End

At that moment, there was a terrible explosion of stark light and blistering heat. The light shining down from the ceiling illuminated D alone. D let out a low groan. His whole body was being charred right to the marrow. It was like the sunlight attack he’d experienced in Vyken’s magical zone—only this assault was ten thousand times the agony.

“This is one of the grand duke’s original creations,” the Professor’s voice laughed. “He dubbed it the ‘spotlight effect,’ and I’m using it to focus all the sunlight in this entire region on you. Oh, your skin’s started to melt. Not so handsome now, are you?”

“Come out here,” said the Hunter.

“Very well.”

Behind the light—in a time where night still held sway—a figure appeared.

“That bastard,” Ringard snarled. “D—you’ve really gotta let me do something.”

“Don’t.”

“Ringard, you’ll be next, you vile traitor,” a figure blacker than the darkness informed him.

Though a stark needle sank into the Professor’s chest, D remained poised from the throw as he thrust his left hand forward.

“I’ve raised the beam’s volume to an entire continent’s worth of sunlight,” the Professor continued. “Next, I’ll set it for a planet’s worth. You can just rest your filthy bones there in the wholesome light of the morning sun.”

“This is the last part of the Sacred Ancestor’s words,” said D.

“What?”

His longsword danced out in the light. A blade of darkness challenging the light—backed as it was by the Noble power that mocked the very laws of physics, the Professor was slashed from the left side of his neck to his right hip, and then the blade turned like a swallow in flight to pierce him through the heart and out the back. At the same time, both D and his blade fell flat against the floor.

“You bastard . . . I don’t believe it . . . Where did such power . . . ?”

As the Professor collapsed, beside him stood a weighty figure.

“You . . . you must help me . . . please,” the Professor said, extending his hands. They reached toward a figure with five chins and a face twisted by scorn.

“Help the Bergenzy pretender?”

Looking down on the twitching form with nothing save contempt, Baron Agrippa raised his right foot, then brought it down on the Professor’s face with all his might. It was smashed to pieces.

“And thus ends the grubby little peddler from the world of humanity. Which leaves only the filthy half-breed killer, if I’m correct. Ah, but what a gorgeous man. Your lovely countenance and agonizing death alone should earn you an introduction. I am Baron Agrippa. I am Bergenzy’s best friend. We were the only two real Nobles in this castle!”

He puffed out his chest. The buttons on his jacket popped off like shots from a gun.

“You must excuse me,” the baron continued. “Gluttony is a mainstay of the Nobility. In making a compact to drink human blood, Bergenzy plumbed the lowest depths of degeneracy, but I shall stand firm! Someday our end will likely come. But until that day, I shall assail the humans’ shacks with the coming of night, lure out their daughters, and drink to my heart’s contentment. That is how the Nobility were meant to be. But before any of that—it seems a planet’s worth won’t work on you. I shall train the daylight of the entire Milky Way on you.”

D’s shape dissolved in the light.

Françoise cried out in surprise. The young man in black stood before her. He was in a horrible state.

“But, you—you’re not even sleeping,” she murmured.

He started running.

Even when Baron Agrippa heard the voice of the man who clearly had one hand braced against the floor whisper in his ear, “Looks like the dream wins,” the Nobleman couldn’t do anything. His bull neck easily severed, spine and all, and a steely tip driven into his back and out through his heart, he was powerless to do anything save collapse. A split second before the darkness swallowed his consciousness, he used his assimilation power, but ultimately all it assimilated was the black hole that’d suddenly appeared.

In the darkness, the Noble turned to dust, while in the light, the Hunter in black got to his feet. In no time at all the light dissolved into the darkness, and the darkness was swallowed up by the light.

“So, your business here wrapped up now?” asked Ringard.

Not replying to that, D said, “I suppose I should thank you.” For it was Ringard’s black hole that had stopped Baron Agrippa’s final attack.

“Oh, save it. It wasn’t you his whammy was aimed at, it was me. It was do-or-die time. Hell, I was just saving my own skin.”

Saying nothing, D walked past Ringard. He went out into the garden and had just straddled his cyborg horse when Ringard caught up to him.

Though the sun hadn’t fully risen yet, the skies were clear.

“Night coming and dreams coming on a fine day like this—there’s just no figuring this world of ours, is there?” said the warrior.

The two of them started riding across the drawbridge over the moat.

“So, what’ll you do next?” Ringard asked. “Well, I suppose wherever you go, you’ll be hunting Nobility, eh? I’m sure there’s quite a demand for your talents, am I right? To be honest, I’m plumb worn out. Think maybe I’ll get out of the game and become a farmer or something.”

“Good choice, there,” said the hoarse voice.

With a wry grin Ringard said, “Hey, if you’re gonna compliment me, at least do it in your own voice,” and then a bullet went right through his chest.

A pair of figures appeared from behind the stone columns on the far side of the moat, one tall, the other short. Leiden and Puma, the son of the former mayor. The boy had a rifle braced against his shoulder.

“His friend killed my mother!” Puma exclaimed in a tone of rage and satisfaction.

Ringard responded with a wry smile, “A long, long time ago, I heard somebody say, ‘Truth will out’ . . . which means you can’t get away with doing wrong, I guess . . . And it was me . . . that sent the heart of that kid’s father into another dimension.”

The man’s life ended before he could ever get to that farmhouse.

Reeling back wildly, Ringard leaned forward once more before falling shoulder-first into the black waters of the moat.

The taciturn rider passed the pair in silence.

“About an hour or so ago, we went by Bezo’s house,” Leiden said to him. “Son of a bitch was draining his kids dry. The two of us took care of him, though.”

Letting the words pass by like they were intended for someone else altogether, D slowly rode away. When he hit the road that continued on to the highway, a young man in a hood was standing beside an enormous tree in the distance.

“Look who popped out of his hole,” said the left hand. “Guess he decided to do something for the good of the village.”

There was no reply. D’s eyes were shut.

“Were you asleep?” asked the hoarse voice.

“Yes, a little while.”

“Well, aren’t you a carefree bugger.”

“I had a dream,” the Hunter remarked.

“What kind?”

“One I’ll never have again.”

“That’s you in a nutshell. So, what the hell was this dream, anyway?”

End