Story by Tsumori Tokio Illustrations by Aikawa Satoru Summary by Amparo Bertram

Immediately after that incident, Lucifard recognizes a woman he sees on the security cameras as a wanted religious fanatic. It turns out she is accompanied by a wanted kidnapper. Lucifard orders her capture, advising that she be shot with a tranquilizer. When he goes to the site, however, the soldiers had merely arrested her and were walking her to see their superior officers. As soon as she spots Lucifard--who was responsible for wiping out her cult of bombers--she activates an explosive device she was carrying on her person. Lucifard uses his psychokinesis to teleport Lilah and himself away from the explosion, which saves both of their lives, although he is electrocuted nearly to death by his PC rings. He is transported to the hospital to recover, where Lilah removes one of the rings to help with the process.

Kaja inadvertantly discovers that he can use his telepathy on Lucifard when one of the PC rings is gone. He sneaks into the officer's room in the middle of the night to read him secretly--rationalizing it to himself as an attempt to gain information about O2, who is an enemy of the Hakushi. The more deeply he reads, the more terrified he becomes. Lucifard's mind is unlike any he has encountered. Most people have minds that he visualizes as strands of "tape" upon which is recorded symbols for their thoughts and colors for their emotions. Lucifard's "tape" has no colors; his emotions are *spelled out* by his thoughts. In other words, he is only *acting* any emotions he shows based on what he is thinking, like a robot simulating emotion based on programmed response data. Kaja can detect flashes of real emotion, buried beneath the outer layers of "tape," but they are brief and faint. What scares him the most is that the flashes begin to react to his own thoughts--Lucifard is reading *him*, which should only be possible if the officer had stronger telepathic powers, yet Lucifard is supposedly strictly psychokinetic.

The officer wakes up and grabs the Hakushi, ordering him to promise never to mess around in his head again. O2 was once legally married to a very powerful Hakushi female. To stress his mother's psychic strength, Lucifard tells Kaja that Frida killed that Hakushi woman, though he doesn't explain why.

As the officer continues to press for a promise from the Hakushi, Saladin walks in. He can guess what must have happened, though that doesn't prevent him from feeling a dislike for the situation (which he fails to recognize as jealousy). The Houraijin watches Lucifard threaten the young-seeming doctor, going so far as crushing one of the doctor's pens with his mind as an example of his power. Kaja finally promises and runs out of the room in tears. After he's gone, Lucifard explains that he is accustomed to Hakushi being very arrogant and overbearing, so he was putting on an act to convey his wishes in a manner that would get through to a stereotypical Hakushi. He admits that maybe he didn't consider Kaja's individuality and had gone too far.

Saladin sits on the bed next to him, and they begin talking. The topic of the doctor's shamisen comes up, so he explains that he kept it as a reminder of the one human woman with whom he had a long-term relationship. This time it's Lucifard's turn to feel jealous without understanding why. The conversation turns to Saladin's mother, who left him when he was twelve. She used herself as bait to lead the Hunters away, and he never saw her again. Lucifard sympathizes, having gone through a similar experience--though his mother returned to him--and for the first time, Saladin is able to cry for his mother. He gets up to leave, furious that Lucifard can make him so vulnerable, but the officer catches his arm and swears again to protect him.

Saladin unintentionally releases his rose-scented pheromone again. This time he admits to himself the full significance of it; the rose scent is a sign that he truly has feelings for Lucifard. However, he is caught between wanting Lucifard to be his, not wanting to override the officer's free will, and knowing that Lucifard would probably reject him if he knew the truth about Houraijin. When Lucifard begins kissing him, he struggles, but the officer is too strong and holds him in place. Lucifard's reaction is puzzling, because someone under a Houraijin's influence should not be able to go against his "master's" wishes, yet Lucifard is actively countering the doctor's struggles. Finally Saladin gives in and reciprocates.

Houraijin are only fertile within their own race. They are essentially "sexless" in that they do not engage in sexual intercourse the same way humans do. They have their own set of actions to convey affection and erogenous zones that are completely different from humans. Lucifard unwittingly unleashes Saladin's buried Houraijin instincts by nibbling on his neck--his greatest pleasure center. Saladin's eyes turn red and his canines lengthen into fangs. Like those of a venomous snake, the Houraijin fangs are designed to inject fluid into the "victim." In the case that the victim is a human slave entranced by pheromones, receiving a portion of the Houraijin's bodily fluid turns the person into a pseudo-Houraijin. This procedure not only gives the victim a form of immortality, it is also apparently extremely pleasurable, which is seen as a kind of repayment for the slave's life of servitude.

Just as Saladin is about to bite, Lucifard pushes him away and backs up until he hits the wall. Saladin is overcome with anguish that Lucifard somehow was able to regain his senses and will reject him now that he knows the truth. The feeling of loss and lonliness is even greater than he experienced when he realized he would never see his mother again. He is therefore shocked when Lucifard's next words express horror at *himself* rather than at the Houraijin. The way Lucifard sees it, the rose scent is no more than a form of body odor (albeit a nice-smelling one) and isn't the doctor's fault. What disgusts him is that he would swear to protect Saladin and then in the next moment attempt to rape him. He is glad that he stepped on one of the broken shards of Kaja's pen and the pain snapped him out of his trance. He asks the doctor to try not to release the pheromone again, because he is afraid of what he will do.

