She brought her other hand to her lips, and then raised it even higher with a crimson rose in its grip. The rough wooden needle that came flying at it was batted down by Rocambole’s longsword. But a red flower suddenly bloomed in the Nobleman’s right eye.
What was all this? He bent backward without saying anything.
Having leapt up beside him, Lady Ann scooped Rosaria up in her slender arms and threw her toward D. But by catching the woman, D was unable to halt Rocambole’s next move.
Fighting through the pain of being stabbed through one eye, the lord let the longsword in his right hand streak into action. The arc of his blade passed through the nape of Lady Ann’s neck just as she was about to land. No fresh blood shot out, but her slim neck was half severed, and the girl slumped to the floor and moved no more. Even while she was falling, Rocambole tried to extract the crimson flower that had blossomed in his right eye with one hand.
“Do the roots go down to the very bone?” he groaned before finally giving up. From the center of that red bloom, something redder still had begun to drip.
Laying Rosaria on the floor, D calmly straightened up again. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lady Ann lying there like a doll.
“Three people’s lives,” was all D said.
Was the Hunter asking if that was enough to beat him? That was the way Rocambole interpreted it.
“More than enough!”
He ran. As did D. Two black silhouettes melted into one—then pulled apart. Part of the silhouette spread as if shredded by the wind, blooming into a massive bloody flower. Actually, there were two flowers—their steely blades had shot out simultaneously to tear open each other’s flank, in precisely the same spot, to exactly the same depth.
Clutching their wounds, the two men spun around.
“Oh, that dirty dog stole your trick—it looks like he can mimic anyone’s abilities in a split second,” said the hoarse voice.
D understood this, too.
“What do you think, D?” Rocambole asked, giving his longsword a shake. “I still have two lives left. Three, if you count my own—meaning I can die three more times. In order to stop me, you shall have to slay me. However, I’ll also be able to draw on whatever techniques you use to do so. The question is, will you live long enough to kill me three more times?”
D stuck his left hand out in front of himself.
“What’s this?” Rocambole said, but no sooner had he narrowed his eyes suspiciously than the Hunter lopped his own left hand off with a single stroke.
“What are you—hey!” the hoarse voice exclaimed.
“If I’m slain, you’re to do nothing for me and leave,” D commanded. His quiet tone carried an iron will.
After a few moments had passed, the hoarse voice responded from somewhere on the floor, “I get you.”
Doing nothing to stanch the flow of blood from his left wrist, D said, “You can die three times—I can die once. That should do.”
Even though Rocambole had taken on three more lives, as long as D had the energy generator that was his left hand, the lord had no chance of victory. But why would D deny himself that advantage?
The murderous intent faded from Rocambole’s good eye. “I’m not exactly sure, but I suppose I should probably thank you for doing that,” he said. “But I won’t be destroyed. That would be an insult to all those who lost their lives against you, as well as those whose lives I received.”
A new fire burned in his good eye. It wasn’t malice that resided there, but rather an amazingly pure fervor for battle. However, it was unclear whether he realized his words were almost exactly the same as Grand Duke Mehmet’s when he had faced Rocambole. The flow of blood from the flower in his right eye suddenly grew more intense.
They ran at the same time—both leaving the same distance behind them, both tracing the same path with their swords. The sparks were red as the weapons clanged together, and the tips of both were equally sharp as they bit into the opponent’s shoulder.
As the two staggered away from each other they were a frightening sight. If D was the very picture of horror, with blood gushing not only from the wounds to the left nape of his neck and his side but also from where he’d taken off his own left hand, then Lord Rocambole was every bit as shocking with those same neck and side wounds, plus the endless trickle of blood from the ensanguined flower that bloomed in his right eye socket.
Three deaths versus one—but regardless of those numbers, the next attack would decide this battle. The heavens knew as much. The earth knew, too.
Seeing D return his sword to its sheath, Lord Rocambole grew tense. However, no matter what kind of swordplay the Hunter might try, the lord’s ability would allow him to duplicate it. Self-confidence put a smile on his lips.
D kicked off the ground. Silently, easily—and powerfully. Rocambole did the same.
A third time they would clash—but just before they did, D doubled over. Feeling coldness from the blade that slipped so naturally from the Hunter’s sheath, Rocambole deflected it with a gleaming stroke from his longsword.
D made a great twist to the right. His chest was fully exposed. Rocambole’s body was right in the path of the Hunter’s blade.
Rocambole heard a voice somewhere shout, Don’t!
A second before he was impaled, D twisted his body a little more to the right, and Rocambole froze with the realization that he’d missed the vital spot, while above the lord’s head the sword he’d batted away, which had barely remained in D’s grasp, now came straight down in a blow that was like someone splitting firewood—ripping through him from the top of his head down to his crotch in a single motion.
Not even D himself knew what effect his unpredictable attack was going to have, so Lord Rocambole hadn’t been able to use his ability to duplicate it.
