Koumajutsu
The Coming of Bagan
By C. L. Werner
Chapter VII:
The Seeds of Tomorrow
'As he comes within range, all batteries open fire!' the swarthy general in the dun-colored fatigues roared into the radio transmitter within his command tank. At the general's command, over seven hundred pieces of armor and five hundred stationary howitzers and missile launchers took aim. The force consisted principally of Pakistani and Indian troops, though a smattering of British, Canadian and American troops were also present. The Allied command was led by General Jidar Jinnah, a supposed descendent of Pakistan's founder. Even the troops from India, some of them fresh from the disputed Kashmir region, had been ordered to follow the Pakistani general's orders. Each of them knew that if the enemy could not be stopped in Pakistan, nothing would keep him from proceeding into the interior of India and the great cities teaming with millions of Indians.
Stalking through the desert was a beast, a horror from a thousand nightmares. His armored scales gleamed in the dull sunlight that snaked its way through the clouds of soot and ash rising from the ruins burning in the demon's wake. A US F-18 fired a salvo of missiles at the brute, napalm cascading across the monster's chest. By way of response, the horned head of the monster turned, a gout of searing flame lashing from his fanged jaws to engulf the fighter utterly. Molten droplets of metal rained down across the desert.
Bagan turned his attention again to the assembled mass of weaponry. The monster's head reared backwards and he uttered a bellow that shook the courage of every man in the strike force. To some, it was nothing less than the laughter of the Devil himself. For many, it was the last thing they would ever hear.
Kato Yasunori watched with mild amusement as the dragon-demon advanced upon the assembled forces. A salvo of shells and missiles impacted against the mammoth beast's body, momentarily causing Bagan's upper torso to disappear in smoke and flame. But when the smoke and flame cleared away, the monster was unharmed. The necromancer was not surprised. Bagan would kill these fools, devour their souls within the burning kiln of his demonic heart. This was a delay, nothing more. There was nothing any man could do to stop Bagan, and so, there was nothing any man could do to save Tokyo from obliteration.
Kato rose into the air, like a puppet rising upon invisible strings. There was nothing for the necromancer to do here. He had business elsewhere. Kato knew where the next shard of Bagan's evil soul would be found, where the monster was even now advancing toward. The sorcerer would reach there first, secure the fragment and deliver it up to the demon. Then Bagan would be doubly within his power, and the hours left to Tokyo reduced to but a handful of moments stolen from doom.
The necromancer disappeared within a cloud of smoke and death. The slaughter of the valiant troops by Bagan continued unabated.
Despot Vladimir Vasalov read through the massive pile of reports piled upon his massive desk. The Russian ruler glared at the latest figures from Afghanistan, the tally of dead, the destruction wrought by both Bagan and the Russian orbital weapon Perun's Axe. Ever since the attack, letters had been arriving from around the world. Most were of condemnation for allowing such a weapon to be employed, some were letters begging that the Russians try again. Many of these came from countries that appeared most imperiled by the monster's advance.
Vasalov took a belt from the bottle of vodka standing upon the desk and looked over at the nervous military aide standing near the door of his study.
'I will see him now,' the great bear of a man growled. The aide hurried to follow his leader's command.
A moment after the aide departed, a short Oriental man with thick glasses and a dark suit entered the room. The dignitary bowed formally and advanced toward the Despot's desk. Vasalov gestured with a huge paw of a hand and the dignitary seated himself.
'I am very pleased that you agreed to see me, Excellency,' the ambassador said. 'It goes far to show your commitment to my country and its concerns.'
'I am not some degenerate democracy spouting politico!' Vasalov snarled. 'I don't care about your country or its concerns! I care about my people and their concerns! If you think that you may buy favor with me, I will beat you black and blue and send you back to your masters on the proverbial slow boat!'
The dignitary remained undisturbed by the Russian despot's outburst. The man's voice remained even and deferential. 'The concerns of China should be your concerns,' the ambassador said, quietly, without any tone of annoyance. 'After all, there are three-hundred thousand Chinese soldiers staged along your border as we speak.'
