The Red Hand of Evil

chapter 8

I

Caught in the stare of those glittering eyes, Annette was several times more ashamed than she was scared. I never had any interest in any of that, she thought, but she couldn’t say the words. “No, I know it,” she said, mustering all her strength in an effort to put on a straight face.

The countess nodded.

“That made us reevaluate the human race. You might say we gave them the respect they were due. We thought your kind would need to be exterminated, or gathered up and sent off to some other dimension. Yet you simply would’ve returned—in time.”

In her heart, Annette heaved a sigh. Not the sort prompted by being impressed. The sort that came from disgust. Are humans really such incredible creatures? The thought rose through her like bile.

Annette held the human race in complete contempt. When she was a child, the villagers who’d come to her father the mayor with this or that request were so pitiful, so servile. The same was true of the people she’d seen in the Capital. Unable to even understand the system the Nobility had created, they sheepishly made use of what they could—perhaps one millionth of the system’s capabilities—but attempted to create nothing of their own. Yet they fervently researched the culture of the Nobility to the point of forsaking all earthly pleasures, putting together such infantile hypotheses even Annette could understand them—and to her it appeared utterly inane.

What was this conclusion the countess spoke of? Interest reared its heavy head, then quickly returned to normal. That was something that’d happened thousands of years in the past. It had no bearing on Annette’s daily life.

“Wait here a while. I know not what will happen later, but you’re safe for now.”

Feeling relief seeping into her chest, Annette took a seat on a nearby sofa.

“There was a boy with me,” she said, her lips only able to move due to the relief that filled her heart. “What’ll become of him?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of him. Might he be with the formidable foe who pursues the grand duke? If such is the case, he is in danger.”

“He could get caught in the crossfire?”

“I can’t imagine what manner of battle it shall be, but it would leave him far from safe. I know not whether even we shall be safe.”

“But that’s—” Annette had nothing to finish that with. Like the countess, she couldn’t begin to imagine what shape a battle between that giant and D might take or how it might conclude, and she was afraid to even think about it.

On a diagram spread in midair, a green point of light was on the move. From the exterior and interior views, it was clear that the diagram was schematics for the train.

“This is the control room—or maybe the driver’s seat would be a better name for it,” said the hoarse voice. “But since this gives us a vantage point for the entire layout of the train and tells us the passengers’ movements, there’s no way we could miss him. He’s got plenty of gumption. And he’s headed right this way.”

“How does he know we’re in here?” asked D.

“The train probably told him. This is his kingdom. He’s got more unseen lackeys than you can shake a stick at. But fighting him here’s too dangerous!”

There was no need to mention the presence of the reactor.

D was already making for the door.

“Hold up. I’m going, too!” Pikk said, ready to follow after him.

“Don’t budge from here,” the Hunter told him without ever turning around.

The boy froze in place. Still he spoke, saying, “Why not? I could be useful in helping you rescue the little lady.”

“Instead of trying to be useful,” the hoarse voice began, “you’d be more help by not getting in our way. Just stay here and behave yourself. Oh, I just know you’re gonna tail us no matter what we say. I’ll just make you snooze a while.”

The left hand reached for his shoulder. Just before it could touch him, the boy used his every muscle to bound toward the door ahead of him.

“Ha! Treat me like I’m dead weight, will you? I’m through asking for help. I’ll do as I please. And when you guys get into a jam I ain’t gonna help, just remember that!”

The door shut, cutting off part of Pikk’s final remark.

“My, but isn’t he the spunky little bastard!” said a voice that could only be taken as a wry grin. “Sure must be sweet on that girl. The kid’s ready to give his life for her!”

D’s lips moved.

The hoarse voice filled with surprise.

“But then, the board of the Noble Mental Research Center said it all. Still, he shouldn’t be so determined, so introspective at such a young age. You really can’t apply their view to all humans, no sirree. Just like the Nobility’s got some that are okay and some that are messed up, so it goes with humans too. The squirt’s okay, but to be so damned—”

The rest of the hoarse voice’s words were also truncated by the door.

D headed straight on an intercept course with the enemy. Naturally, there was no thought of Annette on his mind.

