Vampire Hunter D Volume 13: Twin-Shadowed Knight Parts 1 and 2 (25 page)

“Yeah, if you call dying a purpose,” the fake D said.

A second later his whole body was tinged with the color of twilight. Indigo hair had flown at him from all directions and wrapped around him. At the same time, several of the Yumas that surrounded him had fallen backward silently. Wooden needles jutted from their chests.

The fake D became a black cyclone, flying through a rent in the descending net formed by the hair of his attackers. Though he moved with such speed that they didn't even have time to launch another attack, the fake hadn't gone fifteen feet before he thudded loudly to the floor. Bright blood went flying. The thousands or tens of thousands of hairs that'd wrapped all around the fake D's body had pressed deep into his skin, splitting his flesh.

“Though you might call us rejects, we have power enough to slay you. There are twenty-five of us here. More than a sufficient number, we'd say.”

Their voices in perfect harmony, they cried, “Kill him!”

A different hue danced out into the gloom. Day was about to break. The color was white—the hue of rough wooden stakes. Twenty-five hands gripped them, raising them high.

“We shall accomplish one of our missions!” they cried, all of them like blue moths swarming a black beetle as they surrounded the fake D. Now a stab from any one of them would prove a fatal blow.

“Meet your destruction, D. The Sacred Ancestor's own—”

The chorus lost its harmony there. The truncated sentence became a pained groan, and all of them turned their gaze in one direction. Their eyes filled with turbulence and rapture.

“D,” someone whispered.

“Back off,” D said.

Like flowing blue water, the figures moved around this new D. They were trying to surround him. A silvery flash cut down a storm of hair, the blue wind falling limply to cover the floor until D alone stood there dejectedly. Every last one of the twenty-five Yumas was laid out around him.

D walked over to the fake D and sliced off the hair sinking into the fake's flesh with a single light stroke from his right hand. He didn't even leave a mark on the other man's skin.

Suddenly, a bloody fog erupted. And while it did, the fake D stood there as impassive as a temple guardian. The wounds left by the hair closed instantly. Not only his body, but also his wardrobe returned to its original state, which suggested that it made use of different materials than the real D's clothing.

“What you just did was totally unnecessary, you know,” the fake griped as he rotated one shoulder. “Well, I'm sure you think you saved me, so I'll thank you anyway. This facility—”

“Was for making Yuma.”

Pulling a sullen face, the fake D spat, “What, you already knew that?”

“We traveled down into the heart of the facility,” D said in a hoarse voice.

“In that case, how about this piece of information: Mia is missing.”

“What?” said the hoarse voice.

D himself didn't even arch an eyebrow.

“We'll put some life into one. Make 'im talk,” the hoarse voice suggested, chortling until it was choked off in a cry of pain.

Left hand still clenched in a tight fist, D went over to one of the corpses piled around him, grabbed it by the collar, and hoisted it off the ground. Though the two Ds quickly breathed life back into him, the body said he knew nothing where Mia was concerned and turned away indignantly. Even after a merciless slash from the fake D lopped off both his ears, his reply remained the same. The two Ds decided he was telling the truth.

“If it wasn't these clowns, then who took her?” the fake D said with a faraway look in his eyes. “And where?”

Death and silence held dominion over the room.

“There's something funny on the floor,” the hoarse voice said.

D turned toward it first, with the fake D following suit.

“It's the girl's location,” the fake D said, snapping his fingers.

“It's a divining stick,” the hoarse voice declared.

Engraved with colorful patterns, the long, thin object was made of metal and measured about eight inches. It was no thicker than a conductor's baton. D was just about to pick it up when he halted for a moment.

“What is it?” the fake D asked, for even he seemed to sense something.

Without really looking at the stick he held, D threw it down on the floor again.

Falling with a clang, the stick didn't roll the way it should've, but rather swept around in a clean arc and stopped itself again. It pointed in the very same direction as before it'd been picked up.

Two sets of eyes were focused on the end of the stick.