'The Devil you say!' roared Vasalov, rising from his chair, sending it clattering against the floor. The Chinese ambassador favored the Russian with a slight smile.
'The demands of my government are simple, Excellency,' the ambassador said. 'If the monster Bagan turns toward our country, you are to protect us. You will use the orbital weapon and destroy the beast before he is within our borders.'
'Otherwise?' Vasalov snarled, clenching his fist.
'The monster Bagan is entirely capable of destroying my country, Excellency. Our leaders do not feel that China possesses anything that can stop him. With that being the case, we would have nothing to loose by avenging our nation's loss upon an idle neighbor who refused to help us in our hour of need.'
'Have you seen pictures of what the weapon did in Afghanistan?' Vasalov protested. 'If we use it again the destruction would be...'
'Confined to an insignificant country outside China's borders,' the ambassador finished for the Despot.
'I can't authorize using Perun's Axe again,' Vasalov said, taking another swig from his bottle of vodka.
'On the contrary, Excellency,' the Chinese ambassador said, 'you will.'
A great brown mass scrambled from the jungle shadows. The scaly monster's horned snout sniffed at the large object resting upon the sand. Baragon let a low, hungry growl issue from his fanged jaws as he identified the scent and his feral mind decided that it was food. Baragon leaned downwards, his horn inches away from the silk-encased form.
Suddenly a clawed paw burst from the massive cocoon. Unprepared for the attack, Baragon was taken completely by surprise. The black claws slashed the greedy monster's rat-like muzzle. Thick blood oozed from the wound and Baragon let a high-pitched cry of pain escape from his jaws. The armored monster leaped away from his would-be prey and the howling creature began to burrow into the side of a nearby cliff. Soon, Baragon's long tail was chasing after him into the darkness of a freshly dug tunnel.
The clawed paw that had struck Baragon continued to rip away the thick, steel-like cables of silk. After a seeming eternity, the creature they were attached to emerged from the debris. The monster raised his reptilian head, searching the shore of the island with his eyes. At last, the spike-backed creature hooted a low, mournful cry.
Anguirus advanced toward the water, his senses telling him that the creature he sought had left by means of the sea. There was another urge driving him on, a new instinct motivating him. A mental impulse had been imprinted upon his mind by the departed Mothra to guard her offspring. Now that same impulse was leading Anguirus to pursue the escaped caterpillar.
The spike-backed monster swam slowly away from Ogasawara Island. He paused at the invisible fence constructed by the scientists of Monsterland to keep the Supersaurs from escaping. The sonic transmitter rattled Anguirus' brain, causing the mutated dinosaur enormous pain. But there was something else motivating him now, and it was more powerful than the agony of the sonic transmitter. Blood pouring from his nose, his tail twitching in spasms of pain, Anguirus broke through the invisible barrier. The spike-backed monster swam on, drawn onwards toward the mainland of Asia and the fledgling monster that he was driven to protect.
'Seven great beasts to defeat one demon,' the elderly wizard Hoichi mused aloud. The first faint rays of dawn were slithering into the throne-room of Princess Salno. The KNIFE team members had been discussing the demon Bagan and how to destroy the creature all night.
'Our best bet was Mothra,' Kenichi Yamane said. 'But she tried to fight the monster on her own. And was defeated.'
'Gamera has not been seen since his battle with Legion,' Daxton commented. 'There are reports that he is dead, even.'
'Godzilla, or the other monsters from Ogasawara?' Philip Roche observed.
'Doubtful. Do you honestly think that we could exert any sort of control over Dr. Mafune's monsters?' Kenichi Yamane adjusted his glasses. 'Baragon would be just as likely to eat everybody before Bagan could consume them. Rodan is still weak from the battle at the Hachiman Building, and, again, we have no way to control him.'
'And Godzilla himself has not been seen since the battle in Sapporo with the Devil Fish and that strange giant,' Aaron Vaught added.
'So that leaves us with nothing,' Peter Daxton observed, shaking his head in frustration. 'Perhaps a normal military solution is the only way.'
