Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four (27 page)

As D continued to disregard it, his left hand finally started to sulk, snorting, “Hmph!” before falling silent.

“Powering himself up, is he?” D remarked.

“Don’t try buddying up to me now,” the hand replied, still in a perfectly foul mood.

“After the way he fought earlier, I could still beat him,” D said, baiting the trap.

“Ha! Are you soft in the head?” his left hand sneered, springing back to life. “He’s the freaking Ultimate Noble! There’s no way of knowing if even
you
could take him. Plus, if I’m reading this right—

“No rest for the wicked, eh?”

“Damned straight. He’s got that magic sword, and if he’s as good with it as you are with a blade, he’ll murder you. Worse yet, if he’s gotten even more power, you don’t stand a chance. We’d better get out of this labyrinth quick and find where Valcua’s hiding himself. Before it’s too late.”

D turned the corner. A glow enveloped the figure in black.

“It’s dawn, is it?” the left hand asked, seemingly blinded by the light. “Well, time to go find Valcua.”

D looked around. He was in a bizarre and spacious chamber. In it were arrangements of stone slabs that were triangular, rectangular, and other strange shapes.

“Looks like that won’t be necessary,” said the Hunter.

“What?”

D was gazing ahead to the left. A figure in a golden robe stood without moving. In his right hand, Glencalibur glowed with a disturbing sheen.

There was no need to say another word. D glided closer without making a sound. Valcua raised his longsword to strike.

“Watch yourself-—from that stance, it looks like he aims to finish this with one shot!”

The hoarse voice sailed through the air. The blow would come down on the motionless Valcua from directly overhead.

D slashed through space. Though Valcua remained motionless, he wavered like a heat shimmer. Just as D touched back down, he made a leap back.

“Damn!” the left hand groaned. It realized that if Valcua had swung

his blade down at that point, they couldn’t have dodged it. Even if the Hunter had parried it, his sword probably would’ve snapped. “Fall back—this clown’s gotten stronger!”

This only seemed to give D more impetus as he charged forward. From a mighty thrust the blade scraped the ground, rising to strike at the right side of his opponent’s neck—and while each blow was on the mark, Valcua moved like a ghost to parry them all. It was unbelievable footwork and twisting.

Likewise dodging a horizontal slash to the right, D slammed on the brakes. As the Hunter tried to right his slumping pose, Valcua came right at him.

“Don’t!”

The cry rang out in response to the thrust made a moment later at Valcua, who seemed to be inviting it. The fully extended sword robbed D of his stability. The Hunter was left in no position to dodge or parry when Glencalibur was finally brought down on the nape of his neck.

“Outstanding!” Kima declared from behind him.

Valcua didn’t respond, his shoulders heaving as he struggled to take a single deep breath. If he didn’t do something, it felt like his heart would explode—yet nothing happened.

“That’s the strength of D when he reached the end of the labyrinth. And you were able to just stand there and dispatch him with a single blow. The only way to describe that is
remarkable.”

Raising Glencalibur, Valcua returned it to its sheath. Doing even this made his arm feel like it was about to fall off.

What an opponent that young man in black was! Though Kima spoke of dispatching him with a single blow, if the two of them had crossed blades one more time, it was probably the Ultimate Noble’s head that would’ve left its shoulders. What’s more—

“He has yet to face his final opponent. His true strength remains unknown. Do you think he could beat me the way I am now, Kima?”

“That all depends on you, milord.”

“The Ultimate Noble has pushed his body to the limits,” Valcua said, digging his fingernails into his own chest. He coughed, and bright blood splashed around his feet. That was what it meant to be strengthened.

Wiping his lips with his fist, Valcua whipped around.

“Beyond a doubt, the power this Hunter possesses comes from
him.
Which would mean that he and I are—ah, that’s where things get interesting.”

Halting there, he stared at the figure in the red robe and said, “If necessary, I’ll split your head open and search your brain. However, at the moment I have something else to amuse me. Look at what has become of Valcua, even if it is at my own request. I don’t suppose the Sacred Ancestor will punish me for having a little fun with this.”

Once Valcua had gone, Kima was left alone with an expression on his face that defied description as he murmured, “I believe that if all of this were to be erased from the very start, it would be best for both of them—my present lord and my former lord. Let the price of my life be payment for overstepping my bounds.”

D was silent. If he hadn’t already said he knew this was the way to the exit, anyone traveling with him would have been nervous.

It was unclear how much time had elapsed, but further down the passageway a golden coffin came into view.

“Interesting—maybe this is the last assassin?” the left hand whispered.

When he was ten feet shy of the coffin, D halted.

Hey! This is . . .” the hoarse voice exclaimed, its fear evident. “It’s
his
aura. A fitting final obstacle for this labyrinth. But that sure is one hell of a plan to come up with. Leave it to good old Daedalus!”