“I suppose it's telling us she's that way, eh? To be sure and go after her. When you picked it up a minute ago, it didn't move, did it?”

“That way's the highway,” said the hoarse voice. “Muma is there.”

Watery light struck D's face. Day was about to break.

“Let's go.”

“Sure.”

Shoulder to shoulder, the two figures headed toward the door. When they reached the road, they felt heavy shocks traveling up through the soles of their boots.

“You did something, didn't you?” the fake D said, looking askance at D.

“I unleashed the power of the proton reactor.”

“Excuse me?”

D reached up and grasped his saddle, saying, “Only it seems that I slightly miscalculated. It's about ten minutes early.”

“You're awfully calm about it,” the fake D said as he urged his cyborg horse into a gallop.

Ten minutes later, the pair was racing down the highway when they were struck from behind by a terrific shock wave that bowled them over, mounts and all.

-

Mia was in the midst of chaos, but she hadn't noticed that this was the same chaos D had been in and which she herself had slipped into once before. As she walked through the mysteriously pervasive clouds, she sensed someone or something incredibly huge up ahead. An eerie feeling knifed through her. It was fear—the kind of terror so thick and intense that one misstep might mean she'd never recover from it. However, oddly enough, she wasn't afraid of that happening, and this frame of mind saved Mia. It was unimaginably deep and cold and, strangest of all, warm. Due to this, Mia didn't halt.

There's quite a resemblance, she thought. Although the scale differed so greatly, in some basic respects they were like two peas in a pod. This one and D.

You're right, echoed a voice from somewhere, but Mia was neither surprised nor frightened. To the contrary, she let a question slip right out.

You're a close relative of D's, aren't you?

The power of the imagination is a thing to be feared, the voice replied, seeming to laugh. However, that's one of the most beautiful things about humans. Because of that power, the human race hasn't died out, and you have come here.

Where exactly is “here”?

Wherever you'd like it to be. That is actually what this is.

Sounds just like one of those Zen riddles.

Mia's grumbling brought a chuckle from the other party.

It's been a long time since I've heard anyone mention those. I should've expected as much from the daughter of Noa Simon.

You know about my mother?

Yes, I do. And about the mole on your right buttock.

“Stop that!” Mia said aloud, speaking in spite of herself. And with that, she finally realized that up until now she'd merely been thinking the words.

What are you going to do with me?

Even I don't know that, said the voice in her head. Can you understand what it's like to wonder if the things you want to do are really what you want to do?

Now that really is Zen, Mia thought. If you don't know, then let me go back.

I can't do that. It would seem you don't yet grasp what it is you've done.

What I've done?

Anxiety spread through her like a black stain. Her heart began to pound madly. She'd have to use a spell to bring it back under control.

You came into this place for just an instant and brought him back out.

When you say “him,” you mean D?

Who else?

The pressure of the air surrounding her increased sharply, causing Mia to flinch. At the very least, it could be said for certain that there was an intense mental link between D and the source of this voice. The possibilities boggled the mind.

If I pulled D back, what's the problem? she asked after gathering her courage.

The being up ahead had begun to bombard her with fierce and unearthly air. She thought she was going to black out—however, it wasn't an awful feeling.

Such a dignified spirit, Mia declared, surprised in the strangest way. It looked like she wasn't going to be tortured to death.

It may sound trite, but will you aid me?

Huh?

He came to Muma. A place he shouldn't have gone; nay, a place he had to go. Sooner or later, he'll probably learn a great many things. However, that is a mistake.

“A mistake?” she said, once more speaking by accident. She got the feeling that one phrase from this being was packed with tremendous import. It was almost as if a god were perfectly content to give someone on earth the order, “Die.”

His arrival in Muma was supposed to come in the far-distant future. But due to unavoidable circumstances, it has happened much earlier. Though this isn't the problem, a small error has set off a chain reaction, spreading out to such an extent that now it can no longer be undone.

