YOUTHFUL INTRUDERS

CHAPTER 6

-

I

-

"Could it actually do that?” Mia asked D, but he didn’t reply.

In his place, the fake said, “These are preparations undertaken by the Sacred Ancestor. No doubt he furnished each and every molecule in the ceiling and walls with regenerative abilities. By my calculations, it should be fifty percent complete within three days.”

“And what do you intend to do then?”

“Woman, you are sorely lacking in the imagination department,” the fake said, his grinning countenance making Mia shudder. “This facility isn’t merely for genetic research. It’s equipped with an impressive level of defensive and offensive capabilities. Systems developed by the Sacred Ancestor, at that. If my memory serves, it has the power to reduce half a continent to dust with the single touch of a button. But no, it should prove quite interesting to expose the lowly humans to the strange shapes that the results of the original genetic research took.”

“So, what do you hope to accomplish with that? What’s your aim?”

“I myself don’t know—at least, not fully.”

Mia was left speechless.

The fake D’s evil smirk grew even broader. “If there must be a reason for everything, I think it’s due to my anger at being left alone for so long. That may not be it exactly, but it can’t be far from the mark.”

“I’m begging you, don’t do this,” Mia entreated. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to really hate this horrible mass murderer. “There has to be something else you could do. A great man like you would be able to do anything.”

Even she knew what she was saying sounded absurd. Pointing at D, she said, “He’s an outstanding Hunter, for example. If you’re just like him, you should be able to do the same.”

The fake’s next words froze Mia to the core.

“That’s parricide.”

Silence descended. And it was far more daunting than any aura.

Mia was about to turn to D, but she paused.

“That may be,” D said, and his words were a great help. However, was D admitting to what the other had said—that they were the legitimate offspring of the Sacred Ancestor?

“D!”

“Don’t bother,” D said, and those words from him brought an explosion of murderous intent from every inch of the fake D.

“Wait, D!”

“Step aside.”

The figure in black strode forward. Mia had intended to block his way, but she ended up stepping to the side without putting up any resistance. A sword gleamed in D’s right hand. At the same time, the fake D had drawn his blade.

“It’s the same old song and dance, D,” the fake said.

The instant Mia’s heart rankled a bit at the hopelessness in those words, D kicked off the ground with tremendous force. Mia’s eyes caught nothing more than a momentary explosion of light. Blue sparks spread over the fake D’s head. Two streaks of light intertwined like serpents all the way down to the floor, shot back up again, and then there was a second scattering of sparks in front of D’s chest. But that wasn’t what made Mia cover her eyes. Every time the blades came together, a strange sensation filled the room. Two tremendous energies with wills of their own were slamming together, flying apart, growing even denser as they tried to shatter the field that contained them from the inside. Destruction for destruction’s sake, expansion for expansion’s sake—all three brains were seared, and their bodies were left semitransparent and weighing only half as much as normal. It seemed as if neither of the pair’s blades could injure the other. Steel clashed, and every time that mellifluous tone rang out, the atmosphere became chaotic, abusing Mia’s body, spinning her and driving her up against the walls. She sank halfway into them.

This was the domain of the two Ds.

At that point, a greenish hue arose in the dim light. Blinking repeatedly, it went black, then blinked once more.

“That’s a warning light,” the fake D said. Or at least that’s who Mia guessed it was, but she wasn’t completely sure. The two of them had been switching positions so rapidly that each looked at times like the shadow of the other. “Do you know what’s happening, D? I do. Intruders.”

“Intruders?” Mia said, her eyes riveted to him.

The fake D stood there motionless, his eyes half closed. But he soon remarked, “Hmm, it would seem even that little hick village has someone with some backbone. They’re coming down into the subsidence.”

“What?”

“The fools. They’ll see what a terrific stronghold this research center is when I strip the life and soul from them.”

