IV
IV
"Stop there!" shouted a voice. Without heeding the policeman's order, a passenger car drove up to the inspection gate. The driver's seat window rolled down in front of the policeman who came running up from the checkpoint. "Thank you. I'm Roddenbach from the Prosecution Bureau's Fourth Division," said George. After the young man flashed the prosecutor's badge on his collar, he held a thin file over his head to shield it from the rain. "I'm forcibly repatriating an illegal immigrant in detention. I believe the formalities already have been taken care of?" asked George.
"Yeah, it's the incident we received a report on a little while ago, right? I've heard," replied the policeman, nodding civilly beneath his raincoat as he reviewed the document. Confirming that the contents were complete, he glanced at the man slumped in the rear seat. He couldn't see the man's face very»well because his head was wrapped in his jacket and his black hair was hanging down, but he quickly gave up trying to discern the man's identity. "There don't seem to be any problems with his documents. You're fine, public prosecutor. Please pass."
"Thank you," George said graciously. After returning the policeman's nod, the young man advanced his car through the downpour, carefully proceeding to the middle of the arrival and departure area. He peered suspiciously at what seemed to be airport maintenance people, but he managed to approach the hangar area without being approached or challenged.
'"Watch carefully for suspicious people loitering and restrain them'—but don't be concerned about suspicious people who already are restrained," said George.
How far had he run? When the lights from the check station disappeared from his rearview mirror, Roddenbach again glanced at the mirror and addressed the prisoner still slumped in the backseat. "It's all right, Hugue. Take off those prisoner clothes and change into the uniform."
As he removed his jacket and the wig from his head, Hugue replied sarcastically, "If you have documentation, they simply believe you. Apparently, the quality of Alliance police has fallen, too."
As soon as Hugue wiped off the makeup he'd bothered to apply, he began to change into the policeman's uniform handed to him. Roddenbach watched Hugue in the rearview mirror and shrugged, looking miserable. "All the Alliance police have been like this since the Watteau family was destroyed. They've become a collection of cowards and blockheads. Never mind that, though— the ship we were talking about has arrived."
Because of the heavy rain, George's and Hugue's field of vision was close to zero. As he gestured toward the huge shadow towering darkly beyond the screen of rain, the public prosecutor gripping the wheel began to appear rather tense. "The Omegang is the name of a passenger ship owned by a civilian airline company, but that airline company really is a perfect paper company. It's actually Darsus' privately owned ship. Are you ready, Hugue?" asked George.
"Yeah, anytime is fine," answered Hugue. After he accepted the iron rod handed to him, Hugue gently extended a hand toward the door, cracking it open. Soaking his face in the rain that trickled in, Hugue studied the silhouette of the huge ship.
Roddenbach took his right hand off the wheel and reached into the backseat "Be very careful — Darsus is the strongest. If you find that your situation is hopeless, withdraw at once."
"Thanks for your cooperation, Prosecutor Roddenbach," Hugue said calmly, pulling his beloved sword to the side of his body while once again neglecting to shake George's hand. "No matter what the result is, we'll never meet again." Before finishing his sentence, the young man disappeared from inside the car, energetically jumping down onto the rain-soaked asphalt and sprinting toward the towering black shadow ahead of him. His flashing green eyes were reminiscent of a death god that had fallen to Earth in order to mow down souls.
"Stop! Who are you?" yelled a voice.
When the plain clothes policemen, dressed like passengers in the arrivals area, finally noticed him, the mysterious shadow already had gotten so far that he could touch the airship if he reached hard enough. "Which police force are you from? Give me your station and full name. Y-you?" exclaimed the policeman posing as a maintenance worker with a strangled scream.
By the time the man had toppled, unable to thrust his hand into his pocket to search for his gun, Hugue's iron rod had struck another policeman disguised as a passenger carrying a suitcase, leaving the fake passenger with only one arm. Hugue forcefully swung his iron rod in the direction of three future victims, including the jaw of the last plain clothes policeman.
Amid the crunch of his jaw breaking and the echoes of his strained screams, the policeman fell to the ground, creating a blood-tinged splash. Meanwhile, Hugue, who'd attacked three policemen at once, wasn't even breathing hard. The glint in his green eyes grew more intense. Is what I'm seeking really ahead of here? he thought.
Although he'd toppled two of Count Four — Carrel van der Verf and Hans Memlink — Hugue still hadn't obtained the information about the revenge he sought, nor did he know the identity of the vampire who'd attacked the Watteau mansion that night. Did Darsus, the eldest of Count Four, know? Supposing he did know, could Hugue make him talk and still get out of the airport alive?
Hugue's stony gaze suggested that he had little hope left. He already didn't care what happened. At this point, regret about dying like a dog without achieving revenge would prove to be sweeter than confronting the fear of surviving. The swordsman's ghostlike eyes sized up the side of the airship, where warm lights were on in all of the neatly aligned ship windows and the crew members inside were busily working.
Still surveying the inside of the airship, Hugue was about to set his foot on the gangplank when his body flew up into the air. As if defying gravity, he did a back flip, landing several feet behind where he stood previously, where bullet holes had gouged the asphalt. Using the iron rod like a pole vault, Hugue launched himself high into the air again as gunfire and bullets trailed his shadow.
