IN MUMA

CHAPTER 6

-

I

-

The 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.

Suddenly, the left hand groaned.

Savena had turned to face D. How powerful were the waves from his unearthly aura, and how swift! The proof of this was that the dead around them were turning one after another to look at him.

“Say,” someone called out before long. “Isn’t that him?”

“Yes,” someone else replied. “Yes, it’s him. Hey, everyone! He is here!”

That cry became a wave spreading out in all directions.

Savena’s wagon halted. The throng to the fore and the rear, to the left and the right had brought it to a sudden stop.

“It’s him.”

“It’s him.”

“It’s him.”

They called out repeatedly, but mixed with those were other cries.

“Let me be by your side.”

“Me!”

“Pick me!”

“I am the one for you!”

A chorus of voices rose in the weirdest pleas imaginable. And with both arms extended beseechingly, the speakers began to walk toward D. A march of those who were neither living nor dead. Pale, wraithlike faces, emaciated limbs, and eyes that held death itself—could a more disturbing mob of people exist in all the world? However, their eyes were glazed with rapture at their love for D.

What would they do to D? Would they merely appeal to him, or would their surpassing love drive them to grab him in both arms, hug him tight, and suffocate him? Or would fingers with tenacious strength peel the skin from him, gouge his eyes out, and tear the flesh from his bones? Whatever the case, it didn’t seem D would have any means to prevent it.

Beneath the ashen sky, an unimaginable scene was about to unfold—and at just that moment, a figure rose majestically to his feet. It was D. A sudden gust of wind spread his inky black coat, and the features that topped his tall and powerful form were so exquisite, so alluring, and so cold that the dead walking toward him froze in amazement.

“Oh!” somebody moaned.

That was it. None of the others said a word. They’d been blasted in the face by too much of that incredible aura.

D slashed his right hand through the empty air. “Back,” he said. Just a single word.

As for the effect that it had—they did precisely as he said. Donning expressions of utter terror, hundreds of advancing dead winced and backed away.

“As I thought,” the left hand groaned. Its tone was a mixture of pity, surprise, and heartfelt emotion. “They really are his victims—”

“You have the wrong man,” D declared resolutely.

Was it the overwhelming dignity unsuited to one so young that made the living dead back away? No, it was undoubtedly because they’d been struck by his beauty. The young man in black standing so tall beneath the ashen sky was such a vision, he easily gave that impression.

After a period of silence, a voice echoed down the road, saying, “That’s right.”

The comment had come from Savena, who still gripped the reins.

“Look at him. There’s a strong resemblance, but this man isn’t him. Our beloved, the great one, was bigger, blacker, stronger.”

A number of impotent shouts of agreement sailed on the wind.

“Yes . . .”

“Of course . . . That’s not him.”

“It’s not him.”

“Not him.”

As the feeble voices of the dead spread over the group, the murmuring figures turned forward in succession, beginning to walk again without any signal from anyone, then quickly breaking into a run. Even Savena’s wagon was caught up in the tide.

“What’s this?” the left hand said in a tone that suggested it’d made some rare discovery.

But even before it spoke, D’s eyes had turned toward the rough, arid land to the right of the highway. From up ahead, the fake D was galloping toward them. Though at first all that could be made out was a tiny speck, the horse and rider took shape before long, then the latter became the fake D and halted beside the wagon, all of which took less than a minute.

Having his horse walk alongside the wagon, he asked, “Is that what these characters are? The dead that give this highway its name?”

It came as little surprise his intuition was so good. He was the same as D, after all.

Those of the dead who noticed the arrival of this new D looked at him with surprise, but perhaps due to the earlier incident with D, they immediately looked forward again and made no move to approach him.

“What brings you back here?” D asked.