About three feet above the trio’s heads, an image had formed of a number of figures descending a rope into the great subsidence. Men from the village. Mia counted four of them, of which three looked familiar. All wore backpacks and were armed with longswords or axes, bolt guns or tasers. Mia’s eyes were drawn to the youngest and seemingly most intrepid of the bunch.

-

His name was Kuentz. The son of a village huntsman, he was a mere nineteen years of age, but there wasn’t a man around who was any better in a bare-handed fight or in the use of arms. The reason he hadn’t been involved in any of the major incidents up until now was simply because business had sent him off to a neighboring village. This morning, he’d heard about the trouble before leaving said village, and as soon as he got home, he called the men together, gathered volunteers to explore the bottom of the great subsidence, and rode out there after making sufficient preparations. He was hardly a rash young man, which became evident when he ruled out any of the village volunteers who had a wife and children to look after, regardless of what special skills they had. The other men were also cool headed and composed, all brave men who weren’t above sacrificing their lives for the safety of their families and their village.

Coming down the rope in almost a straight line, they’d gone about halfway when the rock face grew violent. The mere touch of their feet against it sent the four of them flying, rope and all, and once they’d twisted back around on the line, they found unsettling mummies leering back at them. This may have been an area where the ancients had performed mummification rites and burials, but the fact that the rocky walls had easily given way at that point to reveal exactly four of them seemed to be no mere coincidence. As the men stared dazedly at them, their desiccated flesh swiftly began a transformation. Blue blood vessels shot through their muscles, which ballooned and reclaimed their reddish hue before pink skin flowed up to cover them like a returning tide. And from the way their bountiful chests filled in, bare of even a stitch of clothing, they could tell the mummies were women. Then the women, with gold, red, black, and green tresses hanging down to their waists, got the most coquettishly alluring smiles as they reached out for the men with both arms. Ordinarily, anyone could’ve seen there was something strange about this. However, the situation was so incredibly abnormal it left the men dumbfounded, and they allowed the pale arms to wrap around their necks.

It was Kuentz who realized the danger. When he was hired to go to the eastern Frontier region and help out, he’d encountered a tree that took on human form in the Forest of Cain. Thanks to her lovely countenance and tempting flesh, he had been just about to throw himself on her in spite of himself when a more experienced local saved him with a homemade flamethrower. Later he heard how the pistils of its blossoms secreted a powerfully hypnotic liquid, the scent of which halted human thought processes. After the victim had been enveloped by its hand-shaped petals, he would be digested and absorbed.

His limbs no longer responded. Quickly biting through his bottom lip to bring himself back to his senses, Kuentz fired away with the flamethrower an old huntsman had given him. Although three of the beauteous mummies were engulfed by flames in the blink of an eye, the fourth survived, for one of the villagers had already leapt into the arms of the lovely woman.

As he was being dragged into her body, their colleague exclaimed, “Save me!” When he turned to make that entreaty, half the flesh was gone from his face, leaving only a skull with eyeballs.

“Sorry, Garo.”

As Kuentz prayed for his friend’s swift passage into the afterlife, he let a golden jet of fire fly from his flamethrower. The beautiful woman instantly turned back into a shriveled mummy, and it was probably thanks to this that she burned so well.

“Now there’s three of us—and I don’t intend to lose anyone else. Be real careful now.”

When Kuentz spoke, the rest of the group—actually, just the other two—seemed to get their bearings back as if they’d been dunked in an icy stream of winter meltwater, and they nodded in response.

-

“One of them’s already been killed. Make it stop, D!” Mia cried, but neither of the two young men who wore D’s face said a word.

“Oh, they’ve reached the bottom! Couldn’t you switch off the fortress’s defenses? Make it stop.”

The girl showed no signs of relenting, but the fake merely shrugged his shoulders at her cries, saying, “At present, the facility has diverted nearly all of its energy to reconstructing itself. It’s not in a position yet to hand complete control over to me.”

“D, do something. I’m begging you.”

