Throng of Heretics

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  Though they hardly seemed to be more than walking, the time it took the adversaries to meet spoke volumes about the unholy speed with which they’d closed.

  An artless-looking swipe of D’s blade was stopped by the grand duke’s left forearm. At that instant, D learned that the grand duke’s arm was as hard as steel.

  D’s eyes gave off a red glow. From that moment, his blade had a new edge to it. It took the grand duke’s left arm off at the elbow and drew a geyser of fresh blood.

  The giant backed away, wind churning in his wake, and after him dashed the figure in black. Leaping, the Hunter raised his sword high to strike, its blade giving off a bluish gleam that dropped straight down toward the top of the grand duke’s head. A sound of unearthly beauty rang out. The blade in D’s right hand had rebounded mightily, and the top half of it was now missing.

  A golden wind mowed through the Hunter’s chest. It was D that spouted bright blood. There was a gleam from the grand duke’s right hand. In it he gripped a strange blade. Looking to be three times as wide as an ordinary sword, his blade had beads of blood from just slicing open D, while its grip was studded with jewels as if in disregard for the comfort of holding it.

  D pressed down on his chest, yet he remained standing.

  “Behold,” the grand duke said to him, raising his blade before his face and turning the flat of it toward D.

  Its steely surface seemed to become a mirror, and something came into view in it. The faces of innumerable humans. There were men and women. There were the old, the hale, and the young. And each and every one of them had a chalk-white face etched with boundless hatred as they stared at D.

  “Just as I thought,” the giant murmured, heedless of the blood dripping from his left elbow. “When he bestowed it on me, I refused to accept it. I told him quite plainly I needed no thanks. Yet he all but forced it on me before taking his leave. He? Who is he? I no longer recall. Nor do I remember what I did here!”

  The cries of the stunned amnesiac harmonized with some strange voices. Voices of hate. Voices choked from the faces that appeared on the blade.

  A most mournful expression skimmed across the grand duke’s face.

  “Do you understand, D? Do you see the faces on the sword, hear the screams of those he sacrificed in his experiments? They curse their fate, and curse the God that granted it. Though they have died, they cannot pass into the land of the dead. Because they were not given a peaceful death. But it is not God who has taxed them so. Not the fragile God in which the humans place their faith. He did it. Ah, they should curse him for all eternity. I saw his experiments with my own eyes!”

  The wind groaned. It became an attack by the enormous blade aimed straight at the base of D’s neck. The blow was made with one hand. D braced his sword with both hands to parry it.

  Garnished with sparks, the Hunter flew into the air. He’d been batted away. Mowing down gravestones, he barely managed to retain his composure and right himself again. And look. Wasn’t that a different hue that stained him from head to toe now? From his face and chin, from his gloves and the black mouth of his sleeves streams of vermilion dripped to the ground without a sound, dyeing it red. Blood. From every inch of D—every pore on his body—fresh blood seeped.

  “This is a magic sword. He called it Blue Blood. That those who died with a decided hate for the Nobility should focus that hatred to seek the blood of their opponent is nature’s providence. Or perhaps it would be better to call it a deadly principle?”

  The sword drank blood? And D was bleeding? While it was unclear just how much blood he’d suddenly lost, the young man in black dropped to one knee right where he was. Fresh blood streamed down his face and hands, dripping from them.

  As the grand duke watched that impassively, a look flitted across his face as if he’d suddenly remembered something, and a split second later it became a startled expression.

  “You said your name was D, did you not? He also had a—You . . . you couldn’t be . . .”

  The giant stepped forward, perhaps in the hope that D’s death would crush the astonishment he felt.

  D barely made it to his feet. However, from the way he didn’t even look at the grand duke, it was clear to see that he could neither parry nor dodge a second blow from the magic sword known as Blue Blood.

  The Greater Noble’s blade was only six feet away. The grand duke was winding up for a swing when he checked himself. A certain voice had reverberated against his eardrums. A woman’s singing. That shouldn’t have been enough to halt the giant’s attack just when he was focused for such a fateful moment. However, through his eardrums the singing voice resounded not in his brain but somewhere else. In his soul.