'Bagan survived the Russian solar cannon,' Hoichi quietly protested. 'If that failed to kill him, I don't think anything built by man stands a chance.'
'Perhaps,' said the seated monarch of Selgia.
'You have some insight, Princess?' asked Aaron Vaught.
'The royal family of Selgia is noted for the gift of prophecy. At times, I am able to see glimpses of the path that might be, of things that have yet to pass.' Princess Salno smiled grimly.
'What you have seen is not good?' Peter Daxton asked.
'The world is at the end of an age. A new era lies before us. For good or for ill, the world we have known is past. It is not by the deeds of gods or demons, monsters or dragons, that the old age has ended. Nor is it such beings that shall decide the course of the new age that is to be. It is by the actions of weak and mortal men that the balance may be tipped, one way or the other.' Princess Salno's face became pale, her voice but a whisper.
'In my dreams I have seen the monster, Bagan, standing in triumph amidst the carcasses of the world's defenders. I have heard the laughter of the demon.' The proclamation of doom seemed to chill the room. 'But even so, I saw a silver bird racing forward, to undo the necromancer's black sorcery with its true bane. Yet here my vision failed and of the victory or defeat of that dark hour, the prophecy did not say.'
'Then Kato will succeed?' Hoichi said, his voice cracked, his face downcast.
'Only the deeds of weak and mortal men will tell,' the Princess decreed.
Lora looked skywards, her slender hand patting the head of the chirping Fairy Mothra. Garugaru and his two tiny riders were visible as only a tiny speck, and soon even this was gone. Lora watched her sisters depart with great misgiving. Belvera had come to gloat over Mothra's defeat, but also to propose a dangerous and unthinkable course of action. To destroy Bagan, the black Elias had suggested releasing a horror almost as terrible. Belvera could not do it on her own, otherwise she would have done so long ago. She needed one of her sisters to help her, to undo the wards Moll and Lora had helped Mothra lay down years ago.
Moll was the stronger of the two 'light' sisters, so she had decided to accompany Belvera, rationalizing that she would be better able to see through the wicked fairy's deceptions. But Lora wondered what deception her dark sister could be plotting. She had already asked them to help her in an awful task, and they, in their desperation, had agreed.
Nearby, the ravaged body of Mothra let out a mournful cry, as though she could sense what her priestesses had agreed to do. Lora looked over at Mothra, a look of shame and guilt etched upon her face. Tears rolled down Lora's cheeks.
'Please,' she pleaded, 'there was no other way. You are too weak to stop Bagan now.' By way of answer, Mothra let another dirgue-like cry echo across the desert waste.
Lora looked again at the sky. She wondered how long it would take Belvera's cyborg dragonet to fly the many leagues to the island of Hokkaido. How long it would be before her sisters stood at the prison of Death Ghidorah.
The wizened old man looked almost like a rasin. His skin was dark, baked by the harsh tropical sun. For clothing, he wore only a white linen wrap about his waist that descended to his knees. The man's arms and legs were thin, his ribs peaking through his stretched, parchment-like skin. The man squatted within an open-air pavilion, bordered on three sides by ancient columns of a bygone dynasty. The temple city had long been left in ruins, its only denizens the solitary hermit-like holymen who came here. At this time that man was Kush, but he had been here for over forty years and the time would soon come when another would take the elderly fakir's place and he would be allowed to add his bones to those of the generations that had come before him.
Kush sat, his eyes closed, his breath short as he meditated. He might have been emulating Buddha, remaining so still as to provide a refuge for wandering snails. But the holyman's mind was alert, his sightless vision aware of his surroundings.
'There is nothing for you here, demon,' the Hindu said, his eyes still closed, his body still locked in its meditation posture. 'Go back into the darkness of your black deeds and profane not places of enlightment.'
'I shall leave when I will,' sneered the tall figure standing at the edge of the pavilion.
The fakir stood, his old eyes opening to turn upon Kato's uniformed figure. The eyes were white as milk, yet the dim pupils focused upon the Japanese necromancer.
'I know what you seek,' Kush declared, 'but you will not have it. Leave while you may.'
