The Sacred Ancestor's Plan

chapter 5

I

This was the Sacred Ancestor’s plan?” the left hand inquired, not sounding the least bit surprised.

“As I thought—you knew of it, didn’t you?” Greylancer said, a thin smile on his lips. “Though I recall hearing fragmented legends of D and his partner, I never imagined I would find myself in their presence here and now—and I should truly thank my stars.”

The left hand’s manner suddenly grew easy. It had sensed the truth in the giant’s words. What billowed from him was a limitlessly deep sense of nobility.

However, the duchess spoke of how this facility had awakened from a long sleep. One that Greylancer had undoubtedly shared. How did a man who’d lived three millennia ago know about D and his left hand?

“Well, don’t expect him to be impressed when he wakes up,” the left hand said.

“I understand that. And that is the way the D I know must remain. It is precisely because he is such a man that I wish him to be brought here.”

“With all the systems you’ve got here, why take such a sneaky approach? It’d be a piece of cake for you to grab him, house and all.”

“This gentleman desires that D come of his own volition. He says he doesn’t wish to force him. I don’t really understand it,” the duchess said with a touch of sarcasm.

“Is that a fact?” the left hand replied in a powerful tone. “In that case, you’d best give up and set the lot of us free—meaning, let us out of the village.”

“And would that be the end of it?” the duchess inquired.

“Huh?”

“We took hostile actions toward D. If we set you free and asked him to forget it ever happened—do you think him the sort to forgive and forget?”

“Nope. He wouldn’t leave here until he’d smashed all your systems and put an end to every last one of you.”

“Then we, too, must take steps to respond. It is for that very reason that Lord Greylancer was summoned.”

“Summoned—oh,” the hoarse voice said, but whether that was from admiration or understanding was unclear.

“And there you have it,” the giant said with a nod. There was a strange gleam in his eye. It wasn’t merely the will to fight, now that it was clear he’d been called here to do battle with D. There was the sense like a boulder that could tip over at the next gust of wind—a feeling of desolation.

The left hand sounded exhausted as it said, “You know, coming here might be for the best for him, too. But there’s nothing I can do at this point. He’ll put all of you to death—that’s all I know.”

“If so—then we really have no choice but to dispose of him?” the duchess said, an air of menace beginning to pervade her surroundings. Looking down at the left hand, she said, “You should see this. Watch D do battle with the berserker we sent after him.”

“You’re not going to use the warrior you’ve got right here?”

“I believe this one to be more vicious, cunning, and a superior fighter—”

Suddenly, the duchess’s upper body doubled backward.

“Wh-wh-what?!”

To the accompaniment of the left hand’s cries, the blood-hued tip of a spear appeared from the Noblewoman’s chest. Fresh blood sprayed across the floor. Apparently not even the left hand had imagined the duchess would be hefted ten feet into the air.

“Oh dear!” the left hand exclaimed, but even though it backed away, both the back of it and its fingers were mercilessly drenched by blood splashing off the floor.

“Do you understand why it’s come to this, Duchess Heldarling?” Greylancer said, now with a completely different eldritch aura bedecking him like invisible flames.

“You’ll regret this . . . Greylancer . . .”

“It’s Lord Greylancer. I care not whether you call me Grey or Lancer, but forgetting the Lord is unpardonable. Furthermore, there’s your offense of having dispatched a warrior without consulting me.”

“You’ll regret this . . . Lord . . . Greylancer.”

“And you have no time to waste on regrets. How does it feel to be destroyed the day after rising again?”

“Stop this. Let me down.”

“You were going to go on to say how you believe your warrior surpassed me, Duchess? That assumes me to be the loser. Tell me now whether or not your assessment was correct.”

“I was mistaken. Please forgive me.”

“Fine.”

An instant later, the duchess’s body sailed through the air like a small ball, slamming into the corridor wall and bouncing off it again. She’d flown over fifty yards. The sound of her impact had been distinctly mixed with that of breaking bones.