  It was a song bemoaning death. A requiem for the dead. However, death was far from the singer. A song from the mouth of one who didn’t know death, to let all know of the endless grief for the dead—who would make such a song, and who could sing it?

  “Genevieve,” the grand duke murmured as if in fear.

  A woman in a black dress stood just a little behind where the grand duke had first appeared. A scarf the same hue as her dress hid the lower half of her face, which was set with eyes as blue as lapis lazuli and swimming in sadness. The white flowers she clutched to her chest were undoubtedly funerary offerings. Though the two of them were battling to the death right before her, the woman didn’t seem to pay them any attention at all as she started forward.

  Was this really the interior of a train? In a vortex of egregious will to kill, the requiem flowed out plaintively, while the petals of the flowers she carried trembled in an almost imperceptible breeze. Perhaps even the dead would lend an ear.

  The woman walked right past the grand duke and began leaving flowers at the nearest grave. Setting aside the old blooms, she placed several new ones there. No doubt she’d been doing this for a very long time.

  The grand duke gazed at Blue Blood. The hateful visages were fading away. He returned it to the depths of his cape.

  “I have lost the urge to fight—we shall settle this next time, D.”

  And turning his gigantic back, he walked away, vanishing in no time.

  “What keeps the dead from resting is bright red blood,” the woman murmured gloomily. But even her murmurs were like song. “It would seem you, too, know nothing of the soul.”

  “Are you one of Grand Duke Drago’s retainers?” D asked. The bleeding still hadn’t stopped. His face was turned toward the ground.

  “I am Countess Genevieve. The grand duke and I are chess colleagues. The only reason I’m here is chess. Though it has become an extremely protracted game,” the woman said, her words like a song, but her hands never stopped moving and she made no attempt to look in D’s direction. “I have a human girl in my charge. Never fear. She is safe for the time being. More to the point, you should flee this train immediately. Three former humans are looking for you.”

  No doubt those were the three young Noblemen who were after Annette.

  “They are not as they once were. Now they are Grand Duke Drago’s children, baptized in his own blood. By the look of you, you too are far from the norm, but I hardly think you able to fend off their massed attack.”

  “Where are they?” D inquired.

  “Two hundred yards ahead. They’re in the frozen blood locker. I imagine you know what it is they do there. Why not turn tail before they get here?”

  The corners of the countess’s eyes rose with her sneer. From the look on her face, she’d already decided he would obviously do that very thing. Even when D got to his feet, her expression didn’t change. On seeing the Hunter walking away, the Noblewoman threw her eyes wide with astonishment. The young man in black was heading in the same direction as the grand duke.

  “That’s the wrong way. It shall bring you straight to them.”

  “That’s the job, Countess baby.”

  The countess’s mouth dropped open due to the unbelievably hoarse voice.

  “What—who are you?” she a
sked in a dumbfounded tone, and, as if drawing something from the blackest depths of her memory she continued, “No . . . It cannot be . . . Your name is D?”

  The young man answering to that name was already headed toward where the grand duke had disappeared from view. Even after he disappeared without warning, the countess could only stand there like a statue, unable to follow after him or to return to what she’d originally come to do. When words finally escaped her, they carried an emotion that her heart could not fully restrain even after all these millennia.

  “No, you cannot be . . . Your Highness . . . ?”

  III

  “No one, and I mean no one,” the hoarse voice said unpleasantly, “can stop that bleeding. You-know-who made that freaking sword! It’s got power in it way beyond even Grand Duke Drago.”

  “A curse?” D asked as he advanced in near silence. His stride was sure. However, the floor behind him was covered with spots of blood—or rather, an endless carpet of it.

  “No doubt. From what I’ve seen, even its owner, Grand Duke Drago, can’t keep it under control. But it’s not the power itself that’s the problem. The next time you try and stop it, even you could be in danger. Take one solid hit, and—”

  “I might be destroyed?”