Saladin is extremely relieved that Lucifard doesn't hate him. He makes up his mind that he won't resort to pheromones anymore...instead, he will seduce the officer fair and square. He begins by making Lucifard sit on the bed so he can attend to the injury--by sucking on it. Lucifard finds the sight and sensation of the elegant doctor literally licking his foot to be too erotic even to watch and he has to avert his eyes. At last Saladin sits next to him and insists that he doesn't mind what Lucifard did to him. Unfortunately, before he can initiate any more kissing, he is paged for an emergency and has to leave.

The Houraijin call humans "vampires." The Hunters exist because Houraijin blood can convey immortality. Humans hunt down Houraijin to drain their blood and use it to prolong their own lives. Saladin can only hope that his mother really is dead, and that she hasn't been kept barely alive all these years as a source of blood.

Lucifard is released from the hospital and goes back to work. He is confused that he actually enjoyed kissing Saladin. He decides to try kissing other men around him as an experiment, which of course causes a huge stir among Purple Heaven fans, and he concludes that the doctor's outstanding beauty must have overridden his natural aversion to same-sex smooches.

Later, in a private conversation with Lilah, he is cornered into talking more about his mother. He explains that Freedom Zero is transgendered--that is, she has the mind of a man in the body of a gorgeous woman. Mariliard was killed by terrorists aboard a spaceship while protecting O2. When O2 saw the spaceship and knew that his friend was dead, he sank into a despair so great that he incapacitated his own crew. He broadcast his emotions telepathically, causing a number of his crewmembers to suicide. Frida came and found him crying like a little boy. She knew exactly how he felt, so she comforted him very effectively. Though she did not see him romantically, since she was male inside, he fell in love with her. It is implied that he forced a sexual relationship on her, and that's where Lucifard came from.

What Lucifard doesn't reveal is that both "Freedom" and "Mariliard" were clones of the original Prince Mariliard. "Mariliard" was the "male-type" clone, and the FM for "Freedom" come from the acronym for "female Mariliard." The clones were altered to have golden hair and silver eyes, rather than the original Mariliard's black hair. The fact that one turned out female was a computer glitch. Both had Mariliard's personality, though the female version actually had two distinct personalities--one "Freedom" and one "Mariliard." Mariliard lived through the destruction of the Ra-Phael homeworld brought about by horrific bombing and biological warfare. Because the current Ra-Phael are called "angels," he named his son after Lucifer as a way to stress that Lucifard is not on their side. He gave his son Oscarstein's last name--though the two were never married--as a way to further distance him from the Ra-Phael royal family. Lucifard can use his psychokinesis to heal both himself and others. However, depending on how much tissue he has to rebuild, he could wind up starving to death if the damage is too great.

Meanwhile, Saladin has undergone a striking change. It isn't that his appearance is any different, it's that his demeanor is far more imposing. He knows it is because Lucifard unlocked his Houraijin instincts. His erotic air and his sheer sense of presence have increased drastically. In order to prevent rumors about him and Lucifard spreading, he gives the excuse that his change is due to his resolution to stay instead of quitting the military. He is now dissatisfied with the constant interruptions of his time such as the one that called him away from his attempt at seduction. His decision to pursue a relationship with Lucifard means that he will need to have more free time, so he convinces the head of the military hospital to assign him two aides. Since he is the only doctor skilled enough to perform certain operations--such as helping victims of the potentially lethal brain virus called Ogni--the stingy head of the hospital agrees with his request.

Saladin and Kaja meet Lucifard in passing in the hall on their way to lunch one day. The officer apologizes to Kaja, giving him the "shock treatment" of grabbing him and tossing him in the air like a kid. He ruffles the Hakushi's fluffy white hair, saying the small doctor reminds him of the white rabbit Benjamin he used to have as a pet. The 150-year-old Kaja is, understandably, furious at being treated that way, but he does get over his fear of Lucifard. This time, Saladin realizes he is intensely jealous that Lucifard can be so friendly with someone else, and he is appalled at the unfairness of the feelings his Houraijin nature evokes in him.

Lucifard is summoned by his commander, who reveals that there is a serious situation brewing. The son of an influential business family had been dealing in drugs on the black market. This son has just been kidnapped by the Yellow Town slum mafia. The police have tracked him and are surrounding the building where he is being held. There is one serious hitch: the man was involved somehow with a top secret drug called "Burning." Burning was an apparently inocuous substance that reacts in the brain with certain chemicals and causes devastating effects. It physically alters the person who uses it into a muscle-bound monster with decreased intelligence, and it is irreversible. All records of Burning were supposedly destroyed, but the information must have leaked. If it gets into the hands of the mafia, it could cause a great deal of harm. Despite the conflict it will inevitably create with the police, Lucifard is charged with getting the kidnapped man away from the mafia before he can give them any data about Burning.

End Volume Three

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