A certain thought popped quietly into Mia's head. Like a small, cold speck of light, it instantly ignored Mia's self-restraint, armed as it was with an overwhelming conviction.

Was this “error” the other D?

By the time she thought, Oh, dear, her question had been finished.

Precisely.

Mia closed her eyes. She didn't really know if she wanted to hear that answer. She'd been right; it had been an error. There was no way there were supposed to be two men that beautiful. It flew in the face of the natural order of the world.

Just then, the voice said, Taking one's own hole-riddled opinion as the truth based on the scantest of information is a human characteristic, but that doesn't serve a fortuneteller.

Opinion?

Which do you think is the real one?

It was like someone had landed a punch to the side of Mia's head. The drunken sensation of floating in midair even made her feel dizzy. The one she'd met first was the real one, the one that she liked.

The two aren't the same?

Yes. The voice was entirely correct.

Then . . . Then it's . . .

There were indications coming from the being that he had nodded.

Which is the real one? Or let me put it to you this way: What exactly is the real one?

It was the last question that made Mia clutch at her heart.

 

-

I

-

T
he two of them raced down the highway, their horses side by side. They weren't cantering. The cyborg horses galloped with all their might, their manes streaming in the wind as they gouged a path through the ash gray world.

It was overcast. Leaden clouds bunched overhead, their weight making the wind divert around them like pools of stagnant water as they crushed down on the weedy ground. Already it was past noon, and nothing could be seen at the end of the highway.

“So, just how far am I going?” the fake D called over to his other self.

There was no reply.

Clucking his tongue, the fake D glared at the Hunter out of the corner of his eye, but while he was doing so, he began to go into a daze and had to hurriedly face forward again. D's handsome features had captivated him—even though it was his own face. He could recall seeing it in the mirror hundreds of times before. And each time it had held him spellbound. Undoubtedly that D lacked the narcissism the fake D had in abundance.

“What the hell?” he spat, perhaps fearing the strange movements of his own heart, or maybe he was simply embarrassed.

They rode in silence for another ten minutes. Without warning, D's steed tumbled forward. Like a shot from a gun, D started to pitch headlong—but by planting both feet firmly in the stirrups and using his knees to grip the barrel of the horse, he was able to lean back and maintain his balance. Dismounting, D examined his steed's front leg and determined that it was hopeless. There was a crack in its lightweight alloy framework. Even if it were welded, the animal couldn't possibly gallop along as it had until now.

“What'll you do?” the fake D called down to him from his own mount, having seen the situation and gotten a faint inkling of the troubled future.

“You'll have to let me ride behind you. Or the other way around, if you prefer.”

“I thought you'd say that, but no way. I'll ride ahead. For starters, we haven't even seen a trace of Muma yet.”

“You think so?” D asked.

“Excuse me? Can you see it?”

“I don't know.”

“See! What did I tell you? You're always saying stuff like that. Poseur!”

“Then leave me here.”

The fake D looked down from the saddle, gritting his teeth. “I can't do that. Common sense says you're not supposed to see yourself, because you see your own bad points a hundred times clearer in someone else. I hate this. This must be why they always say people who see their doppelgänger meet an earlier death. They aren't killed by their other self; they kill themselves. But when I look at you, it doesn't really bother me or anything. After a little while I get infatuated, actually. I wonder what the story is with that? Well, there's no way around it, I guess. Climb aboard.”

D shook his head from side to side. “Go on ahead.”

“What?”

“I changed my mind. I'll catch up to you later. Go on.”

“Hey! Just what do you—” the fake was saying when a tinge of surprise skimmed across his countenance. “Aha! So, someone's following us, eh? Who is it?”

Though he focused his keen gaze back in the direction from which they'd come, he seemed to reconsider this almost immediately, tugging on the reins and driving his steed forward.

“See you! I think I'll leave the rest to you after all,” he called out, his mount taking five or six strides before he looked back, but D had already turned the other way.