“Nothing special—but there’s nothing at all up ahead,” the fake D said, wrinkling his brow as he gazed forward. A shadowy fatigue or distress—or perhaps both—flowed across his features. “No matter how far we rode, the highway just went on forever. I can tell no matter how far you go, there won’t be anything. It’s all in vain. Nevertheless, I intended to go on, but my horse dropped to the ground and wasn’t having any of it. It wasn’t exhausted. As you can see now, it’s in perfectly good shape. It’d been caught in the nihilistic mood, you see. Now, cyborg horses are more intelligent and sensitive than ordinary horses, but they still don’t turn into nihilists. It’s just that it didn’t want to go any further. It knows there’s nothing out there. So I had no choice but to turn back. These characters have been gathering from all over since the highway was made, but there’s no point. There’s nothing out there. Of course, the dead don’t get tired, so that’s not a problem.”

“They’re only half dead, to be precise.”

“Zip it,” the fake D sneered, quickly pulling out of the column. “I don’t care to make a pointless trip. I’m heading off. Good luck.”

“Yeah, so long!” a hoarse voice called out in a rather relieved tone.

“Sheesh,” the fake D snorted, and he was wheeling his mount around when it happened.

“What’s that?” the left hand exclaimed, the very first to say anything.

Up ahead, even beyond the vanguard of the ominous horde—in a spot at least three miles away, there loomed an enormous citadel. Surrounded by ramparts over three hundred feet high and a trio of moats each sixty feet across, the structure that towered at the center bristled with hornlike radar and parabolic antennae, gravity cannons, destroyers, G-time curvature guns, and more, making it look as if the fortress itself were some vicious, loathsome creature.

D gave the fake D a long look. Naturally, the fake was staring forward in a daze. Then, noticing D’s gaze, he shouted irritably, “Hey, what’s that look supposed to mean? That’s a lousy habit I have. That thing wasn’t out there, not anywhere—I swear!”

Saying nothing, D gave a toss of his chin at the structure.

“It wasn’t there, honestly!”

“It looks like he’s right,” the left hand said, oddly enough offering the fake his support. “That castle—there’s something funny about it. It sure looks real enough, but it also kinda seems like an illusion, too.”

“That wouldn’t really be all that strange,” D said.

Indeed, there was among all the monsters infesting the southern Frontier a creature that could read the thoughts of approaching human beings and give substance to whatever they most desired through the sheer power of its mind. The illusions were perfectly fitting given the creature’s nonambulatory and cowardly nature, and the scale of them was simply incredible. For example, a traveler fondly remembering the seaside to the far north would find the vast expanse of icy waters spreading before them exactly as they pictured it, reproduced in just the same grand scale. It wasn’t a hallucination. If they touched the ice, it would be cold and stick to the palm of their hand, and if they plunged their hand into the freezing waters, they’d soon be suffering from exposure. The more developed forms of hypnotism could transform an ordinary stick into a branding iron, with blisters forming on any hand that touched it; what this monster created was the real thing. The proof of this was provided by records that described a traveler who was swallowed by a monstrous fish that rose from the icy sea and was never seen again.

However, the eyes that surfaced in the palm of D’s left hand turned a gaze that suggested rather philosophical musings toward the stronghold they were rapidly approaching. “But it’s not an illusion,” it remarked dolefully. “At least, I think it’s not, but even I don’t know for sure.”

The fake D said it hadn’t been out there. If they were to believe that, then this castle had just now suddenly appeared to occupy this three-dimensional space. All ten million tons of it. That wasn’t to say that the Nobility couldn’t produce something from nothing with their science. Especially not when it was a massive and mysterious gathering place for the throng of the half-dead who’d been summoned from the surrounding area once the mountain range that’d sealed off the Highway of the Dead for thousands of years had been removed. To be perfectly honest, no matter what happened at this point, it should’ve come as no surprise.

Yet the left hand persisted, eyes spinning as it said, “Still, it’s strange. From what I can see, it’s real enough, but something’s funny about the way it’s built.”

The opportunity to inspect its construction soon presented itself. Having caught sight of Muma, the group quickened its pace, finally breaking into a run, and in less than an hour they’d reached its outer borders. Unable to fight the impetus of those pressing from the rear, a few score of those in the front plunged straight into the moat—although it didn’t actually have water in it, and was in fact a sheer drop into an abyss thousands of yards deep. The rest somehow managed to stay on their feet, and the mob swiftly fanned out along the moat, spilling off the highway.