As Rocambole split in two, suit of armor and all, D fell again to one knee beside him. Rocambole’s sword had come out through his back. Grabbing its hilt, D extracted the weapon. His breaths were short and shallow. Something superhuman—and something other than sheer will—let D rise to his feet again. Covered in blood from head to toe, he called to mind some exquisite wraith.
When he went down on one knee again, it was by Lady Ann’s side. Still, that seemed enough to put some life back into the girl’s pallid visage. Eyes that had been shut now opened wide, and she said in a wistful tone, “D—”
“Rosaria is okay,” D told her. “Thanks to you.”
“Good,” Lady Ann said with a smile. “I’m glad—but are you crying?”
D shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. That’s why you just won’t die.”
It seemed like the girl didn’t even know what death was.
Gazing at D, she said, “You have nothing to say to the dying, do you? Is that how you were raised?”
“I suppose.”
“It would probably pain Father to have such a man watching over me as I go.” A mournful shadow skimmed across her blossomlike expression. “But there’s nothing to be done about that. I managed to help the woman you were so determined to save. That’s enough for me.”
Her eyelids soon drooped.
“I don’t know when it’ll be, but when you get to where I’m going, might we dwell in the same kingdom?”
D nodded. On noticing that Lady Ann had shut her eyes completely, D said, “Yes,” but by that time a change had begun in Lady Ann’s body.
Several seconds later, D was looking down at a wooden doll that lay at his feet. It must’ve been carved by a craftsman beloved of the gods. The face and body still retained the likeness of the girl who’d been known as Lady Ann.
A faint sound made D turn around.
Apparently Rocambole wasn’t the type to go gentle into that good night. Using his left hand to hold together his vertically bisected body, the longsword he held between his lips quivered as he used his right hand to drag his bloodied form toward Lady Ann.
—
II
&nbs
p; —
“Just . . . one . . . more.”
These words spilled from the lord’s barely parted lips. The steely fingers rose from the stone floor, scratched feebly across its surface, and rose again, this time managing to pull him about a foot across the floor.
“If I had . . . one more life . . . I could . . . slay D.”
But as he said this, he wasn’t looking at D. There was some question as to whether he could see anything at all. The only thing that drove Lord Rocambole onward was a crazed obsession.
Behind him, someone said, “No, this can’t be.”
—
“This can’t be!”
As General Gaskell cried out, his eyes bulged, for he’d read the letters on the stone slate. And he’d been able to distinguish on its surface the seventh name that until ten seconds or so ago had been worn away into illegibility.
—
Baron Schuma
Madame Laurencin
Grand Duke Mehmet
Roland, the Duke of Xenon
Dr. Gretchen
Lord Rocambole
—
And—
—
Turning with unbelievable strength, Lord Rocambole opened his dead fish eyes wide.
—
The great General Gaskell called out the seventh name.
Rosaria.
—
The woman who rose so mysteriously from the floor now had the form of Rosaria, without a doubt. However, D of all people wouldn’t call out to her. The bloody hue of her eyes told him that the reason the woman had awakened was to destroy him.
“So, you finally caught up to me. The real me.”
As she said this, a beastly pair of fangs poked from between her lips.
“You’re the seventh?” D asked.
“Yes. But I only realized it just now. Those were the days, D. I miss the girl I was when I was traveling with you.”
Rosaria shifted her gaze to Lord Rocambole, still lying on the floor. “If you’d killed me to begin with, you might’ve slain D,” she said.
“There’s still . . . time . . . Kill . . . D!”
Rocambole’s sheer will to live must’ve been nearly exhausted, because the vermilion line running through him was growing broader. No doubt the words that spilled from him with that bloody foam were part of his last gasp.
“Pleasant dreams, Lord Rocambole.”
“Damn you . . . You’ve betrayed . . . all of us . . .”
Before he’d even finished speaking, his body split in two again. Even his fearsome Noble vitality had reached its limit.
Rosaria looked down at his remains for a few seconds, and then walked toward the door. Without even turning around, she said, “I’m going to find Gaskell.”
When D started to follow her, a hoarse voice called out, “Hey, wait for me!”
D held his left arm out in its direction, and the hand whistled through the air and reattached itself to his wrist.
“That’s a convenient accessory you have,” Rosaria remarked coolly.
“What are you talking about? I’m an independent—” the hoarse voice started to squawk, but one clench of D’s fist silenced it as the Hunter followed Rosaria through the doorway.
—
“So, the Hunter and the traitor are coming?” General Gaskell mused with a nod, his eyes closed as he stood in the room that housed the great stone statue. Though there wasn’t a single monitor screen there, apparently his shut eyes were viewing something.
“So be it.”
He opened his eyes. They held a ferocious glint of determination.
Turning his face up a bit, he said in a voice that was like a rumbling in the earth, “Destroy the castle. Have it completely disappear fifteen minutes from now. And cancel all the abort sequences.”
“Affirmative. Your commands will be carried out,” a mechanical voice responded from nowhere in particular.
“I wish you luck, D!”