  The hoarse voice was at a loss.

  Something skimmed across D’s lips. It might’ve been a smile.

  “Is that what you want?” the hoarse voice inquired. It seemed to be in a horrible state.

  D didn’t reply. Saying nothing more, he walked, finally halting before a black door of iron. The particle cannons and electromagnetic barriers meant to deal with intruders had already been destroyed. And D’s ears caught laughter trickling out through the door.

  “Two of ’em are in there. Best figure the third can’t be far, either. You’re going in?”

  In lieu of a reply, D touched his left hand to the iron door. Sensors checked him, then commanded the automated door system to grant entry. The iron door opened.

  An overpowering stench of blood surged out. Not so much as raising an eyebrow, the gorgeous Hunter looked around the blood-fogged room. There were shelves beyond numbering, which were in turn filled with cylinders, and everything was white. The air was crystallized. Sixty degrees below zero—just setting foot in there would be enough to knock a human unconscious, and in five seconds they’d freeze to death.

  In a world that was otherwise all white, one corner alone was stained vermilion. Two figures were devouring the contents of the cylinders they held. They were red from the tops of their heads down to the tips of their boots. One of the figures lifted a cylinder high, scattering its contents over his head. Blood. Equipped with a thermostat, the cylinder could return the frozen blood to its normal temperature at the flick of a switch. However, the vermilion droplets flying through the air instantly congealed into white beads that clattered noisily against the floor.

  It was Xeno Gorshin who first noticed D. “He’s here!” he shouted, hauling back with the cylinder in his hand. He intended to hurl it at D.

  It was too late. D was now right in front of them.

  Choking out a short breath, Gorshin slumped forward. The sword blade that pierced him through the solar plexus jutted from his back.

  Not bothering to pull the blade free, D swiped it to the right. The left half of his torso split in two, Gorshin collapsed on the spot.

  Above D’s head the sound of steel biting steel rang out; he twisted his upper body to knock away the blade of the scythe, and then drove his sword into Benelli’s chest. The deadly thrust was executed with ungodly speed while the Nobleman was off balance, so there was no way he could escape it. Benelli was run right through the heart, his knees buckled feebly, and he fell flat on his back.

  “No choice but to catch ’em off-guard,” said the hoarse voice that rose from D’s left hand. “Still, it was disappointingly easy. What do you think?”

  D didn’t answer, but gazed at Xeno Gorshin’s corpse. His longsword spun around in his right hand. With a backhanded grip on it, D drove it straight down at Gorshin’s chest.

  The tip stopped when it hit the floor.

  Gorshin was standing right in front of the blade. He’d gotten up with unbelievable agility. The movements were beyond what Nobles were capable of.

  “So, a Noble’s been made a servant of the Nobility?”

  The hoarse query was countered by a wry grin from the resurrected Nobleman.

  “Such is fate. As a result, your fate remains unchanged, D! How do you slay a Noble who can be run through the heart without being destroyed?”

  Tilting his head forward a bit, Gorshin spat a vermilion bead into the palm of his hand.

  “The blood I just drank has solidified. But now it shall serve a different role.”

  Raising his palm to mouth level, he blew on it.

  D caught the vermilion bead sailing toward him in his left hand. Or rather, the tiny mouth that formed on his palm swallowed it. Gorshin grinned just at the moment D’s blade carved him open from the left shoulder down to the right lung. D, too, staggered. In part it was due to his massive blood loss. Added to that was another loss of blood—that which the mouth in his left hand had violently vomited up, soaking Gorshin’s chest.

  “A symbiotic relationship is a double-edged sword, is it not?” Gorshin said, showing his pearly teeth and not even bothering to wipe off the fresh blood. “I am not particularly skilled at combat, so I only engage someone when attacked. However, when necessary, my blood beads are pure poison. The blood coursing through your body is now busily dissolving your innards and your left hand. Here, I shall give you some more.”