Standing before it, they found the building truly vast. Both the moat and ramparts stretched endlessly to either side, eventually vanishing from sight. There was a veritable forest of structures within ranging from six hundred to a thousand feet high, and when it came to the towers, they seemed as if they must be at least three thousand feet tall with their tapering, rocketlike shapes challenging the heavens. But though this place seemed to have appeared solely for this throng, even after their arrival it remained entirely silent, and there was no sign of anyone there.

“Looks like we’re not getting in,” the fake D groused. But it came as little surprise that his eyes were filled with reckless laughter. “Actually, that stone wall over there doesn’t seem to have any gates or doors in it anyway. How do they intend to let their visitors in?”

This was a perfectly reasonable query, and D and his left hand said nothing. At that point, cries of surprise suddenly went up.

The fake D was infected by them as well, saying, “Wow! This is incredible. The highway’s stretching straight out across the moat!”

-

III

-

The highway crossed the outer, middle, and inner moats, then reached the castle wall. At this point, a hole with the same thirty-foot width as the highway unexpectedly appeared in the wall, which hadn’t had a mark or line on it.

There was no way that couldn’t be taken as an invitation. The mob of the half-dead became a torrent that surged off the highway and into the fortress. Even D in the wagon and the fake D on his horse were a part of it.

Darkness enveloped the group as they entered the castle.

“What’s the story?” the fake D asked D’s left hand.

There was no garden beyond the castle wall. Where the half-dead went there was nothing save a deep darkness. Even the light was cut off at the door through which they’d entered. Considering this castle belonged to the Nobility—to vampires—it was only natural.

“Now we’re playing hide-and-seek, and we’re all it,” the fake D remarked with admiration. While he should have been able to see in the dark as clearly as at midday, this darkness alone he couldn’t pierce. And the same went for D.

They knew they were in a vast room. Or perhaps it would be better to call it simply a space, for they couldn’t sense so much as a single pillar. They couldn’t even tell whether or not this place had walls and a ceiling.

But about this time a certain phenomenon began to occur that, on consideration, made perfect sense. More people were constantly flowing in, but the number in the space had decreased. In the darkness, one person here—or rather, a few dozen—and then more over there went off in all directions. But even though they dispersed, there was clearly some intention behind the way they left, and from the way they moved, that intent didn’t seem to be their own.

“They’re being selected, eh? Or perhaps I should make that being sorted?” the left hand muttered. Their destinations were being chosen based on some inscrutable criteria.

“So, where do you think we’ll be made to go?”

After all, there were more than ten thousand people pouring into the place. Vast or not, the space should’ve been packed almost instantly, yet it didn’t feel the least bit cramped. One after another, people and wagons alike disappeared. The speed and orderliness with which it happened was beyond the pale.

Less than ten minutes after entering the castle, the two Ds realized they were the only ones left. D was astride an unsaddled horse. He’d taken one of the animals that drew Savena’s wagon.

The last footsteps and creaking wagon wheels went off in a certain direction, and then the room was silent.

“So, I wonder when we get our calling,” the left hand said.

And that’s when it happened. The air stirred to D’s right. A cavern had formed.

“Is this it?” the fake D said excitedly as he brought his steed around. Then he threw a quick look over at D, but it was unclear whether or not D noticed the mysterious shadows that came and went in the fake’s eyes.

“Hyah!” they cried, the two riders kicking their cyborg horses’ flanks in unison as they began to gallop off into the depths of the darkness.

-

Perhaps it was only a few seconds. Or maybe it was for hours that they rode.

The two of them were in a blue room. When and where they’d dismounted they couldn’t say. There was a blue light shining down, the source of which was unknown. Even the shadows of the pair were tinged blue.

“Seems to me we’re being told to do whatever we like from here on out,” the fake D muttered to himself as he surveyed their surroundings. “I think I’ll be heading out now. See you.”

Once his back had melded with the blue light, a hoarse voice remarked with relief, “He’s finally gone, has he?”