Showing not the slightest concern, as if he’d just disposed of a piece of trash, Greylancer raised his right hand into the air. A number of the village’s farmhouses appeared in midair. It was an aerial view of the area surrounding the house D and the others had holed up in.

Greylancer squinted. A figure dressed in casual white garments, top and bottom, stood in front of a farmhouse two down from the one D was in. And in the twinkling of an eye, the house before him vanished without a sound.

“Oh, is that the berserker who surpasses me, Duchess?”

“Yes,” came the reply from just behind him, and it wasn’t tinged with the slightest bit of pain. “He is called ‘U-taker of the Twilight.’”

Greylancer turned his head a bit and looked at the duchess. There wasn’t so much as a drop of blood on her raiment. Apparently that came as no surprise, and he gave her an amused look as he asked, “What is he?”

 

When he charged the guy, Bligh knew he was probably as good as dead. But a faint hope of taking the other guy with him skimmed through his brain. So when he stabbed the foe deep in the heart without meeting any resistance, the man couldn’t believe it.

The world was filled with stark light, and a roar spread like ripples across water. It was lightning.

The enemy didn’t even look at the spear. Nor was he looking at Bligh. What he stared at was up ahead and off to the right—the very farmhouse Bligh had come from.

“Huh?”

Even knowing the danger it exposed him to, Bligh turned and looked. It was perfectly clear that the foe before him considered him less than an insect.

A tall figure was standing in front of the door. Lightning flashed again, starkly illuminating every detail of handsome features colored by darkness.

The enemy’s mouth moved slowly, like it was a lump of iron. “What are you?” he asked robotically.

 

“He is a hellspawn, the result of experiments a millennium after your destruction. His skill in combat is among the top five of the Nobility, a thousand times more violent than any Noble and always thirsty for blood. Not only that, but he is a demon hell-bent on destroying all of creation. On noticing his true nature, I immediately decided to terminate him, but the Sacred Ancestor stopped me,” the duchess explained.

“Why?” asked Greylancer.

“Even now, the reasons are shrouded in a fog. When U-taker ran amok, the Sacred Ancestor personally captured him, draining all the blood from his body and imprisoning him in a high-gravity cell.”

“Oh, he’s quite a threat, then. If he’s among the top five Nobility, then I see how he might surpass me.”

There was silence from the duchess.

“Well, then, I’m off to dispose of him.”

“Lord Greylancer, your role here—”

“—is to fight D. But at this rate, that house will be destroyed, and D with it. Perhaps that’s merely fate, but there’s a voice inside me telling me not to accept it. And I cannot ignore its call. Making you pay for disregarding my wishes shall have to wait until later.”

The gigantic figure began to walk away.

Just then—the tiny world hanging in midair was bleached white.

Three cries were heard.

“D?!”

 

Out in the torrential downpour, D slowly opened the gate and stepped into the street. As he was doing so, Bligh and the man in white—U-taker—saw thousands of Ds. His image was reflected in every flying drop of rain. In the light-deprived world of gray, they glistened like jewels.

U-taker’s brain couldn’t be said to be functioning normally. When he’d imprisoned the berserker in the high-gravity cell, the Sacred Ancestor had robbed him of his memory—and this was one of the side effects.

Nevertheless, his evil nature and intent were alive and well. The first two houses had been destroyed to intimidate his prey. The blow from the short spear had gone uncountered for the same reason. But now he quivered madly from head to toe, as if the storm clouds of an unspeakable tempest of emotions were welling up in him. Fear and exaltation.

His brain focused on a single question. Just who or what was this gorgeous man before him?

“I am . . . U-taker . . . I wish . . . to know . . . your name,” he said robotically.

“D.”

U-taker said nothing, but a tiny ripple of memory rolled across his face. His narrow eyes began to fill with an intense light.

“That is a name . . . I’ve heard . . . only once before . . .” He trembled again from head to toe. And he was painfully aware of the emotions he felt. Hate and rage.

A hard metallic ching! rose through the sound of the rain.

U-taker raised his right hand. Was this the power the Sacred Ancestor had locked away?