“One million dalas, as agreed.”

The bag set on the table shifted slightly. Due to the gold coins that filled it, it looked as soft and lumpy as clay. The owner of that bag sat in a wheelchair flanked by bodyguards, one of whom swallowed hard and said, “That’s a hell of a payday. For that much, you could run a whole town on the Frontier for a hundred years.”

“On the other hand, make a mistake and that million dalas won’t be worth dirt to you,” the man in the wheelchair said in a horrible monotone that made the guard wince. “Even someone as famous across the Frontier as D can’t take on Grand Duke Drago and expect to come away unscathed.”

“I know that name,” D replied.

The secretary who sat at a desk a good distance away punching their conversation into a typewriter pressed her hand to her chest and slumped over the machine. Her expression had dissolved in rapture—for she’d heard D’s voice.

“But I’d heard he’d died in the distant past,” the Hunter continued.

“A little over five thousand years ago, or so they say,” the man—his employer—concurred with a nod.

Though he is described here as a man, that could be determined by his voice alone. The head that emerged from his gorgeously embroidered robe was fully contained by an iron mask. Not only that, but the hands that poked from his sleeves were also sheathed in gleaming silver gauntlets all the way down to the tips of his fingers. From the tremble in his voice, it was clear that his monotone was actually due to restraining the fierce emotion from his voice.

“Indeed, he was destroyed. But what he built still lives somewhere out on the Frontier. The legendary Tube Express, for example. It seems this enormous train, like some sort of huge hotel or perhaps a factory of sorts, races through transparent tubes at nearly the speed of sound. As to why he would construct such a thing, whether purely for sightseeing or for some other purpose—even now views vary, and any conclusions are fog-bound. One theory has it that it was built for conducting outrageous experiments, but that remains unclear.”

“What’s gone won’t be coming back,” D said. It was a tone that could permeate rock. “Why dig it up again?”

“A dozen days ago, I gave a traveler lodging at my home. That was the first mistake. At first blush he looked to be a timid man, but at night his true nature suddenly became apparent and he killed my entire family. I asked him then who he was, and he told me he was a human who’d been transformed by Grand Duke Drago. Five thousand years ago he was abducted by the grand duke and used as a guinea pig in certain experiments. As a result, he said his veins flowed with the blood of a Noble who by day might walk in the light of the sun without harm. And when he called on our house, it had been by the sunlit hours of day. Oh, if only I had noticed then. His face was fine as any peach blossom, his eyes calm. His neck was fully exposed and free of fang marks. But that doesn’t absolve me of sin. My children were against letting him stay with us. No doubt a childish instinct or something let them see through him. I’d scolded my children, told them our family had a tradition of showing compassion to strangers, and invited him in. Compassion? Tradition? What had I done?

“He said he wouldn’t make me one of them. Told me to put my family to rest. And as he left, he added something. That the Grand Duke Drago who’d made him what he was had sped about the Frontier in a train that resembled a huge castle. Though the train and the tube around it have vanished beneath the sands, they neither rust nor decay. Even now it lies quietly beneath the sand, awaiting the hour of its resurrection. Naturally, its master Grand Duke Drago too is merely in a long slumber, awaiting his own hour of resurrection in a coffin secured somewhere in the train.

“My mission in life is set. D, find where that train rests out on the Frontier and drive a wooden stake through Grand Duke Drago’s heart as he slumbers there. And once the grand duke’s been destroyed, drive another one right through the center of his ashes. In all eternity I can never make up for my sin, but once you’ve done this the souls of my three children, my wife, my parents, and a score of our servants will be able to take their place with God at last.”

The man in the iron mask trembled violently from head to foot. It was a mad spasm of grief and anger. There could be no doubt it would become lunacy in a matter of seconds.

A black-gloved hand grabbed the bag.

“You’ll take the job, then?” the employer’s other guard said, the words escaping in a tone of relief.

“I’ll contact you periodically,” D told him, and then he turned his back to the man.

“I’ll go, too,” his employer said, his voice following the Hunter. “I’ll go with you. Let me drive a stake through Grand Duke Drago’s heart. Please, take me with you.”

