Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The Hunter’s cyborg horse had remained tethered to Braujou’s car when D and Kima made the trip to Valcua’s castle. D knew that as well, but true to form he made no complaint, but rather kept on walking in silence.

  His face suddenly turned to the west. No sooner did he recognize the sound of hooves striking the earth than a white horse came galloping straight toward him. It halted right in front of D, who put a black-gloved hand on its neck and stroked it several times before noticing the silver card attached to the saddle.

  “Braujou?”

  When his index finger touched the edge of the card, the giant’s face suddenly appeared in midair.

  “Here’s your horse. A lack of transportation might prove inconvenient. I only hope your steed likes you,” the Nobleman said gravely, and then he vanished.

  “If there’s one thing this world needs more of, it’s thoughtful Nobles,” the left hand jeered.

  Ignoring this comment, D got into the saddle. His destination was obvious: Valcua’s castle.

  “He’s approaching,” Valcua heard a machine say.

  “Kima,” he started to call out, but then he halted. He hadn’t seen a trace of the hooded figure since shortly after his return to the castle. Though he’d given orders to wait, distance meant nothing to Kima.

  The screen in midair showed D riding a horse. Not only was the Hunter’s horsemanship exceptional, but every time the Ultimate Noble changed the angle, the wonder of that beautiful visage made him sigh in spite of himself.

  “Valcua, get ahold of yourself,” he said, and a trickle of blood began to run from his lip. Only by biting down on it had he returned to his senses. D’s looks were that remarkable.

  “As great as his beauty is, his skill is even more incredible. But our earlier encounter was just an exchange of pleasantries. To determine if he’s a fit opponent for me, I shall have to take his measure as a commander.”

  As the same Ultimate Noble who’d moved mountains grinned, his eyes were full of pride and confidence. This confrontation could no longer be avoided. But where had Valcua’s interest in investigating D originated?

  “How long until dawn?” the grand duke inquired.

  “Two hours and twelve minutes, milord.”

  “If he keeps going that way, he’ll run right into the dimensional battlefield. Have the homunculus army get two divisions ready,” Valcua ordered after facing the sky.

  As D headed north, enormous battlements began to come into view far off in the distance. However, this wasn’t the reason D halted his steed. The grave sound of tires and footsteps was approaching from up ahead.

  “There are a lot of ’em. From the sound of the footsteps, I’d say a full division—three thousand men. As for vehicles, well, a thousand

  or so. Seems like they’ve got a battalion with flight packs, too. Even knowing how powerful you are, this seems to be seriously overdoing it. Valcua must be a first-rate coward!”

  The earthshaking thud of countless combat boots from the depths of the darkness became pale-faced men in uniform who stopped about thirty feet from D.

  As D remained in place, a man who looked to be a general appeared riding a skeletal android horse. Giving a crisp salute, he said, “I am General Clemens, commander of Combat Division Z under Grand Duke Valcua. From this moment forward, I am at your command.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” D asked, but just then a gigantic image of Valcua’s face appeared high in the sky.

  “Allow me to explain. D, I’m giving you these five thousand men—a division. If you wish to see me or rescue the human girl Sue, you must direct them in battle against my forces. I wish to see how you handle command.”

  “He’s got some weird kinks, don’t he?” the left hand murmured, knowing its remarks wouldn’t reach the grand duke’s ears.

  “Beyond the castle walls you see up ahead you will find Sue and myself. I have the same number of troops. Here’s a diagram of the inside of my castle, D. Draw on all your knowledge when considering where I might be lurking or what kind of formations will be lying in wait for you. I’ll have you know that although your soldiers are artificial life forms, they are most definitely alive. They feel pain when injured. D, I truly look forward to seeing how you view these men, and how you utilize them. An hour remains until dawn—and the game shall be decided in that time. If it goes longer than that, I shall retreat to a resting place you’ll never find no matter how you search. And the girl will go with me.”

  When Valcua vanished, five thousand men were left on the plain, waiting for instructions from their new commander to fight Valcua. However, even D couldn’t imagine going into battle with five

  thousand soldiers and their assorted armaments. How would D carve his way through this great conflict when it was more than a solitary blade could handle?

  CHAPTER 6

  I

  Needless to say, D wasn’t on a battleground. On the other hand, it was far too vast to call it a castle. Valcua had referred to it as the “dimensional battlefield.” Surrounded by walls a thousand yards high, the grounds covered roughly forty thousand acres— encompassing mountains, valleys, rivers, plains, and hills all patterned after the outside world. Having positioned his infantry and a dimensional tank battalion on the plain and artillery units on the hills, the grand duke now waited for D and his forces to arrive. The battlefield could be entered by gates at the four points of the compass, and surveillance aircraft nearly a mile in the sky were monitoring all of them. Valcua guessed that D would be coming through the south gate. It was the shortest distance to travel, and once in it would be easy to move while keeping under cover.

  “Now, how will he attack, and how shall I counter?”

  In the headquarters that he’d established on top of one of the hills, the grand duke peered at a layout of the battlefield that was projected in midair. They would know every move D made, but their deployments would also be relayed to his side. Things would be equal, so to speak.