Suddenly, U-taker pressed his right hand to the base of his neck. The fresh blood that seeped out from between his fingers looked shockingly vivid in that ash gray world.

“When . . . did you . . . cut me?” U-taker asked, backing away.

“Before you raised your right hand.”

“But . . . it didn’t do any damage . . . D . . .”

His right hand rose again.

That fearsome force erased all the houses and trees along an invisible line and opened a massive hole in the side of the distant hill. However, before Bligh could even notice that, his eyes were drawn to U-taker’s right hand, severed at the wrist and flying through the air with a ribbon of red behind it.

His whole body covered in crimson, U-taker thudded to the ground and moved no more. The rain bounced off his body.

Using his right hand to return his blade to its scabbard, D gazed quietly at Bligh.

The recipient of that gaze started to quake.

“Um . . . that . . . monster . . . I mean, when did you . . . cut him down? When . . . and how? Just who . . . or what . . . are you?” Bligh asked, almost feeling as if somebody else were making him speak.

D’s eyes shifted to the stump where he’d lost his left hand.

“If you’re wondering about th-that thing . . . it went up to the castle. Yeah, it said it wanted to talk to the folks inside.”

The focus of D’s gaze changed once again.

“Wait! Just wait a minute, there. I know you’re real tough and all, but if you go up there, ain’t no way in hell you’re coming back. At least wait and see if that hand of yours comes back before you decide to do anything.”

While the man was saying that, D turned his back to him.

“Hey, I told you to hold on, and I meant it! C’mon.”

Bligh’s cries to stop bounced off the black back of the dwindling figure and vanished.

“Sheesh, be that way, then. Don’t blame me for whatever happens!”

The man stomped his feet and vented his bewilderment to the wind, then turned to look at U-taker’s corpse. If his eyes had opened any wider, they might’ve fallen out of his head.

“He-he’s gone!”

II

“This is an alarming turn of events,” the duchess said, looking up at the midair image of D walking toward them and knitting her brow. “But what a man he is, to dispose of U-taker so easily. I want him. By all means, I want him as a test subject so we might accomplish our aims! He’s not to be killed, Lord Greylancer.”

“I should have expected no less from him. He’s headed right up here,” Greylancer said, sounding impressed. “Even we know fear. Ageless and undying, yet frail creatures easily reduced to dust by a single wooden stake. But he knows no fear. Look at the way he walks. Aloof, and so powerful. I would expect as much from—”

“But he shan’t gain entrance to the castle. Not ever. If he ever sets foot in here, it shall be as a test subject.”

“Good luck with that,” the left hand said with amusement.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to talk him into being a test subject—but would you be willing to change his mind for us?” Greylancer said, looking at the severed limb.

“It wouldn’t do any good. Once he gets it in his mind to fight, the lord of all creation couldn’t stop him.”

“I suppose not. Then it’s time for me to act.”

The Nobleman began to walk away, his back like a wall—or more like a flat megalith. The man who’d up until now said how much he’d like to meet D headed off easily to kill him.

“You mustn’t, Lord Greylancer,” the duchess shouted, but even then he never halted.

The left hand had said not even the lord of all creation could keep D from a fight. If that were the case, then surely not even the master of hell could shake Greylancer’s intent to do battle.

“D’s destruction is the last resort. As a test subject, he’s irreplaceable. If you go, he’s certain to—”

The duchess extended her right hand to her side. A silver button floated there.

Before she could press it, Greylancer’s long spear limned an arc.

Look. Every single thing—machine, OSB, Noble, human, monstrosity—did they not blur like paint rinsing away in water, losing form, being robbed of color and fading away? Even the duchess herself, of all things.

“Stay out of my way, all you figments!” the departing giant said, his voice like a rumbling rising from deep in the earth. “I was born to fight. So long as there are conflicts and battlefields, those times are mine alone, and those places exist solely for me.”

There was nothing on the floor save the left hand. And even its form seemed vaguely fuzzy.

“Figments, eh? That’s a good one. Well, the Nobility really should be sleeping at this hour. So, Lord Greylancer, do you mean to tell me that you, too, are—”

 

D halted before the path up the incline and looked up at the top of the fortifications.