“This isn’t our problem,” the gorgeous Hunter said coolly.

“Well, I still can’t let this happen. If you don’t want to do anything, then I’ll go all by myself. You can—”

Grinning wryly, the fake D said something unexpected. “Slay me? Girlie, I suppose I can help you.”

“What?”

“It would seem my blood runs a little redder than that other me. How does that sound?”

“Okay. You’ve got a deal.”

“In that case, order that me not to touch this me. You’re his employer, right?”

“D, you heard what he said. Keep your hands off him.”

“Have it your way,” D said, having nothing else to say on the matter for some reason. “However, we’ll accompany him.”

“Of course.”

“Yes, of course,” the fake said with a deep nod.

Whether or not he realized that strange developments were taking matters out of his hands, D stood there as silent as always.

“You must know where they are. Show us the way.”

“Fine, but on one condition,” said the fake D.

“What now?”

“If even one out of the three is saved, the two of you are to leave here today. And not return for three days.”

Unable to decide immediately, Mia turned to D, but the gorgeous Hunter didn’t say a word. Mia thought her last decision might’ve angered him and felt a little depressed. Also, the words of the fake telling them it would take three more days for the facility to function normally still rang in her ears. However, seeing the trio who’d reached the bottom of the great subsidence and stood stock still in the eddying white steam without even knowing where they were, she knew she couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

“Understood. We’ll keep our end of the bargain. Now, lead the way.”

“Good enough,” the fake said, looking at D and Mia with smug satisfaction before he turned around.

-

II

-

After hearing from the sheriff in the hospital what’d happened out at the great subsidence two days earlier, Kuentz and the other members of his group had borrowed heat-resistant suits and gas masks from the fire department’s storeroom. They’d already donned the suits, and as for the masks—well, they were pretty old, so the men were going to use them only if the gas was more than they could take, slipping them on just shortly before they reached the bottom. They certainly were swelteringly hot, and apparently a scant amount of air passed through the filters, forcing them to take shallow breaths. If they didn’t finish their investigations as quickly as possible, the masks might suffocate them.

Kuentz was certain there was something, or someone, at the bottom of the subsidence. Therefore, he’d intended to take the time to do a thorough search—but his determination was rapidly waning in the heat. Still, what kept him from losing heart was his youth and sense of duty, plus the confidence that came from having experienced more grueling situations than most adults. His body bore over a hundred scars in various places, half of which had nearly been the death of him. While putting down a stone bear that weighed nearly fifty tons, he’d been gouged open down to the lungs, but he’d still managed to make it out of a germ-infested jungle in the midst of a downpour due to the knowledge of medicinal herbs he’d gained in the western Frontier. On a plateau called Ren, he’d been attacked by a weird tribe of pygmies and hit by five poison arrows, but he still managed to destroy the earth-quaker they called their god thanks to a protective spell he’d learned in a certain library in the Capital. He would manage something this time. If not, he’d fight to the bitter end.

With all the drive and determination of youth, Kuentz had come more than prepared, even bringing along three compatriots—although one of them had already met his end. The youthful leader’s heavy responsibilities were subtly affecting his mind and his judgment. He wasn’t sure where, but there had to be a door someplace so the murderer known as D could come and go.

In a twilit world brimming with white steam, the trio began their desperate search. Five minutes . . . ten . . . twenty . . . The steam drew torrents of sweat through the heat-resistant suits, and their feet sank into the red clay.

Once they’d passed the thirty-minute mark, Kuentz used the microphone in his mask to call the other two. “Graff and Chang—let’s pull out of the hole for a while. Then we’ll take another run at it.”

There was no reply.

“Graff? Chang?”

A feeble voice came through his receiver. “Chang . . . here. The heat’s messing with my eyes. Don’t know which way I’m headed.”

“I’m coming to get you. Stay there.”