“Were you worried about him?” D asked.

“Yeah, I had a bad feeling. You and him—even if the two of you have to have it out at some point, it’s better to put some space between you for the time being.”

“We have to have it out at some point, you say?”

D’s tone made the tiny eyes in the palm of his left hand bug out as they looked up at him.

“Both of us are me. And both of us came to Muma.” Breaking off there, D said, “What am I?”

It wasn’t really a question. However, his steely tone carried an extreme sadness as thin as a piece of silk, and it would’ve taken Mia’s breath away if the girl had been there.

“At any rate, let him go. If he’s going that way, we should take this way.”

Before the left hand had even made the suggestion, D had started off on foot. Up ahead, something shaped like a black box began to come into view. No one of Noble blood could mistake the sight of it. It was a coffin. Bending down, he reached for the lid and opened it. The desiccated corpse had vivid remnants of anguish left on its face.

Placing his left hand on it, D asked, “About how old is this?”

“Roughly five thousand years,” the left hand replied. “The cause of death was rampant DNA damage brought about by abnormal hormonal secretions. See how almost all the skin has been mummified, but a spot on the right hand and the lungs alone are still normal? Look! The lungs are still functioning five thousand years later. In other words, just those two parts turned into Nobility.”

“So, this is one outcome?”

“Sure enough—this is what he’d like to call a failure. Loan me your left hand.”

The fingers of D’s left hand tugged on the wooden stake that protruded from the corpse’s chest.

“And that’s why it was disposed of. Oh, my, there are rows and rows of ’em!”

D’s eyes had beheld the same thing.

There wasn’t just one coffin. Behind it was another, and another beyond that, wooden boxes beyond numbering laid in a crazy confusion like some sort of modern sculpture. Further and further still they stretched on, endless as the images in an infinite series of mirrors . . .

There was no need to open the lid of the next coffin. The hinges had rotted off, and from the gap that was left, a right hand that was also mummified could be seen. Surely the frilly white shirt cuff was that of a woman. A tiny glint of gold spilled from between her fingers. In the palm of her hand she clutched a small pendant. Had she intended to hand it to someone? Someone outside the coffin? The one who’d sealed her in it?

D opened the lid of the tiny shell-like locket. There was a little photograph inside. Though its hues had faded to sepia, the split second burned into it still captured a pleasant memory that’d resisted the flow of time. Backed by snow-capped mountains and rich fields of barley, a young man and woman smiled as if enchanted by a spell that would last for all time.

But the girl had been chosen and brought here.

Closing the locket, D wound its chain around the girl’s wrist. There was nothing else to do.

“All of these were failures, then?” he muttered in a coffin-filled section of what could safely be called a cemetery.

That’s right, someone replied. You are my only success.

-

Instinctively, the fake D looked all around.

There was a presence. He got the feeling it was at the ceiling, and beneath his feet, and right next to him as well. Endless rows of coffins spread all around him. He knew that each of them contained a corpse with a stake through its heart. When he’d muttered, “So, they were all failures?” that voice had heard him.

“There’s something I want to ask you,” he said to the voice. “When you say ‘you,’ is that singular or plural? Don’t you mean ‘you two’?”

My only success was you alone.

“Great!” the fake D exclaimed, thumping his chest. His eyes held a ghastly tinge that hadn’t been seen until now. “So it’s just me? In that case, that other me is in the way.”

-

D moved silently through a sea of coffins. Did he have some goal? No. At least, it didn’t seem that he did. He was as cold and beautiful as ever but shrouded in a terrific aura that seemed as if it could raise the dead. An aura of anger. Though the young man appeared to be an icy machine right to the marrow of his bones, his body now burned with the one emotion that seemed to suit him the least. Perhaps it was due to compassion for the innocent people who’d been summoned here to meet a horrible end, or maybe he saw something that had a direct bearing on his own fate. He shouldn’t have had any set goal, yet his gait called to mind a ferocious tiger stalking its prey.

“I did some rough calculations,” the hoarse voice said. “Based on the number of coffins we’ve passed and they way they’re laid out, the total would be approximately—”

“One hundred and seven or eight thousand.”