A gray cape was dancing in the wind. A crimson long spear screamed defiance at the leaden sky.

And then the man leapt down. He landed in front of D—some ten yards away. As soon as his feet touched the ground the earth shuddered, as if groaning from absorbing the impact of the gigantic figure. While it was unclear where they’d been all along, countless birds took to the air. A cry of surprise went up behind the Hunter. Bligh had come with him.

“I am Lord Greylancer,” the giant said by way of introduction once the echoes had died.

“I’ve heard of you. I’m—”

“D,” Greylancer said, smiling. “I’ve heard of you, as well. Rare is the man whose name reaches even the ears of the dead.”

“Is this one of the Sacred Ancestor’s testing grounds?”

“That is correct.”

“Well, then, I’m going up there. You can step aside or not, as you like.”

The Hunter started forward again. Greylancer actually seemed to be kindly watching over him.

Nine yards.

Shadows flitted across ground and sky. The birds. Perhaps the eerie auras the two of them gave off had driven the creatures mad. However, there seemed to be no animosity between the two as the distance closed, but rather peace.

Five yards.

D’s right hand went for the longsword on his back. Greylancer raised the tip of his spear.

No one saw the instant that would separate life from death. Blue sparks shot out, and D’s slash from the high position was parried by the long spear Greylancer held out in front of his face.

D stepped forward. Naturally, his blade pressed down.

See how the giant was slowly being driven to his knees?

“This is . . .” Greylancer groaned. “Such strength . . . you frighten me. To the very bottom of my heart. D, do you know why it is that I know fear now?”

There was no reply.

“Nearly ten millennia ago, I met the Sacred Ancestor. And, for reasons I no longer remember, we fought and I was defeated, I believe. I say I believe because, except for the feeling of defeat, all the rest is lost in the depths of forgetfulness. I feared him from the very bottom of my heart. And that was the first time I had ever known there was such a thing. So, this is fear, I thought to myself.”

The Greater Noble’s eyes began to glow red.

“Because of that, I have spent the rest of my life mastering that feeling. But I have yet to do so. At least I can show you some small progress. Like so!”

As if the earth itself were thrusting Greylancer back up, he pushed up with his long spear. A sound reverberated where the blade met the spear, like the roar of a great cannon.

D was sent sailing like a black gale. He collided with a barn that’d been about a hundred feet behind him and off to one side. The wall didn’t shatter. The pillars didn’t break. The entire structure was blown away.

As D arose from under a pile of rubble, pieces of the building rained down around him, only to be reduced to dust one after another by the force of impacting on the ground.

Greylancer’s spear could even turn a foe it’d hurled away into a weapon of destruction. And the full destructive power of the spear itself had yet to be unveiled.

On receiving the next blow, D, he thought, your face will go pale. The outlines of your body will become oddly unreliable, as if you were presently about to be reduced to dust. Your face will swiftly redden due to the fresh blood gushing from each and every one of its pores...

But D didn’t tense for the next blow. On the contrary, he walked forward without any sign of concern. Greylancer donned a look of horror.

“My spear smashed through all the OSB’s defenses, yet you take a sweeping blow from it and are still fit to challenge me as if nothing has happened? The only one here who truly has no fear—is you, D.”

As if indeed neither of them knew fear, Greylancer’s long spear spun, slicing through the wind, then coming to a dead stop aimed exactly at D’s heart. The power that blasted from it was a wave for mopping up the opposition—and how was D supposed to counter that without his left hand and its powers of resuscitation?

However, something else was about to open hostilities.

 

From far beneath the castle—what could be called a subterranean world—an alluring female voice had called out, “Activate the OSB humanoid prototype.”

 

It was a gigantic thing, every bit as large as Greylancer, and dozens of hands supported it. Those disembodied hands hung in midair.

Both D and Greylancer looked up at the thing that floated some fifteen feet above the earth.

“One of the OSB prototypes? That meddling duchess.”

As the giant said that, the long spear left his hands.