Kuentz peered down at his feet. They glowed with the luminescent yellow paint he’d had the village painter fill the soles of his boots with. Chang’s had green, and Graff’s had blue. Once he’d gone back to where they’d touched down on the bottom, it would be easy enough to find them.

Calling out to Graff that he was going to look for Chang, Kuentz changed direction. His footprints remained. Just as he took a step forward to follow them, a human shape began to form in the steam.

“Chang?”

“Yeah,” a deep voice replied.

“I thought you said the heat messed up your vision.”

“Yeah, but now I can sorta see.”

“You know where Graff is?”

“Nope. It’s this steam.”

“I called him, but he didn’t answer. The heat might’ve been too much for him.”

“Forget him for a minute—I found an entrance.”

Kuentz was stunned. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? Where is it?”

“Over this way. I’ll show you.”

As soon as Chang started walking, Kuentz made note of their direction and began counting his steps. Two hundred sixty-seven steps brought them to a sheer wall. An iron door was set in it. Ten feet wide and ten feet tall, it seemed more an entrance for wagons than people.

“Wonder if it’ll open.”

He gave it a push. At the mere touch of his fingertips, the hinges began a tortured squeak. As the opening grew, the area beyond it began to come into view. It appeared to be a corridor.

“What should we do?” Chang asked.

Although he was worried about Graff, Kuentz said, “I’ve got no choice but to go. Chang, you wait here for Graff.”

“He’s dead—don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. Not until we see for sure, at least.”

“Okay. I’ll wait. Watch yourself in there.”

Kuentz stepped through the open door alone. Inside, he was greeted by a dim world not so different from that outside. Though gusts of steam interrupted his vision, they vanished when he went in further. He soon saw that this was an incredibly huge facility.

Who the hell built this place, and when? We’ve been living right on top of it like dolts, never suspecting a thing, he thought, cold sweat pouring from him.

He soon came to a corner. As he was debating which way to go, he heard footsteps from the passage on the right. Someone was coming with a calm and steady gait. He strained his eyes. Approaching from the depths of the corridor was what looked like the outline of a man.

“Graff?” he called out, based on both instinct and the general shape of the figure. Wearing a backpack, with goggles over his eyes and a gas mask over his mouth and nose—it was definitely Graff. However, as if he was startled on seeing Kuentz bolt around the corner, the shadowy figure tore down the corridor in a mad dash.

“Wait up, Graff!”

The figure’s right hand was swallowed by the wall.

As the dumbfounded Kuentz gave chase, he saw that there must be another passage behind the wall, and he dove through it without hesitating. The figure was running up ahead. After a number of twists and turns, they went down a broad flight of stone stairs. Spreading as far as the eye could see, the gray world brimmed with stillness.

Suddenly, Kuentz stopped in his tracks, his path blocked by an enormous set of doors. He wasn’t sure whether Graff had gone through them. Getting a bad feeling, he instinctively considered turning back, but at that moment the doors began to open down the middle. The air on the other side was damper and it clung to his skin. Had he not glimpsed that humanoid shape in the dim light, he never would’ve gone in there. But, firming his resolve, he plunged in. The doors closed behind him, the force of their shutting driving him forward a few steps.

I was lured down here, he thought, growing more and more certain of his suspicions.

The dim light took on a bluish hue. Kuentz felt as if it was seeping into him through his skin, and his body stiffened with tension. Looking all around again, he found the place filled with an eerie aura that chilled his otherwise feverish determination.

Sandwiched between the vast stone floor and the great ceiling were towering stone statues, but as he gazed up at them, at some point the floor and ceiling grew oddly close, then swapped positions, leaving him on the floor but staring down at the ceiling. Though he could see staircases and platformlike decks here and there, the slightest change in perspective was enough that even those shifted, twisting, the stairs breaking off in midair, swirling off in vortices. Here, geometry seemed to lose all meaning. The visual irregularities were transmitted to his flesh—and an intense nausea filled Kuentz.

