to glide along the ground, Yamada’s head still attached to his wrist. Setsura came to a halt twenty feet away. Even a genie with a blade of limitless length at his disposal must still have a distance he preferred.
    “Up until yesterday, I couldn’t have pulled off that necrodancing technique.” Gento spoke calmly, not so much making a threat as an observation. “I believe we are achieving parity on the field of battle. What do you think?”
    “You may have a point,” Setsura said.
    A puff of black smoke suddenly roiled up from his body. Gento stiffened slightly, preparing to counter with a new angle of attack. A moment later, its true nature became apparent.
    Like a shard of the darkness weaving through the night, Setsura’s slicker drifted down with a rustle of wind and covered Mayumi’s body from head to toe, concealing her from so many prying eyes.
    “You almost had me there,” Gento grumbled to himself.
    He looked anew at his foe. Setsura had made the night his ally. The jet-black, long-sleeved T-shirt cloaked him from the neck down to the wrists. No surprise that the darkness should be so friendly to his equally black magic.
    Extending his fingers, Gento swept his right hand sideways, parallel with the ground. Setsura’s arm did the same. They were not mimicking the other’s movements. This was the result of them both choosing the same lethal tactic at the same time.
    Gento’s forefinger pointed down.
    Setsura heard a soft ping . All anybody else saw was the darkness. Twisting and turning and swerving a dozen times, Gento’s devil wire struck at Setsura’s forehead.
    Setsura silently shifted to the right.
    The devil wire aimed at Setsura’s forehead changed course again and shot at its target. Setsura leapt away. The stinging wire hummed at the soles of his feet, then faded away like a swarm of retreating bees.
    The failed strand looped backwards and this time came at his midsection.
    Setsura extended his right hand toward the ground and flicked his pinky. The descending thread coiled like a snake across the ground, divided into two in front of the platform and raced at Gento from the left and right.
    Gento jumped backwards, small sparks of light around his ankles. In a flash they became a sparkling swarm climbing Gento’s frame, the two strands twining around him in a double helix from his feet to his head. Pretty dewdrops of light sparked as the devil wires crossed.
    “Your necrodancing offers you no escape now,” Setsura said softly and without humor.
    With the slightest tug of his fingers, the devil wires would dig into Gento’s flesh and bone, slicing him apart like a Cuisinart.
    “Goodbye, Gento Roran.”
    The pressure Setsura applied to his fingers produced no movement, but only a sharp stab of pain. Yamada’s head smiled at him. Still affixed to Setsura’s arm, the teeth sunk deeper into his tendons.
    In that instant, the killing strands that should have settled Gento’s fate instead slipped away. A black mass bolted toward the gates from which he’d