'I have traveled far to come here, old fool,' Kato snarled. 'I will leave with what I have come here to find.'
'Then you have come here to find death,' the Hindu fakir said. With supernatural speed, the old Indian leaned down to the ground and rose again, an antique crossbow clutched in his gnarled hands. In the same motion, he fired the weapon. There was a flash of light and an iron dart sped across the pavilion. The missile struck the necromancer in the center of the chest with a sound that spoke of crunching bone and shredding flesh. The necromancer staggered backwards several paces, his white gloved hands closing about the missile buried in his body.
Then Kato began to laugh.
'I am no Rakshasa, old fool,' Kato hissed, tearing the bolt from his chest and snapping it in his hand. 'It will take more than your feeble weapon to deny me!' The necromancer gestured and one of the tall columns near the fakir suddenly fell, descending upon the holyman. Kush disappeared in a cloud of dust as the heavy stone crashed into the ground.
When the dust cleared, the Hindu was standing at the center of the pillar. The stone had disintegrated around him, leaving the man unharmed. Kato stared in disbelief. Then he smiled as he understood what had saved the mystic. The Hindu brought the giant glowing diamond, its flawless surface resembling that of a carved dragon, from the small leather pouch he wore about his neck.
'The heart of the dragon,' Kato said, eyes glinting with desire. 'Then you have learned some of its powers.'
'I have learned enough to know that it must never enter the hands of your kind,' the Hindu returned. 'You shall not have it while I yet live.'
Kato's face twisted into a demonic leer of inhuman malignancy.
'I would not have it any other way.'
Katagiri looked again at the reports resting upon his desk. The head of the CCI shook his head in disbelief. The military might that had been assembled to thwart Bagan's advance through Pakistan and into India had been immense. Yet, by all counts, Bagan had decimated 80% of those who had opposed him, and the demon himself had not been harmed. Indeed, latest satellite photos showed him marching relentlessly towards the border of Thailand. The latest news from the Thai government had been discouraging as well. They had decided not to confront Bagan, in hopes that the monster would continue on his way, not deviate towards any of their major cities. What the beast might do to their neighbors was of no concern to the Thai government. Meanwhile there were dispatches from the governments of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia begging the Japanese government to aid them in destroying the monster. Parliament was even now voting to send the Super X-3 to the region, removing another weapon from
the defense of Japan.
And it would come to that. The strange wizard Hoichi had stated that Bagan was in the control of some century-old necromancer named Kato who had a vendetta against Tokyo. Hoichi had insisted that Bagan's ultimate goal would be the capital of Japan.
'To fight the Devil,' a scratchy voice intruded upon Katagiri's thoughts, 'be a devil yourself.'
Katagiri looked up, scanning his office with his tired eyes to see who had entered the room unannounced. But there was nothing, only shadows. Then, from a shadow far too small and faint to conceal anything, a man emerged.
He was gaunt, almost a living skeleton. The man was dressed all in black, a black robe that came to his ankles, black sandals upon his feet. A round black cap topped the man's skull-like head, wisps of dirty gray hair streaming from beneath it. The man's mouth spread in a toothless grin, his blazing eyes turning upon the seated politician.
'Before you ask, my name is Eiji,' the sorcerer declared. 'My family disowned me long ago, so I have no other name. If you must bestow another title upon me, let it be Kishuyu. I am here to help you.'
'Wh... what are you?' Katagiri stammered.
Eiji's ghastly grin grew still wider. He gestured with a claw-like hand and the computer upon Katagiri's desk began to distort. As Katagiri watched, the plastic frame of the machine began to bubble and run like melting wax. The flowing plastic oozed across the desk, forming the katakana characters of Eiji's name.
'I am a sorcerer,' Eiji stated, his voice low and confidential. 'And I am here to offer my services to the defense of our homeland.' A sinister sparkle gleamed in Eiji's eyes. 'If you will let me, that is.'
Katagiri licked his lips nervously, but rose to his feet. He extended his hand towards the black-garbed sorcerer. Eiji's claw-like talon closed upon the politician's hand.
Katagiri fought the urge to vomit as the dead flesh touched his own.