  “The rest will depend on D’s ability,” he said, looking at Sue by his side. From the center where those disturbing biological

  experiments had been conducted, she’d been taken on a high-speed expressway right to Valcua’s castle. In her present condition, this had to seem ideal to Sue. As she sat next to Valcua, there wasn’t a hint of fear in her expression. Strangely enough, however, she didn’t look satisfied either.

  “D has to come,” Valcua said. “An hour remains—and if he hasn’t come by daybreak, your life is forfeit. Though in truth, in your condition, you wouldn’t mind falling victim to me. Your older brother educated you well, didn’t he?”

  Sue nodded.

  Meanwhile, what was the eagerly awaited D doing outside the battlefield? The first thing he’d done was to select several experts at modification from among his troops. Out on the battlefield, engineers who scavenged parts from broken equipment to create something new were indispensable. On hearing D’s request, they were surprised at first, but then they smiled broadly.

  “That’ll be a lot easier than turning a beast into a bird,” they assured him.

  D went on to choose soldiers who professed to be excellent marksmen or were confident in their skill at hand-to-hand combat, and after a demonstration of their abilities he narrowed the selection down to five of each. For those good at hand-to-hand combat, D was their opponent. Coming at him with bayonets, spears, or swords, the soldiers were forced to surrender after a flashing movement of D’s right hand either snapped their blades or left their spears chopped in two. In the case of bayonets, the Hunter merely grabbed the gun and tossed it away every time, resulting in the elimination of every challenger.

  D then turned his attention to the tank battalion lined up on the distant plain.

  Thirty minutes passed.

  The voice of the computer in Valcua’s command center rang out, announcing, “Forces approaching the south gate. Preparations for attack are complete.”

  “Strictly by the book. Is that all D c
an come up with as a commander?” Valcua spat disdainfully, then ordered, “As soon as all his vehicles have entered the battlefield, blast them to pieces!”

  The results were as hellish as the image the grand duke’s brain had conjured. The tanks under D’s command were powerless in the face of Valcua’s waiting tank battalion, which discharged their dimensional cannons in unison and banished the Hunter’s forces to another dimension.

  “What’s his next attack?”

  “There isn’t one.”

  When the Ultimate Noble heard this reply, the first shade of suspicion skimmed across his face.

  “Not coming on the attack? Why, that’s—”

  At that instant, the door to the headquarters fell to the floor in flames. The handful of figures who rushed in quickly overpowered Valcua’s guards and soldiers, overrunning the room with their blades and laser rifles.

  “Of all the underhanded . . .” Valcua groaned in a low voice, turning to look at Sue.

  “D!”

  With Sue behind him, the vision of beauty in black inquired in a soft tone, “What kind of marks did I get?” His voice was cold as ice, but he sounded slightly amused nonetheless.

  “Given a full division, you opted for guerrilla warfare? Very well, I give you a perfect score, less one point.” The hoarse voice laughed. “That one point is for the commander personally heading such a reckless attack. And for coming to see me. What can an army do once it’s lost its commander? D, you don’t imagine that this settles everything, do you?” “Of course not.”

  “Then face me. To tell the truth, I find it lamentable that the plains of this battlefield haven’t rung with the cries of soldiers for the last five millennia.”

  “Okay,” D said, sheathing his sword on the spot. A stir went through his group. “Order your soldiers to retreat from the battlefield. Tell them they’re not to take up arms again. And they’re to turn the girl over to whomever wins.”

  “Fine,” Valcua said, only too happy to comply.

  Several minutes later, the two of them squared off on the vast plain that was to be their battlefield.

  “Before we begin, I must ask you something,” said Valcua. “How were you able to make a lightning-fast strike against my headquarters?” That was undoubtedly the greatest mystery to Valcua.

  “We took the engine and other parts from one of your tanks and made a stealth helicopter.”

  “Oh really? I’m surprised you were able to make such modifications. That design shouldn’t have been possible.”

  “Don’t you know the skill of the engineers you yourself created?” Valcua leaned back in a fit of laughter. The sound caused buildings to quake.

  “Now that you mention it, I don’t really know anything about this part of my domain. Hmm. I don’t know how many soldiers there are, what they eat, or even where the food comes from. Come to think of it, it’s been a long time since I considered such things. My only thoughts were that if I had ten million troops, I would win the battle even if it cost all of their lives.”

  Taking ten men alone as D had done and making a strike against the central command was alien to the Ultimate Noble’s way of thinking.

  “I suppose I’m like a drunken fool who can move mountains and change the movements of the stars, yet can’t walk in a straight line. However, against you man to man, I can probably cut you down.” Glencalibur whistled from its sheath. Simultaneously, D drew his blade. His sword seemed to drink up the moonlight.

  Both started running at the same time. The instant the two figures melted into one, red sparks scattered and the two switched positions.

  “Oh, my!” exclaimed a hoarse voice.

  A thread of black coursed down D’s forehead, spreading like the mesh of a net when it came to the bridge of his nose.

  “Once Glencalibur has been drawn, it won’t be sheathed until it’s tasted blood.”