It was at that point that the trembling of the earth became a noise he could hear. Up ahead—off in the dimly lit distance, but drawing closer. Kuentz could tell it was the sound of footsteps.

At long last, something befitting this bizarre facility was about to reveal itself to him.

Kuentz touched a protrusion on the leather case that sheathed his left arm from the wrist to the elbow. Spring loaded, a cylindrical launcher and iron arrows within the case sprang out. Driven by highly compressed oxygen, the arrows could penetrate the plated hide of a large armored beast at a range of fifty yards. The sound of excess oxygen spilling from the tube ignited Kuentz’s will to fight.

Darkness formed in the dim light. It had a human shape. The footfalls became like thunder.

“It’s . . .”

There was only one emotion he knew he couldn’t let come over him, but it mixed with his voice anyway.

The shadowy figure that halted on the short flight of stairs ahead of him was a good ten feet tall. Armor in a leaden hue encased his body, while his entire head was covered by a helm with three vertical slits. In his right hand he held a spear at least fifteen feet long, and on his hip he wore a longsword.

“Who are you?” Kuentz inquired.

“I’m the caretaker for this place,” a rusty voice replied.

“The caretaker? For how long?”

“Since before your ancestors even took shape.”

“What’s going on down here?”

“I could explain it to you, but you still wouldn’t understand.”

“A bunch of our friends have gone missing. Are they down here?”

“They are.”

“Bring them to me.”

“You can try to take them back by force if you wish. They are needed here.”

“Where are they?”

“The same place you’ll be going soon.”

And as he said this, the gigantic form pounced. The giant cleared a distance of nearly thirty feet in a single bound as he closed on Kuentz, and as he looked up at his opponent, Kuentz was spellbound by his overwhelmingly massive proportions. His foe probably didn’t feel like making any unnecessary movements in midair before thrusting the spear he had ready through Kuentz’s chest. His landing was accompanied by a great thud.

“Over here,” the giant heard Kuentz say off to his right.

His knees bent slightly, the giant went to turn in that direction, but his upper body fell. He fell to his knees, and then put down his left hand to steady himself. Iron arrows protruded from the joints of both knees. While Kuentz may have had the speed necessary for an attack, when had he managed to avoid the giant’s falling body?

The gigantic figure could do nothing to hide his astonishment while Kuentz pointed his left arm straight at his foe and ordered him sternly, “Bring me to my friends.”

“You wish to see them?” the giant asked. His voice trembled with a touch of something spine chilling.

“Of course I do.”

“Then see them you shall. Come out!”

The last bit wasn’t directed at Kuentz. As if in response to the call, objects whistled down from the air above. From the sound of them hitting and the height they bounced, Kuentz probably could’ve determined how far they’d fallen, but he didn’t have time for that.

At his feet lay innumerable human arms and legs and torsos and heads—hacked apart in the most horrible fashion.

“Jin, Katsuma . . . Zorgo, Dulles—what’s going on?”

As the stupefied Kuentz stared at them, his eyes also caught the giant rising, and his ears echoed with the sound of the extracted iron arrows hitting the floor.

“They gave their lives for this place. And you shall join them!”

The giant’s cry was shredded by a harsh metallic clang! Kuentz’s third arrow had pierced his temple. Staggering wildly, the giant swung his right arm in an arc. The head of the spear he waved was easily three feet long, with either side honed razor keen. If that swing landed, it could probably bisect the trunk of a greater dragon.

“Oh!” the giant exclaimed.

Kuentz was above his deadly swipe, at the same height as the giant’s face. The terrific spring in his knees was the product of his inherent strength and the severe training he’d undergone as a huntsman. His right hand rose. As he brought it down again, it gripped the blade of the bastard sword that projected from his leather forearm protector. Putting his full weight behind it, Kuentz brought the blade down on the giant’s head. The blade was made of a special steel forged by the most renowned blacksmith in the western Frontier. With an ease that shocked even an experienced hand like Kuentz, the blade slashed through the dragon helm and visor and sank halfway into his foe’s torso. However, when Kuentz landed on the ground, it wasn’t a smile of victory that spread across his face, but rather a perplexed shadow. Aside from the copper plate, he hadn’t met any resistance at all.

