Noble Front

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The bald one, Mayor Bezo, wept for the longest time. The gray-haired Professor struggled against falling into a similar state, but his knees quaked violently.

  “This is the universe. A limitless space that’s a vacuum and as close as possible to absolute zero,” said the grand duke, a hint of contempt in his tone.

  Just as I expected of these lowly humans. Here they fancied themselves on equal footing with us, but I warrant now they see.

  “Of all the creatures born on Earth, we Nobility alone can live here,” Grand Duke Bergenzy continued. “And the two of you are like us at present—and by that I mean that you aren’t human.”

  “To be honest, it’s frightening. Well, intellectually I realize that with your scientific might doing something like this is no problem, but seeing it with my own eyes is something else entirely,” the Professor declared with admiration. He was half serious, with the other half being lip service.

  Your inferior race goes nowhere but toward its own extinction, Chaney thought to himself. Give us your accomplishments now and begone!

  The Professor wondered if he’d have to continue putting on this front for much longer, but then there was an unexpected interruption.

  “P-please . . . hurry up and . . . show us . . . the Noble technology . . . That’s why we came here . . . N-not to see this . . . this horrifying . . . lonely . . . whatever!”

  Two pairs of eyes reflected the bumpkin authority figure balled up and cradling his knees. Both men resisted the urge to laugh in his face.

  “There, there, of course we didn’t, Mister Mayor,” the Professor said, clapping the man on the shoulder. He then continued, “Your grace, if you would be so kind.”

  “Very well. To do so, we must venture into that nebula.”

  “What?”

  “There’s nothing under my castle. All the castle’s systems are maintained by devices set up on yonder planet.”

  “Energy from a planet in space?!” the Professor exclaimed, desperately swallowing the words for a castle in the boondocks. Fear had risen in his chest like icy waters. Can it be I underestimated this Nobleman? he thought.

  “Off we go!”

  They had no time to respond to the grand duke’s remark. The next thing the two humans knew, they’d reached their destination. An incredibly enormous power plant spread across the desolate ground. For they were looking down on it from the heavens.

  “Do those pipes and clusters of domes cover the entire surface of the planet?”

  The grand duke replied to the Professor’s question, saying, “Indeed. Roughly a hundred and fifty million square miles of them.”

  “How many years did that take you?”

  “Two and a half days, actually.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Two and a half days.”

  “Unbelievable!”

  At that point, the world changed again. The trio was standing inside a dome. From one of the walkways crisscrossing the place they could see a collection of cylinders directly below.

  “That is an antiproton reactor,” the Nobleman explained. “It produces nearly infinite energy.”

  “Could you—”

  “I shall teach you how it works. It has applications in other fields, as well. Science will make a ruler of you.”

  “That’s not what I—” the Professor protested, the feeling that the Nobleman had seen right through him leaving his mind a choppy mess.

  “Energy controls everything. Not just here in our world, but out in the universe, at the bottom of the sea, and even off in other dimensions. All to grant your every wish.”

  “You seem to have the wrong idea, and that simply won’t do. I’m merely an individual working for the human government in the Capital. My head reels with the sort of things you’re discussing,” the Professor said, donning a fake smile. “But all that aside, would you mind if I asked you something?”

  “What is that?”

  “Why did you accept our offer? When we received your reply, the Noble Ruins Survey Office was bowled over!”

  “I’m getting up in years, you see,” the grand duke laughed. It was unsettling the way his fangs poked from the corners of his lips when he did so. “I have lost the desire to creep into the bedchambers of human girls. Countrified farmers or not, they have thought of a great variety of defenses. And why go through all that needless effort when I can sit back and get the same thing anyway? The warm blood tastes the same either way.”

  Pretty crafty for a countrified Nobleman, the Professor thought, clucking his tongue in his heart of hearts. Is that all it takes to get the Nobility to hand their technology over to humans? Well, that’s just fine. No matter what he’s got planned, I want the proper means to control and harness that energy.

  “Allow me to show you it in action,” the grand duke said, his voice shattering the Professor’s thoughts.

  “W-why, yes—by all means,” Chaney replied, trembling with unmistakable delight from head to toe. The mayor got to his feet, too.

  “Look at that red star.”

  The grand duke raised his right hand, and sure enough, there it was.

  “And now check the horizon.”

  The Professor and the mayor peered off across the black wasteland. A single beam of red light split the darkness.

  “Unfortunately, even at the speed of light it would take ninety thousand years to reach that star. So let me link them across space. Watch the star.”

  In less than two seconds’ time, the red star flared blisteringly hot, blinding the two men, and then it was swallowed up by the darkness.

  “An entire star, and one ninety thousand light years away, at that,” the Professor groaned. Though he knew what had happened, he still couldn’t believe it.

  “I destroyed about thirty thousand of them before I’d reached the age of four. Although I desisted when my father ordered it.”

  So, his father was reasonable, then? the Professor mused, able to accept that. Still, the effect had been nothing if not stunning.

  “Grand duke . . . many thanks!”

  From behind them came a hoarse voice, saying, “It really ain’t right for a Noble to be encouraging humans this way, you know.”