  Before Valcua had finished speaking, D’s sword danced out. As the mysterious blade bore down on him like a black tsunami, Valcua managed to knock it away, but his stance was badly broken. Ignoring his sword as it sailed into the air, D had thrown himself at the Ultimate Noble’s chest, driving the dagger in his left hand through the armor beneath Valcua’s robe and into his accursed heart.

  “You bastard!” Valcua groaned as he swung Glencalibur down, but D’s blade stopped it and the Hunter’s dagger gouged even deeper into the grand duke’s heart.

  Heaven and earth took on a blue glow, for lightning had struck on this moonlit night. It wasn’t D that was hit but rather the blade of Glencalibur, though the Hunter was also singed by the electromagnetic waves.

  Giving off flames and black smoke, the two men separated. A split second before they did, Glencalibur made a movement Valcua had never intended, splitting D’s right shoulder open. Black blood sprayed out.

  The magical sword was raised again for another blow against D, but it then crashed to the ground. Valcua had fallen.

  From all sides people pressed forward, carrying off Valcua and charging D simultaneously. A sword gleamed in the hands of each. However, before they could swarm over D, other figures flew in from the sidelines with flashes of laser fire and naked steel, scattering Valcua’s followers and spiriting D away.

  D walked without any aid from his rescuers. Half his face and the right side of his body were stained with black blood, but if he’d swung the sword he’d transferred to his left hand, Valcua’s underlings would’ve invariably found that their heads had parted company with their bodies. Apparently his supporters understood as much, and none of them offered D a shoulder to lean on.

  They guided D underground and got him onto a high-speed transport. Resembling a ski gondola, it ran toward the center of the territory at several hundred miles per hour. Leaving half the group on the platform, the other five boarded with him.

  “Where are we going?” D asked.

  “We’re bringing you to the medical treatment center,” one answered. Though assigned to D, they had once been Valcua’s soldiers.

  “This is Valcua’s castle. Someone will come after us in no time. His computer oversees any treatment.”

  “If we switch it over to manual mode, we should be able to stop the bleeding, sterilize the wound, and get you sewn up.”

  “This wound won’t close!” said the hoarse voice, stunning the soldiers. “Glencalibur is just the sort of sword you’d expect the Ultimate Noble to love. No matter how I try to stop it, you just keep bleeding. This calls for radical treatment!”

  “Wow, your left hand can talk?” one of the others said, his brow crinkling as he stared at it intently.

  “What are you looking at? I ought to charge you admission!” the hand snapped, startling the man. “Instead of hitting some quack medical center, there’s someplace better to go. First off, let’s hurry to the reactor.”

  The group halted before a massive door.

  “Beyond this lies the antiproton reactor.”

  D nodded, saying, “You men head back.”

  “The defense systems are operational. They pose a danger to you in your current condition. We’ll accompany you.”

  “Oh, and why is that?” D asked in a terribly hoarse voice. “I thought you boys had been given orders to rejoin your unit once the surprise attack was over. So, why don’t you go already?” “We are prepared to die,” the first one said.

  “Even if ours is an artificial life, that doesn’t mean we don’t fear death. And when our colleagues are slain, we feel sadness too.” “Yet we were told we were bom to die before we were sent to serve you, sir,” the third one said. “But you wouldn’t let anyone die. With just ten men you made a tactical strike against Lord Valcua to decide the battle—and that is something only a bom commander can do.” “You spared our lives—and now we’re here, ready to give them for you, sir. We who didn’t want to die have decided to give our lives for you—so please allow us to do so.”

  “I can’t,” D said softly, yet his words had the knife edge of the wind to th
em. His face was pale as paraffin, and he continued to lose blood. “I’ll take the life I came here for. The rest of you should enjoy yours.” And saying just this, the young man in black turned, his coat whipping out around him. Particle cannons mounted on the ceiling and walls turned on D without a sound and then deactivated. Saying nothing, D turned toward the entrance to the reactor.

  The other men were frozen in place, but someone’s recitation of an ancient poem rang in their ears.

  Piercing wind,

  Freezing river of Yi.

  The hero fords,

  And he never returns!

  It was unclear what kind of trick he used; the Hunter simply seemed to press his left hand to the door to force it open, and as the men watched him disappear into the white light, all they could do was stand in stunned amazement.

  II

  The reactor—the energy source for the Ultimate Noble—didn’t work by nuclear fission or fusion. The energy that maintained life

  in his domain all came from contact between protons and antiprotons. Because Valcua’s reactor produced energy that was far purer than any of the other forms of power currently in use in the world, the extremely delicate combination of the particles was conducted with a devilish attention to detail.

  “This will be kinda hairy, D,” the left hand said. The fact that it called its host by name revealed its nervousness. “Combining protons and antiprotons is the toughest kind of work, even for a computer. One tiny little leak, and the delicate balance gets upset. After that, the reactor goes out of control. Once out of the reactor, the antiprotons could find endless particles to hook up with in the air, burning them all up. Not only Valcua’s domain would be wiped out, but the whole planet and maybe even the whole universe if antiproton production continued long enough.”

  “Is there any other way?” D inquired softly.

  “No,” the left hand replied, the tiny eyes that had formed in its palm staring at D’s feet.