Letting out a base laugh, the giant took his helmet between his hands and lifted it off. There was no head inside. All there was was an empty space.

“This isn’t my true form. Until the reconstruction of this facility is complete, I need a body to deal with you and others like you. But I can see well enough even without a head,” he chuckled.

This time unable to dodge the thrust of the spear, Kuentz stood there rooted like a tree. And then disappeared.

The giant turned around.

Kuentz had backed away as far as the door. However, when he turned around and looked, he froze in his tracks. A cold stone wall now occupied the exact spot where the door had been.

“You’re a spry bastard,” the headless giant said as he made a swing of his spear. What he’d impaled with his earlier thrust had merely been an afterimage of Kuentz. Not only could he jump, but the young man was also swift footed enough that he could move at speeds in excess of Mach 1.

“Now the tables are turned,” the giant chortled.

-

III

-

He was at the end of his rope—that was the only expression that described the way Kuentz felt. For all his speed and skill with the iron arrows and concealed blade, slaying an opponent who lacked a physical body would be a Herculean task.

The giant donned his helmet once more. And then he did two incredible things. Raising the spear in his right hand, he slammed it down on the stone floor. It was unclear what the spearhead was made of, but the shattered bits of it went out like sea spray, forming glittering bands of waves at Kuentz’s feet. Each and every shard was at least four inches long, with razor-sharp edges left exposed like thorns.

Kuentz’s legs had been taken out of the picture. The fragments of the spear would easily pierce the soles of his shoes, immobilizing him.

As Kuentz gnawed his lips, the giant looked down at him coolly—although he didn’t actually have eyes—and undertook another activity. Dragging himself with thudding footsteps over to where the dismembered corpses had fallen, he drew the longsword from his hip. He then made shallow cuts into the arms and legs and torsos. Once he was done, he kept his sword in hand as he counted, “One . . . Two . . .”

On the stone floor where death alone had lain, movement began.

“Three.”

And the figures that struggled to their feet—

“Katsuma! Zorgo! Dulles!”

Though they didn’t respond to Kuentz’s stunned cries, five of the corpses began twitching their limbs in an unsettling fashion. Had the giant used some sort of resurrection spell on them, or had he merely pieced them back together and made them move? Whichever was the case, you would be hard pressed to say that the cadavers were satisfied with their present state.

Those were indeed human bodies that got up, but cobbled together based purely on proximity—the blond head of a young man sat on the torso of what was clearly a middle-aged man, and both the right and left arms didn’t belong to him either. And while the legs were a matching set, they didn’t belong to the owner of the head or the torso. However, that wasn’t uncommon. At the very least it had one head and torso, and two arms and legs. Another body could only be described as a prank by some god of creation. Two right arms wrestled with each other for dominance, while both legs were left ones. And the face that gazed down stupidly was upside down.

“Stop it!” Kuentz ground his teeth. “Stop it, you goddamn monster! Put all of them back the way they were.”

“All of them? Not one of them can remember who he was. They are empty vessels, just like this,” the giant said, striking his chest. “But it would seem that, to you, they are still friends. Therefore, you can do them no harm.”

He gestured with his arm to Kuentz.

The dead—in the horribly twisted forms they now possessed—began to advance on Kuentz with stiff steps. There was no way to describe the sight of them walking across the spearhead fragments other than to say they were like demons from the fires of hell.

Though he had his iron arrows and concealed blade ready, Kuentz still hesitated. No matter how grotesque their forms, their faces were still those of friends. Friends he’d studied with, played with, and squabbled with since he was little. A troubled sweat broke out on Kuentz’s brow, and his hands shook badly.