The Coming of Bagan
By C. L. Werner
Chapter VII:
The Seeds of Tomorrow
'As he comes within range, all batteries open fire!' the swarthy general in the dun-colored fatigues roared into the radio transmitter within his command tank. At the general's command, over seven hundred pieces of armor and five hundred stationary howitzers and missile launchers took aim. The force consisted principally of Pakistani and Indian troops, though a smattering of British, Canadian and American troops were also present. The Allied command was led by General Jidar Jinnah, a supposed descendent of Pakistan's founder. Even the troops from India, some of them fresh from the disputed Kashmir region, had been ordered to follow the Pakistani general's orders. Each of them knew that if the enemy could not be stopped in Pakistan, nothing would keep him from proceeding into the interior of India and the great cities teaming with millions of Indians.
Stalking through the desert was a beast, a horror from a thousand nightmares. His armored scales gleamed in the dull sunlight that snaked its way through the clouds of soot and ash rising from the ruins burning in the demon's wake. A US F-18 fired a salvo of missiles at the brute, napalm cascading across the monster's chest. By way of response, the horned head of the monster turned, a gout of searing flame lashing from his fanged jaws to engulf the fighter utterly. Molten droplets of metal rained down across the desert.
Bagan turned his attention again to the assembled mass of weaponry. The monster's head reared backwards and he uttered a bellow that shook the courage of every man in the strike force. To some, it was nothing less than the laughter of the Devil himself. For many, it was the last thing they would ever hear.
Kato Yasunori watched with mild amusement as the dragon-demon advanced upon the assembled forces. A salvo of shells and missiles impacted against the mammoth beast's body, momentarily causing Bagan's upper torso to disappear in smoke and flame. But when the smoke and flame cleared away, the monster was unharmed. The necromancer was not surprised. Bagan would kill these fools, devour their souls within the burning kiln of his demonic heart. This was a delay, nothing more. There was nothing any man could do to stop Bagan, and so, there was nothing any man could do to save Tokyo from obliteration.
Kato rose into the air, like a puppet rising upon invisible strings. There was nothing for the necromancer to do here. He had business elsewhere. Kato knew where the next shard of Bagan's evil soul would be found, where the monster was even now advancing toward. The sorcerer would reach there first, secure the fragment and deliver it up to the demon. Then Bagan would be doubly within his power, and the hours left to Tokyo reduced to but a handful of moments stolen from doom.
The necromancer disappeared within a cloud of smoke and death. The slaughter of the valiant troops by Bagan continued unabated.
Despot Vladimir Vasalov read through the massive pile of reports piled upon his massive desk. The Russian ruler glared at the latest figures from Afghanistan, the tally of dead, the destruction wrought by both Bagan and the Russian orbital weapon Perun's Axe. Ever since the attack, letters had been arriving from around the world. Most were of condemnation for allowing such a weapon to be employed, some were letters begging that the Russians try again. Many of these came from countries that appeared most imperiled by the monster's advance.
Vasalov took a belt from the bottle of vodka standing upon the desk and looked over at the nervous military aide standing near the door of his study.
'I will see him now,' the great bear of a man growled. The aide hurried to follow his leader's command.
A moment after the aide departed, a short Oriental man with thick glasses and a dark suit entered the room. The dignitary bowed formally and advanced toward the Despot's desk. Vasalov gestured with a huge paw of a hand and the dignitary seated himself.
'I am very pleased that you agreed to see me, Excellency,' the ambassador said. 'It goes far to show your commitment to my country and its concerns.'
'I am not some degenerate democracy spouting politico!' Vasalov snarled. 'I don't care about your country or its concerns! I care about my people and their concerns! If you think that you may buy favor with me, I will beat you black and blue and send you back to your masters on the proverbial slow boat!'
The dignitary remained undisturbed by the Russian despot's outburst. The man's voice remained even and deferential. 'The concerns of China should be your concerns,' the ambassador said, quietly, without any tone of annoyance. 'After all, there are three-hundred thousand Chinese soldiers staged along your border as we speak.'