A mere fifteen feet. The massive form was charred, as U-taker had been, and it was impaled before it could do anything. Every one of the hands pulled away from it. Was it shock or despair that drew such drastic action from them? For as the giant fell and sent up a great splash of water, the hands simultaneously disappeared.

Greylancer went over to the massive form, grabbed his spear by the shaft, and pulled it back out. Bluish-black blood went flying, staining the ground.

“My role here isn’t finished yet, is it? If you can’t rise from that, I shall have to take your head and offer it to D as a sign of contrition,” the Greater Nobleman said to the enormous figure splayed on the ground, striking his own neck with the flat of his hand.

As if in response to that, the massive form sat up. Slitlike eyes gave off a greenish tinge along the sides of a head shaped like an elliptical helmet.

“D, this thing’s job is to replace me in capturing you,” Greylancer said to the Hunter. “Ordinarily I could just dispose of it, but at present I’m tentatively under the command of a certain woman. I can’t do anything too rash, and to be honest I’d like to see exactly how powerful this thing is and how it would do battle with the man called D. I wonder which I should do first?”

“Do as you like,” D replied, his voice driving away the clamor of the rain.

Greylancer looked up at the heavens and shook his head. “Oh, you’re enough to make even a man like me funny in the head. Your voice alone is enough to numb my soul. D, first you and I will—”

“Make it later,” D said, changing direction. The way he faced, the OSB prototype had advanced even farther than Greylancer and was still closing.

A stark light split the world of gray. The somewhat insectlike head of the OSB was split down to the jaw, spilling something bluish-black.

“No time for idle words, eh?” Greylancer clucked.

Though the thing had been brimming with animosity, splitting its head without so much as a word of warning while it advanced empty-handed struck this Nobleman as something of an outrage. The prototype tumbled forward, landing face first with a great spray of mud. Raising his stump of a left arm to block the splash, D stabbed his blade at the base of the prototype’s neck.

No, the tip halted with about half an inch to go. A hand growing out of the prototype’s neck clung to the blade, stopping it. There was no way it could catch one of D’s deadly blows and hope to come away unscathed. All the hand’s fingers were sliced off. As were those of the second hand that appeared, and the third. A fourth appeared. It was a black hand. The palm of it blocked the tip of the sword, there were sparks—and a strident sound rang out. The hand was covered in steel right down to its fingertips. Judging from how freely it moved, it may have been some sort of liquid metal.

“Oh,” Greylancer groaned.

A few more hands grew from the prototype’s chest and began rubbing where the cut had been, while the prototype got back to its feet with rain rebounding starkly from it. No trace of the wound remained.

“The OSB were physically weak creatures, but who knew their bodies could be used that way? The duchess has outdone herself, changing its tentacles into human hands. Thus far, she succeeded. But what of the rest of the combination, I wonder. Oh?!”

That cry of surprise came because D had kicked off the ground.

A new hand sprouted from the waist of the prototype. The weapon it gripped seemed to be some sort of thermal ray gun. However, it unleashed no shower of blistering heat. The pendant on D’s chest was giving off a blue light.

Once more the Hunter leapt, and a stark blade flashed out. The prototype’s body was slashed from the left shoulder down to the chest, and it made a massive leap back, hurling a triangular weapon with one of its hands as it did so. The weapon became a triangular fighter plane zipping straight at the leaping D’s face, but he narrowly dodged it. It then turned behind him and went on the attack once more. It traveled at Mach 3—several times the speed of sound—and D’s body was unable to respond in time. However, his sword could do the trick. As the object flew toward the back of his head, D reached back over his shoulder without even turning and deflected it with his blade. The triangular fighter struck the side of the hill, sinking thirty feet into it.

Greylancer cried out in astonishment.

D looked over at the prototype, which stood still as a statue. The Hunter sailed into the air again, but when he tried to cut his foe down from overhead, his opponent was swallowed up by the earth as if it had been a mirage. It was unclear whether or not the Hunter had glimpsed the pair of hands that’d seized the prototype’s ankles at that moment.

Not bothering to stab his blade into the ground, D was instead staring at Greylancer already.