“What’s wrong? Simply think of them as corpses. Or if you raise your hand to them, will you be labeled a friend killer for the rest of your days?” the giant said, leaning back for a hearty laugh.

Dead friends reached for Kuentz’s throat with both hands. Even if he were to break free of them, there were still those metallic thorns at his feet. And if he somehow managed to tramp across them to freedom, the giant’s longsword would be waiting for him.

The circle closed in on him. However, as Kuentz glared at the giant, his eyes weren’t filled with despair, but rather burned with the will to fight. This young man would surely choose to go down fighting.

The trembling of his left hand stopped dead. When he held his arm out straight, the iron arrow was aimed not at his dead friends, but at the giant behind them. He would retaliate. Even now, he still challenged his fate.

The giant’s laughter stopped unexpectedly. Like a person awakening to learn their whole world was just a dream, he suddenly turned and looked behind him. Three figures stood in the same depths of the darkness from which the giant had come. One was a woman; the other two were inhumanly beautiful men in black who were identical in appearance.

“There’s the ringleader,” one of them said to the other. “And that brings my part to a close. I leave the rest to you. Now, don’t forget about the three days we agreed on.”

The woman stared at the gorgeous figure that’d been the target of that remark.

“D, I’m going down there. If I should die, it’s up to you to—”

“It wouldn’t do to have my employer die on me.” Glaring intently at his other self, D then made a toss of his chin at the giant and said, “Call him off.”

“I can’t do that,” the fake D said with a disagreeable expression as he, too, looked at the giant. “It’s part of the recovery process after the research facility was completely destroyed. There are parts of it that recognize me as the master, but there are also systems that haven’t accepted that. Unfortunately, this character represents the latter. Although sooner or later he’ll come under my command, at present, he would view me as a foe as well.”

At what some might even describe as an embittered reply, D said softly, “In that case, you can dispose of him.”

“I thought you might say that,” the fake said, shrugging his shoulders. “But this is hardly the time or place to stand around debating. That young man’s in danger.”

“He’s right, D,” Mia agreed.

Never taking his eyes off the fake, D said, “Get out of here.” He was concerned about Mia’s safety while he was busy fighting.

“Fine. If you’d be so good as to destroy him, you’ll just be doing me a favor. I’ll be wishing you luck from afar.”

And with that obtuse reply, the fake walked off toward the depths of the darkness, turning after he’d gone a few paces. When his eyes met Mia’s, he said, “Pleasant journey to you, brave little miss.”

He addressed her in a gentle tone that made him seem like a completely different person from who he’d been up until now, but before Mia could frame a reply, he vanished into the darkness.

It was less than a second later that Mia returned to her senses from the strange feeling that’d come over her. By the time she turned her eyes to where the lurid life-or-death battle would unfold, D had already finished descending the staircase. Less than sixty feet stood between him and the giant. Perhaps that was an appropriate distance for the boundary between the stillness that seemed to hang in the vicinity of the gorgeous Hunter and the sudden shift to cries of deadly battle, or perhaps not.

D advanced without concern. In response, the giant stood stock still. When the silently advancing D was finally below the blade the giant had raised, the giant made a horizontal swipe at the base of the Hunter’s neck. Blue sparks shot out like glittering grains in the feeble light, and a crisp metallic clang rang out. D had parried the blade in the act of drawing his own.

Wasn’t the giant staggering? If he was, it lasted only a second before he managed to maintain his balance and lift his sword above his head for a second blow.

D didn’t parry it. He kicked off the floor lightly and slashed down with his blade in midair. At essentially the same time he sheathed his sword, the giant’s upper body—from the right side of his neck to the bottom of his rib cage on the left—moved slightly out of alignment. Like it was going down a slide, it slipped off and fell to the floor with a booming thud.

The eyes of Mia, Kuentz, and even the reanimated dead bulged in their sockets.

After merely taking a glance at the portion of the giant that still stood on the floor and his sword, D walked over to Kuentz. Actually, in the whole course of the battle, the Hunter had never stopped moving for a second.