  Vermilion beads appeared in his mouth, and this time he blew them directly at D.

  D’s blade flashed into action. It was such a dazzling piece of swordplay it made his mortally wounded condition seem a ruse—and every last one of the deadly blood beads was cut in two, spraying the floor.

  Gorshin braced himself to leap away from the approaching D. His eyes were drawn to a crimson glow. D’s eyes. Ah, even with the blood of Grand Duke Drago in his veins, the young Nobleman froze on the spot.

  D’s merciless blade flashed out without a sound. Clearly it should’ve made a horizontal slash right through Gorshin’s neck. And he wouldn’t have time to spit out another blood bead.

  A gleam flashed out. It was going to strike D from behind, but it clashed against the Hunter’s blade when he swung it back without so much as turning. Amid blue sparks from steel on steel, Gorshin leapt to the far side of the room while D halted to confront his new foe. In other words, the great scythe-wielding Benelli, also risen from the dead.

  “Benelli, take off his left arm,” Gorshin shouted. “The blood of the grand duke tells me to do so. Cut him! Cut it off!”

  The great scythe whistled an arc through the air. However, Benelli may have had an understandable fear of D’s longsword, as he was not quick to close with the Hunter.

  “Coward—watch this!”

  Gorshin opened his mouth. From it he spat blood beads. Not just one. Ten or twenty of them. The crimson beads left gorgeous streaks of contrast as they flew through the silvery world. D’s gleaming blade swiftly struck down half of them.

  At that point the blade of the scythe came at him—dodging it, D reeled, and one of the blood beads cracked open right in front of his face. It must’ve contained a virulent poison, because D began coughing violently. And the blade of the scythe assailed him. He dodged it by about the thickness of sheer fabric, but it was followed by a second swipe—and there was the crunch of severed bone.

  After a little triumphant jig Benelli charged forward, only to be stopped by a sudden, violent cough. For he, too, had inhaled the blood bead’s poison. Blood splashed across the floor.

  “Damnation!” Benelli exclaimed, reeling.

  Gorshin ran over to offer him a shoulder to lean on, saying, “Let us fall back. Even after inhaling my blood beads, he is still our equal. And in your present state, you would
be at an even greater disadvantage in battle.”

  “What do you—” Benelli began to protest, shaking from head to toe. “One more blow will end it. We can take his head now.”

  The last remark came out with a gout of blood.

  “It is your head that’ll be taken. Look at your scythe. It quakes with your every cough.”

  “So—what of it?”

  “Look at his blade.”

  Looking his compatriot in the face with defiance in his eyes, Benelli then looked at D.

  “What in the—?!”

  He was stunned. Though D was coughing twice as hard as Benelli, his sword didn’t move an inch.

  Clinging to one another, the two Noblemen disappeared into the back of the refrigerated chamber; there was the sound of an automated door closing somewhere, and then a stillness descended.

  First he’d faced Grand Duke Drago, and now this pair of Noblemen—what’s more, both of the latter had had their powers enhanced by Drago’s bite, while D had fought with the wounds the grand duke had dealt him and after inhaling deadly, poisonous gas. The pair had fled. Anyone could see it was a victory for D.

  However, D alone knew the true nature of the battle. As he’d fought them yet allowed them to escape, it was a defeat for him. His foes hadn’t been reduced in numbers. To the contrary, there was no guarantee Grand Duke Drago wouldn’t increase their power even more. No, he was quite certain to do just that. And once he did, would D in his present state be able to stand against them?

  Jabbing his sword into the floor, D supported himself and turned his eyes to his left hand. At a glance it was clear what that blow from the scythe had cleaved. His left arm had been taken off at the elbow, leaving a vivid wound in its place.

  “What do you intend to do with that thing?” Xeno Gorshin inquired, making no attempt to disguise his ill humor.

  “Merely a war trophy—or so I’d like to say, but it bothers me. That hoarse voice always seemed to come from somewhere around his left hand.”

  Benelli raised what he had in his right hand to eye level.