III

“You’re an astonishing man,” the giant groaned, as if unable to bear the weight of his admiration. There could be little doubt this Nobleman hadn’t had cause to speak like that in his life. “That was a biological weapon made by combining an OSB with a human. I’m not sure even I could’ve fought it off so easily. For you, it was so simple. I’m sure the color has drained from the duchess now that she realizes what an incredible man she’s meddling with.”

“You’re next,” D said. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“But of course. Ah, but it’s been so long since I had an opponent worth fighting. I shall truly enjoy this!”

His long spear swept toward D, wind and rain swirling in its wake—and at that instant, his body was swallowed up by the ground.

Sheathing his blade without a word, D started walking toward the castle. Greylancer’s strange disappearance seemed to have made no impression on him.

From behind him came a cry of “Please, wait!”

Looking at the figure, Bligh bugged his eyes and said, “Arbuckle?!”

The somewhat aged physician/procurer of women walked toward D, looking like a drowned rat. He seemed to have appeared from thin air. The truth was, he had.

“Wait, please. If you go up to the castle now, everyone they caught will be slaughtered.”

After a short time, D asked, “Which would you prefer?”

“What?”

“To become one of them, or to die?”

Arbuckle fell silent. He probably hadn’t anticipated such a question.

“The Nobles in the castle hope to collect subjects for their experiments. What did they do to you?”

“What do you mean, what did they do? I’m human. The proof of it is that I’m out in the daytime,” Arbuckle said, spreading his hands.

“So was the guy who was just here,” said D. He was referring to Greylancer.

Arbuckle had nothing to say to that.

“The ones who were abducted have no special meaning to the Nobility. So they’d have no cause to hesitate. As soon as they captured them, they’d use them in their experiments.”

Such cruel reasoning. Both Arbuckle and Bligh were at a loss for words.

“Did you escape?” D asked Arbuckle.

“No, they told me to try and persuade you. They haven’t finished their preparations for capturing you. At any rate, everyone’s lives depend on you.”

Before he’d even heard the last of the man’s words, D had already started walking the path up the slope.

“Don’t let your guard down around him. Sometimes people are pawns of the Nobility without even knowing it.”

Bligh seemed to react to the Hunter’s words. However, he made no move toward attacking Arbuckle, but rather stood out in front of D with his arms spread wide.

“Don’t go. If what he says is true, you’d be murdering those people!”

Never halting, D replied, “My job is hunting the Nobility.”

“Your job? You’re a pro Hunter, right? You get money and a request to cut down some Noble, right? So, who asked you to do this?”

D stopped in his tracks.

Got him, Bligh thought to himself. “That’s what I thought. In that case, it ain’t your job. Just don’t do it, okay? Let’s just wait a little longer and see how this plays out.”

“Then you’ll be stuck here for the rest of your lives.”

Bligh was stunned for a moment, but searched desperately for words nonetheless. “That’s why we need you to come up with a plan with us, okay?”

D’s lips began to move. No doubt he was going to say it was no use. But before he could speak, a new interloper appeared. A horse and rider that’d crossed the bridge behind the Hunter slipped past him to take a place alongside Bligh.

“You again, lady?” the man sneered.

“That’s Josette to you!” the warrior woman corrected him from her seat high in the saddle. “I caught your conversation with a listening device. Please, D, don’t do this. They might still be alive. They might still be human. Don’t let your actions ruin that.”

“She’s right,” Bligh added. “The least you can do is wait till your left hand gets back. C’mon. What do you say we do that?”

Both of them were desperate. Their words were soon lost to the sound of the rain, but the two of them were resolved not to move from where they stood, rain bouncing off their stiff bodies.

D said, “The only one who can stop me is my employer.” And then he started walking again.

“Okay, okay!” Arbuckle shouted out from behind him. “D, I’ll be your employer! I’m hiring you to save us all from the Nobles in the castle.”

“A meaningless request.”

Those words made the hair of the other three stand on end.

D didn’t halt.

