Maohden Vol. 2 by Hideyuki Kikuchi

can’t go on long before you’re dead and gone. Just deserts for raising a hand against the likes of you. But let me even the scales first.”
    “Even the scales?”
    “Give me this one break so I can pay this Hyota bastard back. If I’m going to die anyway, there’s no sense wasting that death. This guy too, the kid too, we’ve got chemistry, you know. You know the law of the evil broods?”
    Setsura nodded. As long as they lived as a family, they would deport themselves as a real and loving family. Thus the parents would revenge the loss of a child, the child revenge the loss of his parents. Pretend parents prowled the streets of Shinjuku dealing justice to the killers of their pretend children.
    “That means you are going to find Hyota before the next time we meet.”
    “That’s what it means,” the woman said, looking him in the eye. And it meant as well that the next time they met, the one would kill the other without mercy. “This is one I owe you, then,” she said, and turned around and walked away.
    Setsura watched her disappear amidst the rubble, complaining of her aches and pains and the bad hand of cards life had dealt her. And then another roll of thunder turned his attention to the heavens and the distant black clouds.
    “Dammit, Gento,” Setsura grumbled. “When are you making your next move?”

Chapter 2
    The clouds Setsura had seen at dawn lingered over the city, waiting until noon to fill the air with streaks of silver.
    Rain.
    A Shinjuku rain.
    A Demon City downpour.
    Residents and tourists alike immediately sought shelter beneath roofs and eaves. What everybody who lived knew about the rain was clearly spelled out in the tourist guidebooks.
    Fifteen years before, the Japan Meteorological Agency hemmed and hawed and finally came up with a term that most accurately described the phenomenon: phantom-infused precipitation .
    According to the guidebooks, “When it rains, do not under any circumstances get close to holes, cracks, fissures or exposed raw earth.”
    A drunk climbed a pile of debris in Kabuki-cho. The thick smell of alcohol filled the air around him, with each step the odors overlapping like the layers of a translucent painting, flowing along and twining together again.
    His blood alcohol level right then was about a hundred and eight proof. Until a few minutes ago, he’d been imbibing “Shinjuku Spirits” in a bar behind the Koma Theater. That was the beginning of his problems. There was nothing wrong with distilled spirits. They were sold everywhere, though at thirty percent higher prices than outside the ward.
    Shinjuku Spirits went for a tenth that. A cup of the stuff could be had for fifty yen. It didn’t taste half bad, either. With a mild taste and texture and a quirky aroma that hit the spot, this refined sake competed with the best.
    It delivered a quick buzz—regardless of how much or little was imbibed—in less than two minutes. No matter how much was imbibed, there was never a hangover.
    Everybody from carping food critics to the hard-drinking hoi polloi acclaimed it as a drink for the masses. But visit any drinking hole in the city and that label would be found nowhere on the shelves.
    The reason for that was simple: if it was, the cops would be busting down doors before the day was done.
    The reason for that was simple, too: this ten proof booze, with the pleasantly intoxicating effects of name-brand, had as its principal ingredient rain . The rain that fell on Shinjuku, on Demon City. The rain that was ninety-nine percent phantom-infused precipitation.
    However the barfly was aware of the falling rain, he couldn’t flee the scene.
    Five years before, he had undergone strength-enhancing surgery. He was confident he could go toe-to-toe with a brown bear. The rain showered down on him, its unique properties bit by bit soaking his body.
    If he’d been a normal man, these concentrations would have little effect on him. But as he was imbibing fifty gallons of the