Seeing that broad and solitary back, the fake D had a look in his eyes for a second that might best be described as sorrowful, but then he delivered a strong kick to his horse's flank.

-

Once the echoes of iron-shod hooves had vanished behind D, his left hand said, “He went? When he goes and does something like that, he's just like you. Sometimes I can't tell which of you is which. D, it might not be such a good idea bringing him to Muma.”

“It's too late,” he replied coldly, but was that in answer to his left hand or a remark relating to whoever was closing on him?

“How's your condition?” the left hand asked.

D didn't answer, so it continued, “White blood cells and red blood cells both show marked decreases. Your bone marrow's been ravaged. Typical radiation poisoning.”

Earlier, he'd undoubtedly been exposed while destroying the proton reactor in the Yuma factory. Of course, D was nearly immortal. His Noble blood wouldn't allow him to die from such a thing. But short lived though the effects might be, they came right when he might need to stand against a foe closing on him.

“Well, hurry up and feed me some dirt. Then get me some water. You should still have some in your canteen. Your horse's piss would work, too. Gyaah!”

Closing his fist tightly, D squinted his eyes at the highway, which ran on and on and dwindled down to a thread. Though physically attractive beyond words, he was shrouded by a grimness as unchanging as a diamond. However, if anyone but D had sensed the nature of what was closing on him, they would've undoubtedly run for all they were worth in an attempt to get as far away as they could.

Down at the far end of that lone ribbon of road, wasn't it sort of cloudy? Better yet, a sound could be made out clearly now. A rumbling of the earth. Beneath the gray sky, those advancing toward D weren't just a hundred or two strong. There were certainly more, on the order of several thousand of them. And they came, pounding across the ground. They were about five hundred yards distant.

Twenty seconds later, the cloud of dust engulfed D.

“What in the world?” the left hand asked.

“The living dead,” D replied. It was a question he couldn't help but answer.

Just as they were about to run into him, he leapt to the side of the road, and before him passed countless men and women dressed in rags, shaking the earth as they marched on in silence. The faces of all were pale, lacking vitality. The eyes were those of dead fish. And yet, they were not dead. Their feeble gait was that of the living. More importantly, they were breathing. Their chests rose and fell. And on the nape of each, over the carotid artery, there were two black spots—fang marks.

“Where have they all come from? They're his victims,” the left hand said, and even its voice had a gloomy ring to it.

Ah, a mob of living dead traveling down the Highway of the Dead. At one time, victims summoned for some sort of experiment had used this road. Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of living dead had traveled this way toward Muma. After that, for reasons unknown, the highway had become a mountain range. Surely this had been an unforeseen turn of events for those who'd been summoned. Victims of the Nobility, they were driven out of towns and villages, wandering and waiting for thousands of years for the road to their destination to reopen. As proof of that, the rags they wore all had to be clothes from decades or centuries earlier.

“See his power?” the hoarse voice said. “All their faces are glowing with joy! No Noble, no matter how powerful, can leave an expression like that on the faces of people he's fed on.”

But how did the people's faces look to D as they surged forward like pilgrims bound for some holy land?

Victims of the Nobility were captives of a kind of sensual rapture, and it was due to that that they waited for the vampire's second or third visit. It was common knowledge that under close scrutiny, they would kill the very family members who were trying to protect them just to get outside. However, on the faces of those who passed before D in silence was a kind of religious rapture far beyond the sensual level—an expression of supreme bliss that could even be called sublime. Such was his power.

“He must be in Muma,” the left hand said. “Can you slay him?”

D didn't answer.

The left hand heaved a deep sigh. “That being said, I don't actually know. What I do know for sure is that if we follow them—”

D was already walking down the road. He had no horse. Among the sprinting living dead, some had been on horses, but they hadn't even glanced at D.

Without warning, a wagon raced toward him from the sullenly advancing mob. It halted in front of D, and muddied but well-shaped eyes stared down at him from the driver's seat.