  The trio turned in astonishment. They were out in the universe. Where had D come from, and how had he followed them there?

  II

  “How did you get here?” the grand duke inquired.

  “By the same device you used. It was the only one that was on.”

  The grand duke’s jaw dropped. His mouth then opened and closed repeatedly. He was able to . . . to use that? the grand duke thought, slipping toward a state of dementia.

  Finally Bergenzy was able to speak, saying, “Just who are you?”

  His voice split in two.

  Bounding, the Nobleman dodged the blade that swung down at him as soon as he landed in a manner that was nothing shy of miraculous. Both the Professor and the mayor were frozen.

  Putting ten paces between them, the grand duke braced himself for battle. D had his sword lowered nonchalantly. The Professor and the mayor heard a faint sound from somewhere.

  “Come,” the grand duke said, beckoning to the Hunter. It was an action that spoke of enormous self-confidence—and made one immediately think it was a trap. That much went without saying.

  D raced over like a gust of wind, his blade bisecting the Nobleman’s body—at least, it went through the grand duke’s torso. However, the grand duke turned around unconcernedly. There wasn’t even a slash through his garb.

  “Most unfortunate, is it not?” he said.

  Once again D closed the distance. The blade he brought down on the Nobleman’s head rebounded with a strange sound.

  “My person is protected by a reactor harnessing the power of an entire planet. No attack can penetrate it! Look at my arms—they’re artificial limbs, but are no different from the real thing. And then there’s my heart, which you skewered before. Shortly after my birth, it was replaced with an artificial o
ne. As it’s an imitation, I can survive half a day after it’s been pierced. My heart is no longer a weak point.”

  “Then I’ll have to see about breaking through your defenses,” said the Hunter.

  “What?”

  D’s lips were pressed together, but a dribble of vermilion spilled from one corner of them. Blood. He’d bitten open his own lip. And then—D’s throat bobbed up and down. As if he were swallowing something. His eyes gave off a red glow. The corners of his lips quickly turned up. And what spilled from them were the fangs of a vampire!

  The Professor’s legs gave out beneath him. The mayor clawed at the left side of his chest. So great was his fear it was causing him heart problems.

  “You—you son of a bitch,” the Greater Nobleman groaned in surprise, yet he still managed to back away thanks to the power of his station.

  The grand duke opened his mouth. A crimson ball of light sank into D’s chest. The Hunter’s blade had parried it—and it had passed through the weapon without leaving a mark on it. Doubling over, D lurched forward. He barely managed to catch himself after dropping to his left knee.

  “That energy sphere had the power of an entire planet in it,” said the grand duke. His tone should’ve been one of complete confidence, yet it shook with fear. The chances of this happening were like finding a needle in a haystack.

  The grand duke thrust his right hand into his cape. When he pulled it out again, it gripped a dagger.

  “Any dhampir, no matter how great, will die from a stake of wood or steel through the heart. World-renowned Hunter that you are—I, Bergenzy, shall give you your Last Rites.”

  He rushed at D, ready to drive the blade he’d raised through the Hunter’s back and out through his heart.

  Who would’ve imagined the agonized man’s right hand would flash into action? The grand duke toppled backward. Both his legs had been severed just below the knee. After he thudded to the ground, a rain of blood spurted out.

  Writhing, the grand duke cried out, “Drinking your own blood was enough to best the energy of an entire planet? Who are you, D? O energy, give me my legs back. Restore me!”

  Buffeted by the Nobleman’s insane words, the vision of beauty slowly got to his feet. His entire weight was supported by the sword in his right hand.

  “No, stay back. Don’t come near me,” the grand duke said, a succession of fireballs flying from his mouth. Three of them bounced off the Hunter’s blade, and another sank into D’s solar plexus.

  Seeing the Hunter’s knees buckle, the grand duke rolled over and desperately pulled his legs closer, pressing them against the stumps.

  “Energy . . . O energy . . . I beg of you . . . Help me. Why . . . can’t I heal . . . from his blow?”

  From the corner of his eye Bergenzy saw a figure in black approaching.

  “Oh, lend me your aid! Power! It’s power that shall save me. Move, legs! Move, damn you!”

  His expression was by turns one of despair or resignation, but suddenly it became one of elation.

  “They moved! Ha ha! I’m saved. The energy is still alive and well!”

  The grand duke jumped up as if on springs.

  D was standing right in front of him. Black smoke poured from his chest and solar plexus, yet every inch of him radiated murderous intent.

  “Wha—?!” the grand duke squawked, running. He covered ten yards in the blink of an eye. But that was just his legs and his headless torso. His reeling body had a needle of rough wood stuck through its back and out through its heart.

  Confirming that the torso and head of the fallen Noble had turned to dust, D used his sword to get to his feet, then walked off in the direction from which he’d come. When he passed by, the mayor screamed, while the Professor was frozen in place and couldn’t move a muscle. As far as they were concerned, he was a creature far more frightening than the Nobility. Even after D was swallowed up by thin air without giving them so much as a glance, the mayor continued to snivel for some time and the Professor remained just as stiff.

  “We’re finished,” the mayor moaned. “It’s all over . . . And we . . . we’re going to die here.”