'The Devil you say!' roared Vasalov, rising from his chair, sending it clattering against the floor. The Chinese ambassador favored the Russian with a slight smile.
'The demands of my government are simple, Excellency,' the ambassador said. 'If the monster Bagan turns toward our country, you are to protect us. You will use the orbital weapon and destroy the beast before he is within our borders.'
'Otherwise?' Vasalov snarled, clenching his fist.
'The monster Bagan is entirely capable of destroying my country, Excellency. Our leaders do not feel that China possesses anything that can stop him. With that being the case, we would have nothing to loose by avenging our nation's loss upon an idle neighbor who refused to help us in our hour of need.'
'Have you seen pictures of what the weapon did in Afghanistan?' Vasalov protested. 'If we use it again the destruction would be...'
'Confined to an insignificant country outside China's borders,' the ambassador finished for the Despot.
'I can't authorize using Perun's Axe again,' Vasalov said, taking another swig from his bottle of vodka.
'On the contrary, Excellency,' the Chinese ambassador said, 'you will.'
A great brown mass scrambled from the jungle shadows. The scaly monster's horned snout sniffed at the large object resting upon the sand. Baragon let a low, hungry growl issue from his fanged jaws as he identified the scent and his feral mind decided that it was food. Baragon leaned downwards, his horn inches away from the silk-encased form.
Suddenly a clawed paw burst from the massive cocoon. Unprepared for the attack, Baragon was taken completely by surprise. The black claws slashed the greedy monster's rat-like muzzle. Thick blood oozed from the wound and Baragon let a high-pitched cry of pain escape from his jaws. The armored monster leaped away from his would-be prey and the howling creature began to burrow into the side of a nearby cliff. Soon, Baragon's long tail was chasing after him into the darkness of a freshly dug tunnel.
The clawed paw that had struck Baragon continued to rip away the thick, steel-like cables of silk. After a seeming eternity, the creature they were attached to emerged from the debris. The monster raised his reptilian head, searching the shore of the island with his eyes. At last, the spike-backed creature hooted a low, mournful cry.
Anguirus advanced toward the water, his senses telling him that the creature he sought had left by means of the sea. There was another urge driving him on, a new instinct motivating him. A mental impulse had been imprinted upon his mind by the departed Mothra to guard her offspring. Now that same impulse was leading Anguirus to pursue the escaped caterpillar.
The spike-backed monster swam slowly away from Ogasawara Island. He paused at the invisible fence constructed by the scientists of Monsterland to keep the Supersaurs from escaping. The sonic transmitter rattled Anguirus' brain, causing the mutated dinosaur enormous pain. But there was something else motivating him now, and it was more powerful than the agony of the sonic transmitter. Blood pouring from his nose, his tail twitching in spasms of pain, Anguirus broke through the invisible barrier. The spike-backed monster swam on, drawn onwards toward the mainland of Asia and the fledgling monster that he was driven to protect.
'Seven great beasts to defeat one demon,' the elderly wizard Hoichi mused aloud. The first faint rays of dawn were slithering into the throne-room of Princess Salno. The KNIFE team members had been discussing the demon Bagan and how to destroy the creature all night.
'Our best bet was Mothra,' Kenichi Yamane said. 'But she tried to fight the monster on her own. And was defeated.'
'Gamera has not been seen since his battle with Legion,' Daxton commented. 'There are reports that he is dead, even.'
'Godzilla, or the other monsters from Ogasawara?' Philip Roche observed.
'Doubtful. Do you honestly think that we could exert any sort of control over Dr. Mafune's monsters?' Kenichi Yamane adjusted his glasses. 'Baragon would be just as likely to eat everybody before Bagan could consume them. Rodan is still weak from the battle at the Hachiman Building, and, again, we have no way to control him.'
'And Godzilla himself has not been seen since the battle in Sapporo with the Devil Fish and that strange giant,' Aaron Vaught added.
'So that leaves us with nothing,' Peter Daxton observed, shaking his head in frustration. 'Perhaps a normal military solution is the only way.'
'Bagan survived the Russian solar cannon,' Hoichi quietly protested. 'If that failed to kill him, I don't think anything built by man stands a chance.'
