Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 2 by Hideyuki Kikuchi Page B

and forth in a clumsy manner quite uncharacteristic for him.
    Something streaked upwards toward Setsura’s precarious perch. It tore apart lengthwise in midair, exposing its innards as it dropped into the sea of snakes.
    â€œIt’s getting dicey in here—” Setsura muttered to himself.
    He meant the jumping snakes and whatever had launched itself at him as he balanced on the devil wire strung through the air. This “tightrope” was tied to two telephone poles on either side of Niwa’s house. As for why he’d avoided the house’s frame—
    Reaching the dining room, he teetered again. The damage inflicted by Ryuuki’s qi was still with him. He reached out to steady himself and touched what looked like an ordinary blue stucco wall.
    His hand sunk through the wall down to his wrist. He had to brace his legs to keep from doing a nosedive. The hole gaped open at the height of Setsura’s chest and caved in, turning into an army of black centipedes rushing up his arm.
    Setsura shook his arm. Whipping off the bugs, he contemplated an escape route out of the house. It was clear that the entire structure, from the floorboards to the framing pillars, was made from the corrupted pestilence of the living world.
    The liquid erupting from Professor Niwa’s body had stimulated whatever the house was made of and drove it into a mad ferocity. The centipedes Setsura had flung off his arm were snatched out of the air by the snakes, the hundreds of little legs churning helplessly. As one snake tried to gulp down its catch, another lunged at its mouth, while others snapped at its neck and torso. Fangs were bared and the poison flowed without any distinction between friend and foe.
    The writhing ropes froze in rigor mortis and were swallowed up by their companions on the floor.
    In his present condition, escape looked impossible. In order to evade the attacks by the reptiles and insects, he had to become a dead man. His body temperature fell to room temperature. His pulse was zero. All signs of life ceased. His body cast off no smell and no infrared signature. No different from a stone or an old piece of wood.
    The snakes and leeches detected their prey by smell or heat. When Setsura was a child, his father brought a yoga master from India to teach him. Five years ago, he’d used these techniques against a homicidal monster who read the aura surrounding living things in order to launch its deadly attacks. In another incident, he’d used it in the infirmary of the “death match” coliseum outside Shin-Okubo Station.
    It was the same when he was momentarily mired in the floor and the poisonous snakes didn’t think to snap at him. The leech that had sucked his blood had landed on him purely by chance, not because it was reacting to his body temperature and smell. And because he was more or less a “corpse,” even those actions were limited.
    Balancing on top of the tightrope, though, was the result of his innate skills. The question was whether he could advance another ten paces along the wire in his current condition.
    If he fell to the floor and was bitten by the snakes, a dead man couldn’t die twice. At the same time, whoever had laid this trap must be watching. Setsura had plenty of reason to fear that that person was lying in wait to finish him off. Set the whole house on fire and he’d be pretty much out of options. No matter how “dead” he was now, he’d be even deader then.
    Setsura took a strand of the devil wire and inserted it into his neck. He closed his eyes and focused his entire consciousness as the wire embedded itself in his spine.
    He did this in order to traverse the tightrope. He commanded the nerves that controlled his muscles. Relying on his fingertips alone, the beautiful manhunter guided the sub-micron devil wire inside his body.
    A black rain poured from the ceiling. Aggravated by the squirming leeches, the snakes writhing on