"You're stubborn, Gunslinger!" Hugue shouted, hoarse from rain and exhaustion. When he landed, a blue-white flash shone from his hands. Holding his drawn sword high before his green eyes, the young man bellowed demonically, "Don't interfere with me!"
"I inform Hugue de Watteau—code name, Sword Dancer," said Tres standing beyond the curtain of showers, replacing his empty cartridge, "You've been ordered to return home. Accompany me at once, or else I'll bring you with me—even if it means using my full strength."
"Even if it means using your full strength, eh?" mocked the sword demon whose entire body radiated an air of sadness. Still standing and glaring at Gunslinger, Hugue slowly extended his sword forward from eye level. "Interesting, see? Try it if you can!"
As if responding to Hugue's challenge, ear-splitting thunder clapped, shaking the night sky and sending a white flash through the world, bleaching it blue-white. Sword Dancer closed the distance between himself and his opponent so swiftly that it seemed as though he had turned into lightning. The speed with which he ran through the water made him hard to follow with the human eye — but his opponent wasn't human.
"Point nineteen seconds late," Tres announced.
As the remnants of thunder rattled, the sound of gunfire roared through the night. The Sure Fire attached to the battle gun's barrel struck Hugue as swiftly as the slash of a sword. Countless bullets fired in succession, ripping through the fierce rain and mercilessly piercing the enemy shadow.
It was only Hugue's shadow that was hit, however. "You are, indeed, appropriately called Gunslinger. If the rain hadn't served as my ally, I wouldn't have won," he said.
By the time Hugue's voice had been detected by Tres' audio sensors, the swordsman who'd been closely following his enemy's shadow had pressed his sword to his comrade's throat. Sword Dancer had closed in by taking advantage of the mechanical soldier's sensors being confused by the rain and the screen of static electricity produced by the bolt of lightning. Declaring his victory in a surprisingly low voice, Hugue said, "From this distance, my sword is faster than your gun. I win, Gunslinger."
Tres' expression hadn't changed in spite of the sword pressing into his neck from the side. "That's a negative, Sword Dancer," he muttered softly, ignoring the raindrops bouncing off the sword, wetting his cheek. "You're the one who fell into the trap — Begin Operation Attachment."
All of a sudden, Hugue's body, which had been wrapped around Tres, flew up into the air. The ferocious blow felt as though an invisible fist had hit him in the abdominal cavity and forcefully threw his body backward, causing it to bend into a V shape. As he plummeted to the ground, a giant splash formed around the area in which he landed, "Gahhh!" A gasping scream escaped from the swordsman's mouth as he convulsed helplessly. Because his respiratory system had been paralyzed, his breathing was rough and sounded as though he were breathing using only his throat.
"Clear—confirmed that the enemy Sword Dancer is down," said Tres, watching as the smoke rising from Hugue's body formed quivering white lines in the rain. Metal rods protruded from Tres' twisted left wrist. As he reeled the high-voltage stun gun with an instantaneous electrical discharge of three hundred thousand volts back inside his wrist, Tres looked apathetically at Hugue. After confirming that Sword Dancer hadn't died from the shock, Tres approached at a slow but dauntless pace.
Before he reached Hugue, Tres' body suddenly started flying from side to side. No sooner had the tactical computer confirmed that Tres had been hit in the left side of his chest by a large-caliber bullet than the second volley fired directly into his stomach. His short body, which took a direct hit in the abdominal cavity, doubled over as though it were modeled on Hugue's figure a few moments earlier, rolling into a nearby muddy ditch.
"Did you bring him down?" asked a voice.
"Probably, but who in the world are they? Were they really human?" inquired another voice.
Under the lights that shone upon a group standing in the darkness, voices engaged in intense discussion overlapped with the sound of raindrops. As the policemen spoke to one another, they ran up toward the scene where the duel-to-the-death had unfolded only seconds earlier.
"Who are they, inspector? Are they really terrorists?" asked the mobile military police commander carrying an antimateriel rifle on his shoulder; he was a member of special forces that specialized in riot and felony criminal suppression. Peering down suspiciously at the blond man who kept twitching, the police commander compared the figure with the photograph on the notice in his hand. "Hugue de Watteau—it's him. I'm positive this man used to be the oldest son of the Watteau family. Why would a man like that...?"
"I don't know—but it would be best if you didn't look into it," replied the commanding officer, cutting his subordinate's questions short. The commanding officer glanced in the direction of the airship, proceeding to put handcuffs on the swordsman's wrists. "How's that one? Is he dead?" he yelled angrily at his subordinates who ran in the direction of the gutter.
"Urn, that's . . . Sorry, but could you come over here for a minute, inspector?" asked the mobile military police officer gloomily as he stared down into the ditch, hefting the machine pistol to his hip.
"What's wrong? Something abnormal?" asked the shady inspector, who wore a cold expression.
"Yeah," answered the policeman.
The team members all pointed their superior officer toward the gutter. What had fallen into the ditch were black rags that seemed to be scraps of clothing, several cartridges that were still smoking, and . . .
"What does this mean?" asked the inspector. Wearing the same awestruck expression that his subordinates wore, the inspector knelt closer to the ditch. There was no sign of a man anywhere near it.