'Perhaps,' said the seated monarch of Selgia.
'You have some insight, Princess?' asked Aaron Vaught.
'The royal family of Selgia is noted for the gift of prophecy. At times, I am able to see glimpses of the path that might be, of things that have yet to pass.' Princess Salno smiled grimly.
'What you have seen is not good?' Peter Daxton asked.
'The world is at the end of an age. A new era lies before us. For good or for ill, the world we have known is past. It is not by the deeds of gods or demons, monsters or dragons, that the old age has ended. Nor is it such beings that shall decide the course of the new age that is to be. It is by the actions of weak and mortal men that the balance may be tipped, one way or the other.' Princess Salno's face became pale, her voice but a whisper.
'In my dreams I have seen the monster, Bagan, standing in triumph amidst the carcasses of the world's defenders. I have heard the laughter of the demon.' The proclamation of doom seemed to chill the room. 'But even so, I saw a silver bird racing forward, to undo the necromancer's black sorcery with its true bane. Yet here my vision failed and of the victory or defeat of that dark hour, the prophecy did not say.'
'Then Kato will succeed?' Hoichi said, his voice cracked, his face downcast.
'Only the deeds of weak and mortal men will tell,' the Princess decreed.
Lora looked skywards, her slender hand patting the head of the chirping Fairy Mothra. Garugaru and his two tiny riders were visible as only a tiny speck, and soon even this was gone. Lora watched her sisters depart with great misgiving. Belvera had come to gloat over Mothra's defeat, but also to propose a dangerous and unthinkable course of action. To destroy Bagan, the black Elias had suggested releasing a horror almost as terrible. Belvera could not do it on her own, otherwise she would have done so long ago. She needed one of her sisters to help her, to undo the wards Moll and Lora had helped Mothra lay down years ago.
Moll was the stronger of the two 'light' sisters, so she had decided to accompany Belvera, rationalizing that she would be better able to see through the wicked fairy's deceptions. But Lora wondered what deception her dark sister could be plotting. She had already asked them to help her in an awful task, and they, in their desperation, had agreed.
Nearby, the ravaged body of Mothra let out a mournful cry, as though she could sense what her priestesses had agreed to do. Lora looked over at Mothra, a look of shame and guilt etched upon her face. Tears rolled down Lora's cheeks.
'Please,' she pleaded, 'there was no other way. You are too weak to stop Bagan now.' By way of answer, Mothra let another dirgue-like cry echo across the desert waste.
Lora looked again at the sky. She wondered how long it would take Belvera's cyborg dragonet to fly the many leagues to the island of Hokkaido. How long it would be before her sisters stood at the prison of Death Ghidorah.
The wizened old man looked almost like a rasin. His skin was dark, baked by the harsh tropical sun. For clothing, he wore only a white linen wrap about his waist that descended to his knees. The man's arms and legs were thin, his ribs peaking through his stretched, parchment-like skin. The man squatted within an open-air pavilion, bordered on three sides by ancient columns of a bygone dynasty. The temple city had long been left in ruins, its only denizens the solitary hermit-like holymen who came here. At this time that man was Kush, but he had been here for over forty years and the time would soon come when another would take the elderly fakir's place and he would be allowed to add his bones to those of the generations that had come before him.
Kush sat, his eyes closed, his breath short as he meditated. He might have been emulating Buddha, remaining so still as to provide a refuge for wandering snails. But the holyman's mind was alert, his sightless vision aware of his surroundings.
'There is nothing for you here, demon,' the Hindu said, his eyes still closed, his body still locked in its meditation posture. 'Go back into the darkness of your black deeds and profane not places of enlightment.'
'I shall leave when I will,' sneered the tall figure standing at the edge of the pavilion.
The fakir stood, his old eyes opening to turn upon Kato's uniformed figure. The eyes were white as milk, yet the dim pupils focused upon the Japanese necromancer.
'I know what you seek,' Kush declared, 'but you will not have it. Leave while you may.'
