Chapter 44

Chapter 44 is the forty-fourth chapter of the Dead Mount Death Play manga.

Official Blurb
Misaki's having the time of her life with her new evolution but not everybody is faring as well as her...

Synopsis
In a flashback, Lisa Kuraki visits an orphanage and notices Misaki Sakimiya sitting morosely off to the side. She remarks that Misaki would be a charmer if she smiled; Misaki replies her parents used to tell her the same thing.

Clarissa asks a caretaker why Misaki is at the orphanage, and the caretaker explains Misaki's parents were killed six months ago by a burglar—her parents, Clarissa guesses, must have been the owners of Sakimiya Steel. She returns to Misaki—who has begun doodling on a sketchpad—and asks if there is anything she can help Misaki with. Misaki replies she wants to smile, but she has forgotten how to. Wearing a smile herself, Clarissa suggests she try copying what others seem to enjoy—and Misaki, looking up from a page full of doodled smiling faces—thinks back to that burglar and muses, "Killing people."

Back in the present, Misaki lands on the roof of Kuon Higuro's van with a loud thunk. Higuro swerves into a side road, trying to throw their pursuer off, while Momoya Agakura stabs his blade up through the roof by way of a more direct challenge. Misaki evades the blade only to tumble off the roof with Higuro's next sharp turn.

Though she initially has trouble going airborne from the ground, she soon soars through the air once more and soon spots the van through the rain once more; with most pedestrians using umbrellas, no one looks up and spots her in turn. For a moment, she stops to revel in her new vampiric body's capabilities and tells an absent Clarissa that she has finally found something else she enjoys besides killing people: rescuing people—and challenging someone "way scarier" than herself.

In the abandoned building, Sayo Shinoyama is having a bit of trouble wrapping her mind around Misaki being a vampire since she looks the same as before. Corpse God tells her that the only vampires in his world who are discernible from normal people are those who express themselves too strongly through makeup and clothing. He adds that Misaki should be capable of physically altering herself to some degree at some point, though she currently is still limited to her own flesh.

Having tracked Higuro and Momoya to a warehouse or some similar building, Misaki pauses and notes her clothes have not changed with her bat body. She wonders whether that will be possible with her next evolution, realizing that her clothes' current state—i.e. how half of her shirt is missing due to her earlier bifurcation—are liable to get her arrested. This prospect does not overly concern her, since she supposes she can simply have Takumi Kuruya lend her his shirt.

Inside the warehouse, Momoya shucks Takumi's shirt and—ensuring Takumi's wrists are tied behind his back—examines him for weapons. Finding nothing, he scoffs at how Takumi's 'cushy life' must have made him soft, and then points out they should break his cell phone in case it has a transmitter; Higuro agrees they can smash it once he has gone through its data. Dissatisfied, Momoya rolls Takumi over and asks if his visor might have a radio or transmitter; Higuro agrees it probably does, but they should be fine since their hideout jams radio waves. However, that means neither of them can use their cell phones either.

Higuro remarks that Takumi apparently cannot so much as hold a 'decent conversation' these days without his headset—and here he addresses Takumi directly, as the drug he used should not have kept Takumi 'under' for very long. At Higuro's threat of torture, Takumi yelps that he is awake and please not to hurt him; Higuro replies, "that's good," since it will mean Takumi can avoid embarrassing himself in front of "Agakura-san."

The indication that Momoya is an Agakura surprises Takumi, while Momoya is mildly impressed at how well known his family appears to be. Takumi affirms that the Agakura Clan is well known as "an elite circle of crazies" and reminds Higuro that he is the one who warned him to stay away from the Agakura and the motorcycle gang "Crazy Bones Kagura." Higuro admits this is true and then to paying Agakura's people to be on his side—just like Takumi allied with the Heilei.

Takumi is nonplussed by this insinuation, leading Higuro to surmise that Rozan Shinoyama must not completely trust Takumi either—or, perhaps, that Rozan sent 'him' to dispose of Takumi and Clarissa should something happen. Again, Takumi is further nonplussed; Higuro bemusedly informs him that the Chinese boy in his building is an assassin employed by the Shinoyama Family.

One floor up, Xiaoyu Lei peers down at the trio through a small opening in the floor—having tailed them by running through the shadows. He recalls how he had spotted Higuro and Momoya leaving Takumi's apartment building around the time he had been plotting to plant a listening bug in Takumi's flat, and recalls his shock at seeing 'Agakura' again. The memory of what Momoya did to him awakes old wounds; still, though he had as a Heilei been warned not to tangle with Agakura, he is no longer a Heilei and can do has he pleases.

As he entertains the idea of having the 'fake Polka Shinoyama' owe him a favor, Misaki's winged silhouette can be glimpsed through an overhead hole.