D slipped out the door.

The voice continued to howl madly. “Vengeance for my children. Vengeance for my parents and my wife. Rip the grand duke’s heart out and let me drink its gushing blood.”

Was the iron armor intended to deny his employer his freedom? Beneath that mask, did he gnash the fangs of a Noble?

D closed the door. Suddenly, he was in a vast area.

“Well, if this don’t beat all,” the hoarse voice said sarcastically, though its tone carried some surprise.

Countless gravestones and monuments loomed before D.

“A train with its own graveyard? Maybe we should call this the Afterlife Express? Oh, they’ve got names carved in ’em.”

“They’re all human names,” said D.

“All the folks who died after being used in their experiments? That’s one unexpectedly thoughtful Noble. But what’s the meaning of these flowers?”

Before every grave were flowers that looked freshly picked, and their petals were even covered with water droplets.

“No way that was the grand duke’s doing. Who in blazes, then?”

Of course, from the very start no reply had been expected from D, but sensing something beyond the pale, a face formed in the palm of the left hand. Its tiny eyes took in the vast graveyard—and caught sight of the gigantic figure standing at one end of the car.

“Such a gorgeous man. Your beauty has earned an introduction. I am Grand Duke Drago.”

“D.”

The grand duke’s enormous frame quaked for an instant, but it was unclear whether D caught that or not.

“Oh, such murderous intent. Man who calls himself D, even your killing lust is exquisite. At the moment, I’m trembling. It’s so pure, so unalloyed. But something else makes my chest quake. D, D, D—who named you thus? I know. No, I know nothing. Your left hand—something inhabits it, does it not? He said so. Said that you were his only—something. He? Who is he?”

The giant spoke without once pausing for breath, and it took several seconds for him to finish. However, it was clear he was in a confused state. What was it that startled this ancient fiend risen from the far reaches of time, and how would D counter him?

II

Who hears the voices of the dead? Screams short of actual words shoot from lungs choked with moldering earth, and the dead awaken from dreams of the great nebula. The hellish pain of being pierced by swordlike cosmic rays becomes their curse on the two who look down at their graves. Though to them it probably sounds like the most beautiful singing in the world.

“Where are we?”

Even to D, that must’ve seemed an odd question.

“What have I done here? Do you know, D?”

“His memory seems confused,” the hoarse voice said with great interest. “Maybe it’s because he slept for almost five thousand years? Or else—”

“He wanted to forget?”

That icy assertion silenced the hoarse voice for a moment. Its next words even sounded mournful.

“Could be.”

D’s right hand went for the longsword on his back. Both the grand duke’s hands sank beneath his cape.

For these two, was battle a dirge for the dead?

Eyes on both sides held a crimson glow. D’s eyes. The grand duke’s eyes.

The dead sang. The prelude to the final battle of Armageddon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where are they?” D inquired.

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

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

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

“That’s the job, Countess baby.”

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

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

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

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

III

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

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

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

“I might be destroyed?”

The hoarse voice was at a loss.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tip stopped when it hit the floor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Coward—watch this!”

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

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

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

“Damnation!” Benelli exclaimed, reeling.

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

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

The last remark came out with a gout of blood.

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

“So—what of it?”

“Look at his blade.”

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

“What in the—?!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The two of them were still making their way down a corridor.

His rough fingers gripped a foot-long iron skewer. The skewer ran through a human left hand.

“Also, fragments of the grand duke’s memories flow in our blood. Apparently D’s left hand gives him power.”

“In other words, without this, he should be an ordinary dhampir?”

“Yes, probably.”

“In that case, we must hurry and finish him off.”

“Only after we’ve shown this to the grand duke. It’s a curiosity. Perhaps it will enable us to learn more about D.”

As the robed figure and the one in formalwear went down the corridor, a diminutive shadow followed after them.

“Found ’em at last,” Pikk said, and though he wanted to snap his fingers he somehow restrained the urge. “Hold on, little lady. I’ll save you for sure!”

Nothing burned in the boy’s eyes but a fiery dedication toward his rescue mission.