That was the legendary craftsman who had constructed King Minos’s labyrinth. He also built a flying machine using feathers, but when his son Icarus used it, the boy flew too close to the sun and plummeted to his death when the wax holding the feathers melted.

The lid of the coffin opened slowly. Once it’d finished, a shadowy figure sat up. Under the circumstances, that was hardly strange. However, the mere act of sitting up sent out a howling air that was terribly weird and unholy.

“Oh, crap!” the left hand cried, pulling its features back in.

“D!” the figure said, and now he stood beside the coffin. It was unclear what he looked like or what he was wearing. He was just a black shadow. However, even if D’s vision didn’t serve, his other superhuman senses perceived the figure towering before him like a mountain.

“It’s been so long since we last met. Perhaps we just needed a suitable place?”

D kicked off the ground. As he swung his sword down, it was like a gale-force wind, but the figure was now standing behind D, swaying.

Not even turning around, D made a backward thrust by his left side.

Though he was stabbed, the figure didn’t fall.

Pulling his blade back, D turned to face his opponent.

“So, is this your land?” he asked.

“The ruler’s name is Valcua.”

“I hear you banished him into space, but let him bring this kingdom with him. The same kingdom that bears your mark a little too plainly. Who is he?”

The shadowy figure shook violently—perhaps this showed the turbulence of his mind. A pale hand reached out from the shadow’s chest—his right hand. The great ring on his little finger gave off gleams of gold. The back of his hand had a single tuft of black hair, which lent a touch of ferocity to his aristocratic elegance. From the third joint up his forefinger moved, beckoning the Hunter.

Suddenly, D was beyond the earth’s atmosphere. His remaining oxygen swelled his lungs to the point of bursting, and his blood boiled.

“Can you make the cut?” the left hand inquired in a voice he shouldn’t have been able to hear. “Valcua did it. We’ve got no earth, water, fire, or air. But this might be your best chance. Even without a Glencalibur, you of all people could probably do it.”

It was unclear what D thought of that inaudible voice, but he raised his blade. Watching over him was nothing save the pitch-black void of space and the stars of the Milky Way a thousand light-years distant.

D’s eyes were ablaze, burning with the color of blood. Not saying a word, D swung his right arm. Simultaneously, his lungs exploded.

The last scrap of the sun stained the distant plain a deep red as it sank, and when it was gone, Matthew’s lips twisted into a grin. Valcua’s will still remained in his brain, and it was telling him what he should do next. It wanted him to take command of all the members of the survey party, and it must’ve had some way of making that possible. The destruction of the guardroids and all information pertaining to the survey party had been hidden from Braujou. The computer was fed data that suggested Sue had gone out on an ordinary walk.

Before Braujou awakened, the boy was to go outside and use Valcua’s will to bully the survey-party members into servitude. He had no instructions beyond that.

Getting out of the vehicle was easy. Everything was controlled by the computer, and as long as the computer was fooled, they could do whatever they wished—this was undoubtedly the doing of Valcua’s will. All the boy had to do was reach for the doorknob, and it simply unlocked. The reason he’d had Sue ask Braujou for permission to go outside during the day was because they wanted things to appear as normal as possible.

Today, he’d made a lot of progress in brainwashing Sue. The day when his foolish younger sister would become a vassal of Grand Duke Valcua couldn’t be far off.

Taking care to muffle the sound of his footsteps, Matthew ran toward the survey party and opened the door to the same vehicle they’d entered before. He was greeted by glowing red eyes and hungry fangs.

“It’s a human being.”

“A human!”

Their voices, now nearly those of beasts, crept through the darkness that held sway over the vehicle’s interior.

“Don’t get worked up, now! ” the boy said, sounding worked up himself. He’d noticed that the group was looking at him as nothing but prey.

The men stopped. Already clinging to the walls and ceiling, their pale hands reached out for Matthew from above and below.

“I’ve received instructions from Grand Duke Valcua. I have a matter to discuss with you,” said the boy.

“What kind of... matter?” one of the fiends asked as they looked at each other.

“From this day forward, all of you will become servants of Grand Duke Valcua.”

“Oh—and who the hell is that?” another one asked.

Matthew became furious. “You bastards have become creatures of the night and you don’t even know the grand duke’s name? What idiots! I’ll have to punish you immediately for your insolence.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” one of them laughed loudly. “Ha, ha, ha ... Oh, ho, ho, ho!”

Suddenly his voice and its laugh became that of a woman. Matthew was stunned—not by the strangeness of this, but by the fact that it sounded familiar.

“But—but you’re .. .”

“How pathetic are the creatures known as humans.”

Now Matthew understood.

From behind the pale-faced men, a Noblewoman in a white dress suddenly took shape.

“How foolish of you to forget me or my name—but before I punish you for that, you would do well to remember me. I am Duchess Miranda.” Walking easily through the cramped vehicle toward the speechless Matthew, the lovely Noblewoman added with a haughty laugh, “And these men are my servants, one and all. I won’t allow them to be commandeered.”