“You're—” muttered a fair-skinned girl who was clad in rags like the rest of them. Even with the face of a corpse, she retained enough beauty to suggest she must've been stunning before.

“You're . . .” she muttered once more, shaking her head and adding sadly, “No, I'm mistaken . . . But why . . . Why do you look exactly like he does?”

“Who is he?” D inquired.

“He is . . . you.” The girl blinked her eyes. “No . . . that's not right. He . . . is supposed to be up ahead . . . not out here . . .”

“That's right. You have to go there, too.”

“Yes . . . I . . . must go . . .”

“And I'd like you to give me a lift,” D suggested.

“I can't . . . You aren't like us . . . You weren't meant to travel this road . . .” she said, trying to get her team to turn.

Just then, D seemed to say, “Think this over, missy.”

The words hadn't come from the mouth of the gorgeous young man, but from his left hand, although the girl didn't know that.

“As you can see, he and I are close,” that voice continued. “Out of these tens of thousands of people, how many do you think he's gonna choose?”

“Well . . . I couldn't . . . say . . .”

“Look. The chances of you being selected are less than one in ten thousand. When the time comes, this guy—I mean, I—could put in a good word for you, right?”

“You . . . could help me . . . stand by his side?” the girl said, and from the way vigor seemed to return to the death mask that was her face, she looked to be quite happy.

“You bet your—aaaargh!”

D had made a fist again, but this time it wasn't as tight. You could tell because the scream managed to escape.

“In that case . . . sure. You do promise, don't you? That I'll really be able to be by his side . . . That you'll speak up for me . . .”

D unclenched his left hand.

“Uh . . . sure. You've got yourself a deal,” said a barely passable imitation of D's voice.

“What?”

“I mean, I promise.”

“In that case . . .” The girl gave a toss of her chin to the wagon bed behind her.

A second later, D was in the vehicle. On seeing his swiftness and the way he landed without making a sound, the girl said in an enraptured tone, “He . . . was that way, too . . . Walking as quick as the night wind . . . and as soundless as the light of the moon . . .”

“Let's go,” D said.

The girl swung the reins, and the horses quickly dashed forward down the Highway of the Dead, now bustling with living-dead traffic.

-

II

-

“What kind of person was he?” D asked after they'd ridden for about an hour.

“You mean . . . him?” said the girl, who'd introduced herself as Savena, staring at D with glassy eyes.

“Yes.”

Though a little gasp of surprise rose from his left hand, D didn't seem to pay any attention to it.

The girl thought for a moment. It was unclear what kind of memories might be packed in the brains of the dead, but her cloudy eyes gradually began to take on a mysterious light.

“He was . . . big. Really quite big . . . The first time I met him . . . I couldn't say anything . . . I just looked at him . . . And he looked at me . . . so intently . . . with crimson eyes like burning stones . . . Oh, such passion . . . Nothing in the world can take its place . . .”

D noticed that the girl's own eyes glowed with a fiery passion. The passions of the living dead should've been nothing save the drinking of human blood and the kiss of the Nobility, but what filled the girl's eyes was inconceivable: tenderness.

“He's the one who drank your blood—don't you hate him for forcing you into your present situation?” said a voice just like D's, only a little hoarse.

The girl knit her brow. It took some time for her to comprehend the meaning of the question.

“Hate? What's that? I have the feeling I felt that . . . long, long ago . . .”

“This is a surprise! Bitten or not, anyone with this much of their human consciousness left should still have some resentment toward the one who did it, but there doesn't seem to be any at all. That's him in a nutshell. Ask no more, D. Want to know what kind of man he is? Look. The eyes of all the tens of thousands of people traveling the highway hold the same loving glow as the girl's. Could any other Noble earn the same?”

D didn't reply. His cool gaze was trained straight ahead. This was the way he'd lived up till now, and this was the way he'd live from here on out. If the glow in the eyes of the living dead was indeed due to their mockery of life, it was truly ironic that he—a dhampir—was the one whose eyes held the emotions of a living person.