Behind him, what remained of the giant’s lower body bent over slowly. Lifting the severed left portion, he tried to stick it back in place. After all, he had reanimated the villagers’ corpses. He barely got it back in position.

Raising his longsword, the giant was about to bring it down once more on D.

As D walked, he tapped his right foot lightly against the floor. Once again the giant’s upper body slid off, and by the time its echoes boomed, D had already dived into the thick of the living dead. Not at all concerned with the metal fragments on the floor, he flashed out with his blade and swiftly took apart the reanimated corpses. There wasn’t a mote of humanity in his “dissection,” so brutal even Kuentz—who was caught in the middle of it—couldn’t bear to watch.

The Hunter went on to sweep the fragments from the floor, saying, “Come with me.”

After slipping free of the net of fragments, Kuentz, dumbfounded, looked at D and Mia and asked, “Who the hell are you two?”

“Didn’t you see us back in town?”

In response to Mia’s question, Kuentz shook his head, saying, “No, I know. You’re Miss Mia, right? And that’s the Vampire Hunter ‘D.’ ”

An intense glint filled the eyes that gazed at D. As far as Kuentz was concerned, he was still a murderer.

“What are you doing here?”

“We kinda wandered in,” Mia lied. Even if she were to tell him the truth, he wouldn’t understand. For Mia herself, comprehending all of this was only a distant dream.

“In that case, you’d better hurry up and get out of here.”

“We’d better? What about you?”

“I’ve still got work to do. I’ve gotta find out for sure what’s going on down here.”

“Forget that and just get out, okay? No matter how long you stay, you’ll never learn anything and you’ll only get yourself killed. Like all of them.”

But Kuentz had a fierce light in his eyes. “Then I have to avenge them. You two go on ahead.”

“No, I can’t just leave you. You’ll die for nothing.”

“I’m prepared to do that. I can’t very well go dragging my tail back all alone.”

“No, that’s exactly what you should do. You must’ve seen how terrifying the things infesting this place are. They control the dead, for God’s sake!”

“There was nothing inside that armor. All I heard was a voice,” Kuentz muttered absentmindedly.

“You can’t win against things like that. No one will blame you for going home.”

“That’s if he makes it home,” D interjected.

The other two looked at him with bulging eyes.

“Your friends are all dead. The reason you alone made it in here is because the enemy invited you in. A foe like that won’t let you go again easily. Whatever was in that suit of copper armor is probably watching us right now.”

“What was he?” Kuentz asked, his face distorted.

When it came to various monsters and spirits, he knew quite a bit, and he’d encountered them on a number of occasions. That thing had been something entirely different, because Kuentz was wearing a charm against supernatural beings.

“We’ll know soon enough.”

Kuentz’s eyes leapt to the vicinity of D’s left hip. Although Mia knew that the hoarse voice had come from his left hand, she said nothing.

“But more importantly, now we simply can’t afford to wait three days up on the surface. Those two aren’t in league yet.”

By that, the hoarse voice was referring to the fake D and the thing in the armor.

Mia swallowed hard.

“This place is coming back to life. If it’s fully restored, it’ll become a tremendous fortress we’ll be powerless against. Needless to say, we can’t stay here safe and sound. We’ve gotta get back up to the top as soon as possible.”

Since D wasn’t talking, Kuentz was completely bewildered. The hoarse voice definitely seemed to come from D’s hip—where his hand hung easily by his side.

“Shall we go,” D said, and he started walking.

“But that’s—” Kuentz began, and then he was left breathless.

Before the figure in black loomed the same stone wall where the door had disappeared earlier. And then the wall in front of D fragmented like an electronic image, and what should suddenly appear again but the door.

In spite of himself, the boy looked over at Mia, and seeing in her profile the shock and fear and even adoration that rocked the girl’s features, the young man felt a pang shoot through his chest.