“Exactly,” it said in a doleful tone.

So many called here only to have their life snuffed out with one thrust of a stake. For what purpose? For whose sake? Which was the success—D or the fake D?

Suddenly the color of the light changed. Gloom descended. The whole world was altered. The machinery that towered to either side of him seemed to be made of shadows. In order to conduct experiments impossible in this world, the very substance of the machines had been transformed. They lived.

The next thing D knew, he was looking down from a platform set partway up the wall. The walls dropped straight down for several hundred yards, and countless black specks moved around at the bottom. D knew at a glance it was those who’d taken the Highway of the Dead.

Now I shall conduct the first sorting.

Even when the voice rang out, D didn’t move.

There was a cacophony of flapping black wings near the ceiling. A cloud of bats. A few seconds later, it became clear they weren’t just harmless creatures. The black mammals attached themselves to the necks of the survivors who stood motionless below, driving their fangs into the carotid arteries. The half-dead simply stood there, making no attempt to shoo them away, and one after another the people fell. Every last bit of color had drained from their pale faces. As the last one dropped, the bats rose en masse, flying to the upper reaches one after another and disappearing.

The thousands of human forms that lay at the bottom were reflected in D’s cold eyes. It wasn’t the sort of look he gave the dead.

These bodies had been drained of every last drop of blood by the bats—vampire bats. Now they were true corpses, but a number of them rose unsteadily to their feet. Half dead or truly dead, they were souls that’d returned from hell.

They aren’t dead yet, the voice said. Even with the blood completely drained from their bodies, they live. Even if a person has received the kiss of the Nobility, so long as part of their human nature remains, indestructibility won’t come into play in this situation. They should be one hundred percent completely and utterly dead. Since they survive, it means the power I gave them went to work just as they were about to die. In the other examination areas, surely other candidates survived in the same manner. Roughly one percent.

Of the twenty thousand half-dead people who’d entered the castle with D, that would leave approximately two hundred.

The scene changed again. Next for the survivors was an incredible baptism of death. Walking on wobbly legs, they were blasted head on by high-powered laser cannons, machine guns, and ultrasonic projectors. Hearts shot through by crimson beams of light, bodies ripped open by steel slugs flying at the speed of sound, cells hammered by ultrasonic waves, every one of them dropped, and then a number of them got up again.

These physical attacks should also more than suffice to kill them in their present form. And so more wheat is separated from the chaff.

The unwatchable process of “sorting” continued. The elite were torn apart by the claws of ravenous beasts, devoured, or wrapped in powerful tentacles until every bone in their bodies was broken and they’d suffocated. At this point, they finally demonstrated the special Noble abilities they’d acquired. The shredded bodies of the dead mended themselves with unbelievable speed. While that wasn’t such an amazing occurrence in this world, the way shattered bones re-formed, flesh that’d been ripped free reattached itself, and ruptured eyeballs grew new retinas and scleras from nothing was still a miraculous paranormal phenomenon.

Here a number of different groups were pooled, and though there were a dozen or so survivors, most of the dead had obvious madness in their eyes as they began to wander about.

Their minds don’t come back, you see. Might it be due to fear or the pain of repeated deaths?

Five remained. Among them D spotted a face he recognized. It was Savena. Because she was in another group, she hadn’t shown up here until now.

And now for the final sorting.

With that declaration ringing in his ears, D drew his sword and struck out in front of himself. He knew that before him lay an unseen wall that blocked his way. At first, his blade moved without meeting any resistance. But when D tried to advance, he was checked by the invisible wall.

Those who’ve received the kiss of the Nobility, while still human, have gained the characteristics of a Noble. However, there are fundamental issues to be resolved. In the end, those people remain our subjects—the master/slave relationship persists. If even a single Noble were to appear in their midst, the shock would probably drive them half mad.

Was the voice—the master of Muma—trying to say he thought it best for humans and Nobility to be treated as equals?

This is not what I sought. I’m looking for something else. D, you must know what that is, the voice said, a crushing weight added to its tone.