A white light that radiated from the ceiling enveloped General Gaskell’s body. A second later, he was on the rooftop of the castle. Ahead and to the left rested an object that looked like a misshapen globe entangled in a trio of cylinders. An aircraft for escape purposes, it was usually stored on the floor below. Walking over to it with broad strides, Gaskell was about to climb in through the hatch that opened automatically, but then he felt something cold creep down his neck.
The general turned around. Before him, a pair of silhouettes basked in the moonlight.
“Oh, and just how did you get here?” Gaskell must’ve realized that his plan to escape had been foiled, because his voice swelled with an impressive resolve.
“Actually, I’m one of the assassins you selected. So I’m in sync with this castle,” Rosaria replied matter-of-factly.
Standing beside her, D had become a vision of beauty.
“I see. Meaning that anything I can do, you can also do? And I’m the one who made it that way.” Staring intently at D, he said, “I understand why this Hunter would come after me. But why you? Have you forgotten your mission as an assassin?”
“I was given the task of making D lower his guard so that I might slay him. Perhaps it was because my approach was different from all the rest, but the will of a certain great man remained in my head. General—I’m sure you probably realize as much already, but we were all born to be slain by D.”
“I know that. Now,” the general replied. “The timing of my resurrection, my calling you all together for what I thought was D’s destruction, and even D coming here—all these things were determined long ago by a majestic will. Do you realize that?”
The general’s gaze bored through the gorgeous Hunter.
“People are waiting for me,” D said softly, as if all of what Gaskell had said was merely an illusion.
“Hmm—then the truth of this doesn’t matter to you? You frighten me. Your mind does. Can you understand that, D? It’s because you remind me of a certain great man.”
An astonished face turned to look at D—that of Rosaria.
“It can’t be—there was nothing about that in my memories, but . . .
D, are you . . .”
“That’s right, Rosaria. It wasn’t I that guided you toward this destiny. Long ago, a certain eminent personage laid it all out. Surely you realize by now who that was, don’t you? And what his relationship is to this Hunter,” the general laughed wickedly. “So, whom will you bare those fangs against? D, or me? Give this careful consideration. You and I—together, the two of us are more than D could handle at one time.”
Rosaria was gazing at D. A weird kind of miasma had begun to rise from her body.
His grin broadening, the great General Gaskell drew his sword.
“D,” Rosaria said, tears gleaming in her eyes, “I really enjoyed traveling with you.”
A cloud of miasma sailed straight up from every inch of the woman. In midair it took on an enormous, beastly form, with a tail streaming behind it like a comet as it streaked into battle—against General Gaskell!
“What idiocy is this?” he shouted, the tip of his black steel slipping through the beast’s white back.
Lifeblood spread like ink in the moonlight.
General Gaskell staggered as he held the nape of his own neck.
The beast bounded to a spot a good fifteen feet away. Its body like a mass of fog, the creature didn’t have a mark on it. On the first night the woman had met D, it was this beast that had destroyed everyone in the valley of victims.
“I’m done taking my revenge,” Rosaria announced coolly. But was that statement for the general’s benefit? Or for D’s?
“And now I must complete my mission. D—no matter what kind of attack you use against this beast, it won’t die. And there’s nothing else I can do. Slaying you is—”
Without warning, Rosaria turned her gaze to the castle wall. She couldn’t see down it. However, it seemed she’d glimpsed something anyway. The smile that graced her lips was terribly warm.
>
“Those three transporters—it looks like they got here after all. They had to come see you, didn’t they?”
“No, to see you,” D said softly.
“They’re such sweet guys. The most fun I ever had was the time I spent being human.” Suddenly crinkling her brow, she continued, “But I wonder how on earth they ever got through the gates.”
The blue pendant on D’s chest gave off a delicate glow.
“Why don’t you say hello to them?”
Rosaria stared at D as if stunned. Something glistened in her eyes.
Walking over to the stone wall, she peered down. Not long thereafter, a voice was heard to say, “Look—it’s Rosaria!”
“Sergei!” the woman exclaimed.
D nodded ever so slightly.
“You’re still okay? Excellent!”
“And Juke,” she said.
“We’re coming. Hold on!”
“That’s Gordo’s voice,” Rosaria remarked, waving one hand.
A cheer of Yeah! went up. Just hold on!
Rosaria went back to where she’d been. Something glittered its way down her cheeks.
“I don’t want those guys to see any of this. I don’t want them to see me . . . D.”
And as she said this, her teary eyes gave off a blood light, and the air of insanity around her vicious beast swelled as it pounced.
D’s longsword went into action.
The Hunter put pressure on his shoulder, and blood that looked like wine trickled out from between his fingers.
When the beast landed about fifteen feet away, there was no sign of a wound on it.
“Not even you . . . can defeat that beast . . .” said the great General Gaskell, who was soaked in blood as he slumped back into his aircraft. “If you’re going to deal the coup de grâce, Rosaria, you’d better hurry. This castle has less than five minutes remaining until it disappears.”
There was turbulence in Rosaria’s eyes as she focused them on the castle wall. Was she concerned for the transporter trio?
A second later, D leapt. The beast counterattacked. Both blade and talons were brandished in midair.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Part Three Page 13