Growing flustered, Arbuckle continued, “Then I’ll change my request. You’re to confirm everyone’s safety, and if it’s too late then so be it. Please, destroy the enemy and get us out of here.”

When D turned around, the feeling of relief almost bowled the three of them over.

“Request accepted.”

And saying that, D thrust his blade into the ground and started walking back in the direction from which he’d come. His sword plowed a trough in the mud. Though the rain should’ve quickly filled it again, it didn’t disappear.

“Walk the line,” D said.

All of them understood that this was to prevent them from being dragged underground by the unholy hands.

Arbuckle, Bligh, and the mounted Josette started following the line D had drawn, keeping that order. Even when D crossed the stone bridge, his blade had no trouble carving a shallow line in its surface.

The group reached the same farmhouse where they’d started.

“It’s okay,” said D. By that he probably meant that the shield his left hand had erected was still in effect.

“Oh, that’s right,” Bligh said, smacking his hands together and turning to Josette, who’d led her cyborg horse indoors. “What happened to your hubby?”

“I left him behind.”

“Left him?”

“I heard you folks talking and said I was going to go help stop D. But all he did was snort at that.”

“Well, imagine that—his woman’s more chivalrous than him. Hard to believe, ain’t it.”

“Then believe what you like,” Josette told him. “My husband and I will be working separately until this whole business is settled,” she stated flatly.

“You sure about that, now? Partway through this, don’t go saying you miss your hubby after all, and that you’re still his wife, and then go running out on us!”

As Bligh stepped forward with a wrathful expression, Arbuckle stepped in between him and Josette, put his hands up in a calming gesture, and said, “Does this seem like the time to be picking a fight? We’re all fortunate survivors—and valued compatriots. We need to work together.”

“Understood,” Josette said softly. In the same tone she continued, “But the next time you speak to me like that, I’ll lop off one of your ears. With the words going straight in, you’ll probably hear a hell of a lot better.”

“You do and I’ll—” Bligh began to reply, but Arbuckle reached around from behind him and covered his mouth.

“Would you act your age? If not, I’m likely to surgically remove your remaining ear when she’s through!” the flesh peddler/doctor barked, and he was serious.

Bligh nodded reluctantly.

Letting go of him, Arbuckle said, “Now, for the sake of those held underground, let me tell you what I’ve seen.”

“Before you do, you’ll have to let us check you out.”

Everyone stared at D.

“Don’t tell me you still suspect me of being—”

“—in league with the Nobility,” There was no mercy to be found in D’s words. “It may be that you’ve been implanted with memories to make you think you’re still human.”

“Hmph. Well then, how will you tell whether I’m human or a servant of the Nobility?”

“Come here,” D said, beckoning to him.

When Arbuckle came over, the Hunter raised his right hand about as high as his shoulder. As a natural reaction, Arbuckle’s eyes followed it. Once he was focused on it, D accomplished his aim.

All Josette and Bligh saw was bright blood squirting from Arbuckle’s neck, and all they heard was the ching! of a sword hilt against its scabbard. D had drawn and struck in a single motion.

As the stunned Arbuckle stood there, D extended his right hand to the man’s neck and pinched the severed artery. The bleeding ceased. The recuperative powers of human cells were incredibly strong, so that severed limbs, if aligned perfectly and immediately reattached, might heal right down to their very nerve cells and operate no differently than they had before. However, that was only possible with the most skilled use of the very latest medical technology. The way D’s fingers had closed the carotid artery and stopped the bleeding with a single pinch was a startling phenomenon far beyond human or Noble ability. What’s more, when his hand came away, there wasn’t so much as a drop of blood on it.

“D, what did you just—?” Josette asked.

“When a slash is made at a Noble’s carotid artery, it winds up being off by a thousandth of a millimeter, no exceptions. In his case, he was cut exactly where I aimed.”

“Pretty brutal test you’ve got there,” Bligh said in a hollow, almost mechanical tone.

“Let’s hear what you have to say,” D told the doctor, making a wave of his right hand.

All Arbuckle’s arterial spray had fallen to the floor. The echoes of steel being sheathed left all of them trembling.