  “What are you talking about? We were able to come out here. It must be possible to go back again,” the Professor countered, having returned to his senses.

  “That’s because we had the grand duke with us! Hell, the Hunter was able to go back. But that’s because he’s a dhampir. But we’re just regular old human beings. We got brought all the way out here, and now there’s not a thing we can do!”

  The Professor saw tears in the man’s eyes. Reflected in those tears, the look on the Professor’s face made the mayor turn and look.

  All the gray dust on the floor was moving in the same direction. Toward the grand duke’s clothing. And look! Weren’t those hands growing from the sleeves and a head quickly taking shape above the collar? Were even D’s blade and wooden needle not enough to slay this Nobleman?

  Now the grand duke got to his feet. Not a mark remained on his neck or his chest or even his clothes, and at some point the needle that’d pierced him had fallen to the floor.

  “Impossible,” the Professor murmured.

  “You came back . . . You came back from the dead . . . Please, help us!” the mayor sobbed.

  “You have my thanks, planetary energy!” the grand duke cried out to the heavens. “I have returned!”

  A monstrous laugh rolled through the ether. A moment later, the Nobleman collapsed. His face and body were decaying once more. His revival had been incomplete. For the energy of that planet had been no match for D’s blade.

  “Grand duke?!” the Professor cried out, racing over.

  “No, it’s probably better this way,” the mayor said, folding his hands together and reciting a prayer.

  And then they heard it.

  “Come . . .”

  It wasn’t a human voice. It was a groan from the dead. The rickety, nearly decayed right hand rose and beckoned to the two of them.

  “Come . . .”

  The voice of the dead echoed darkly in the two men’s heads, hindering their thinking.

  The fallen grand duke turned his face and looked up at them. His face? It was that of a mummy, with his eye sockets hollowed out, and both his cheekbones and teeth left exposed. His mouth moved, though his fangs were about to fall out.

  “The two of you . . . should . . . become me . . .”

  “Huh?”

  The Professor’s lips twisted. The expression that graced his deathly pale face was beyond description.

  “His sword . . . is fearsome . . . I must concede defeat . . . However . . . I will not be destroyed . . . like this . . . I still . . . have . . . energy . . . And I bequeath it . . . to the two of you . . . The power of the Nobility . . . Do with it . . . what you will.”

  “The power of the Nobility—do you really mean it?”

  “Yes . . . The two of you . . . will become me . . . Become . . . Noble.”

  “And we’d be able to use all the technology here without any difficulty?”

  “Of course . . . As far as the human world is concerned . . . you could make yourselves kings . . . without any trouble . . . at all . . .”

  Emotions flickered across the Professor’s face with dizzying speed. Fear and anxiety, expectation and joy. All of them still clung to it as he said, “This offer of yours—I’ll take you up on it.”

  “Good enough . . . And what of you, man? What will you do?”

  Giving a look of scorn to the mayor, who did naught but tremble, the Professor said, “Grant me the power of Nobility. Me alone.”

  “Very well . . . Show me your throat.”

  The Professor let out a croak of apprehension and his body stiffened. It was hammered into the DNA of every member of the human race what would happen to someone who did that. He trembled from head to toe with inescapable fear and broke out in a cold sweat. His shirt and underwear were soaked.

  A mummified hand took hold of his throat.

/>   “Quickly . . .”

  The mummy’s face was right in front of him. Red eyes burned from the depths of sockets that were like black grottos. Before the grand duke could even pull him closer he slumped forward, his keen fangs coming straight down on the man’s throat—and piercing the carotid artery directly below.

  Bezo, the newly minted mayor, didn’t have a clue what he should do. The very act of journeying out here had been an act unbecoming of a human being. He was the sort of man suited for wielding a modicum of power in a tiny human village and no more.

  I just want to go home, he thought, like a mantra. I want to go back to the village. I want to go home and take a bath.

  A shadow fell from overhead, covering him entirely. A cold hand touched his shoulder. It wasn’t just cold, but sent a chill right into his bones. He’d heard things from people who knew about the Nobility. They possessed monstrous strength, but their skin was cold like that. Numbed to the bone, he wouldn’t be able to move a muscle.

  “Mayor Bezo,” said a voice he recognized. “It is I, Chaney. Let’s go home.”

  The mayor shook his head. Not that he didn’t want to go home. Rather, he didn’t think that this man with the Professor’s voice was the Professor.

  “Relax. My mind is that of the old me. Our relationship is in no way changed, and I’ll honor every bit of our agreement.”

  No, don’t come near. Stay back.

  “However, thanks to this, I may no longer move about by day. I find it highly doubtful the four who accompanied me will still obey me. So, I’d like to ask you to fill their role.”

  “Their role?” said Bezo.

  “Yes, as my new protector and taking care of daily matters for me. After all, I’ll need to master everything about the machinery the grand duke left behind, from the principles behind them to their operation. I’ll require several days’ time. You’ll need to manage until then.”

  “What’ll you do after that?”

  “A good question. The plan was for me to bring a few pieces of technology back to the Capital, but that was the old me. I suppose I’ll give the government in the Capital a nice little surprise.”