'I have traveled far to come here, old fool,' Kato snarled. 'I will leave with what I have come here to find.'
'Then you have come here to find death,' the Hindu fakir said. With supernatural speed, the old Indian leaned down to the ground and rose again, an antique crossbow clutched in his gnarled hands. In the same motion, he fired the weapon. There was a flash of light and an iron dart sped across the pavilion. The missile struck the necromancer in the center of the chest with a sound that spoke of crunching bone and shredding flesh. The necromancer staggered backwards several paces, his white gloved hands closing about the missile buried in his body.
Then Kato began to laugh.
'I am no Rakshasa, old fool,' Kato hissed, tearing the bolt from his chest and snapping it in his hand. 'It will take more than your feeble weapon to deny me!' The necromancer gestured and one of the tall columns near the fakir suddenly fell, descending upon the holyman. Kush disappeared in a cloud of dust as the heavy stone crashed into the ground.
When the dust cleared, the Hindu was standing at the center of the pillar. The stone had disintegrated around him, leaving the man unharmed. Kato stared in disbelief. Then he smiled as he understood what had saved the mystic. The Hindu brought the giant glowing diamond, its flawless surface resembling that of a carved dragon, from the small leather pouch he wore about his neck.
'The heart of the dragon,' Kato said, eyes glinting with desire. 'Then you have learned some of its powers.'
'I have learned enough to know that it must never enter the hands of your kind,' the Hindu returned. 'You shall not have it while I yet live.'
Kato's face twisted into a demonic leer of inhuman malignancy.
'I would not have it any other way.'
Katagiri looked again at the reports resting upon his desk. The head of the CCI shook his head in disbelief. The military might that had been assembled to thwart Bagan's advance through Pakistan and into India had been immense. Yet, by all counts, Bagan had decimated 80% of those who had opposed him, and the demon himself had not been harmed. Indeed, latest satellite photos showed him marching relentlessly towards the border of Thailand. The latest news from the Thai government had been discouraging as well. They had decided not to confront Bagan, in hopes that the monster would continue on his way, not deviate towards any of their major cities. What the beast might do to their neighbors was of no concern to the Thai government. Meanwhile there were dispatches from the governments of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia begging the Japanese government to aid them in destroying the monster. Parliament was even now voting to send the Super X-3 to the region, removing another weapon from
the defense of Japan.
And it would come to that. The strange wizard Hoichi had stated that Bagan was in the control of some century-old necromancer named Kato who had a vendetta against Tokyo. Hoichi had insisted that Bagan's ultimate goal would be the capital of Japan.
'To fight the Devil,' a scratchy voice intruded upon Katagiri's thoughts, 'be a devil yourself.'
Katagiri looked up, scanning his office with his tired eyes to see who had entered the room unannounced. But there was nothing, only shadows. Then, from a shadow far too small and faint to conceal anything, a man emerged.
He was gaunt, almost a living skeleton. The man was dressed all in black, a black robe that came to his ankles, black sandals upon his feet. A round black cap topped the man's skull-like head, wisps of dirty gray hair streaming from beneath it. The man's mouth spread in a toothless grin, his blazing eyes turning upon the seated politician.
'Before you ask, my name is Eiji,' the sorcerer declared. 'My family disowned me long ago, so I have no other name. If you must bestow another title upon me, let it be Kishuyu. I am here to help you.'
'Wh... what are you?' Katagiri stammered.
Eiji's ghastly grin grew still wider. He gestured with a claw-like hand and the computer upon Katagiri's desk began to distort. As Katagiri watched, the plastic frame of the machine began to bubble and run like melting wax. The flowing plastic oozed across the desk, forming the katakana characters of Eiji's name.
'I am a sorcerer,' Eiji stated, his voice low and confidential. 'And I am here to offer my services to the defense of our homeland.' A sinister sparkle gleamed in Eiji's eyes. 'If you will let me, that is.'
Katagiri licked his lips nervously, but rose to his feet. He extended his hand towards the black-garbed sorcerer. Eiji's claw-like talon closed upon the politician's hand.
Katagiri fought the urge to vomit as the dead flesh touched his own.