Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Part 2

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The boy put the package down on his desk and opened it. Wrapped in the rough fabric were a textbook, a notebook, and a few writing implements. His father had told him he wasn’t to go anywhere near Su-In. But why would he say that? After all, school was starting today. Wasn’t the tolling of the bell proof enough of that?

  More footsteps became audible. This time there were many of them.

  The door creaked open, and a number of faces appeared. Hope and relief spreading through their eyes, they faced a future that was small but also incredibly vast at the same time.

  The boy at the head of the class turned around and puffed his chest with pride. Look at me, he seemed to say. I was the first one here!

  Su-In shut her eyes tightly. And though she was sure she had them closed, something hot began to seep from them. Wiping it away with her hand, she turned to Dwight and nodded.

  Just watch me.

  Taking a deep breath, Su-In turned to the rosy faces crowding the doorway and said in a gentle and dignified tone, “Please come in. The lesson’s about to begin.”

  .

  Quietly slipping out of the classroom a few minutes later and proceeding to the bell tower, Dwight furrowed his brow when he saw the face of the person who stood beneath the bell rope.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” the man said with an affable expression before bowing. “Toto is the name. I met a Ms. Wu-Lin in the town of Cronenberg. She asked me to come help with the classes at your school. Naturally, I have experience as a teacher, as well as working in a number of other fields. Ah, yes—here’s my letter of introduction.”

  Re-folding a letter that certainly looked like Wu-Lin’s handwriting and returning it to the man, Dwight clapped him on the shoulder. “Great!” he exclaimed. “You’re just what we needed. But are you sure I haven’t seen you somewhere before?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the scowling Toto said as he shook his head.

  “It’s this way.”

  As they walked side by side down the hall, Toto suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked out the window.

  “What is it?” asked Dwight.

  “It’s nothing. I just heard a horse whinny.”

  “A horse?”

  “Yeah. Probably belongs to the same young fellow who told me to ring the bell.”

  Dwight followed Toto’s gaze, but there was no one moving out in the world of white.

  “What’d this young fellow look like?” asked the fisherman.

  “He was all dressed in black, and so good-looking it’d give a corpse the chills. I was hanging around out by the gate wondering how to go about getting someone’s attention when I happened to run into him. Oh, that’s right—as he was leaving, he took a peek in through that window there. A little while after the children went in, he left without a word. Wearing a smile.”

  “A smile?”

  “Yes, I do believe that’s what it was,” Toto replied with confidence. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever see a smile that fine again. I have to wonder who put it on his face. I envy them, you know. You could take pride in that for the rest of your days.”

  Dwight was silent for a bit, and then he said, “You don’t say? So he ended leaving after all, just like I figured. All alone.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Catching in that brief reply an even deeper sentiment than his own, Dwight stared at the new instructor for a moment. But he quickly dismissed those thoughts and said, “On the other side of that door is the classroom. You head on in. I suddenly remembered something I need to take care of. I’ve gotta go thank someone,” he said.

  .

  Just a few minutes shy of hitting the Nobles’ road, D halted his horse on the crest of a hill.

  Beyond the veil of lightly falling snow stood a figure in blue mixed with red. Still some fifteen feet away, it was Samon. Though D’s wooden needle had pierced her through a vital point, something had kept this woman alive. But her face had already taken the color of a corpse, and the bloody blossom that’d flowered on her chest was mysteriously damp. For three days, the woman had survived while the blood continued to seep from her body.

  “We meet again at last,” she said in a ghostly tone as D got off his horse. “Only you and the girl remain now,” said Samon, her whole body trembling. “You’ll get yours first. Then I’ll head back into the village and dispose of the girl. You should thank me. It’s only right that you be with the one you love when you die. Show yourself!”

  As she said that, something white that wasn’t snow began to crystallize before D’s eyes. This was the spell of “Samon of Remembrances”—nostalgia. If a person’s lost love requested his or her death, that person would have no choice but to comply while under the seductress’ spell.

  But who would D summon?

  Black hair swayed modestly. Gently turning her long, narrow eyes to the ground, a matronly woman in a white dress stood before D. Samon’s lips moved. As did those of the woman.

  But how did the seductress’ voice sound to D?

  “Die, D.”

  Samon raised her right hand to her own throat. In it, she held a dagger.

  To D, it should’ve appeared that the mature woman was indeed performing the action.

  The Hunter’s hand drew the sword from his back.

  “Die. Just like that,” she said. Taking care not to let the blade touch her throat, Samon made a powerful jerk from one side to the other.

  D’s sword moved as well. Vertically.

  Slicing the image of the graceful matron in half, the blade then spun around and stabbed deep into the heart of the sorceress Samon.

  “Impossible!” the staggering Samon moaned in amazement. “I can’t believe you’d do that . . . to your own . . .”

  No bloody spray shot from the last of the warriors as she fell to the ground.

  D’s exquisite skill somehow kept his blade clean of even a single drop of blood, and he’d returned the weapon to its sheath and was walking toward his horse when an unknown voice said, “She died with a peaceful look on her face. But only humans have remembrances,” it added. “Still, the way you cut that vision down without a second thought—boy, you sure are all business!”

  D got back on his horse as if nothing had happened.

  “You’re leaving their village covered with blood right to the very end, without anyone to even see you off. Hell, sometimes you even give me chills. Where are you headed next?” the left hand asked.

  Of course, there was no reply.

  After the Hunter’s mount had taken a few steps, a crisp sound came to D from the village.

  “That’s the school bell, isn’t it?” the voice said.

  D turned around.

  The snow had stopped. A faint light shone on the village below him—winter sunlight slipping through a gap in the clouds.

  Once more the bell sounded, as if bidding him farewell.

  D faced forward again. Ash-gray clouds hung heavily over the road he’d be taking next. His cold gaze trained ever forward and his incredibly placid face devoid of all sadness and fear, the young man in black suddenly vanished over the top of a hill like some gorgeous mirage.

  POSTSCRIPT

  .

  In the last volume, I wrote that I’m not a big fan of anime, and the first thing I don’t like about it is the art. Now, this kind of like or dislike is a sensory problem, and there’s not much that can be done about it. But when I think about having a character I created drawn in a style I don’t care for, my anger starts to rise even before the chills can set in. Fortunately, I was quite pleased with the way the second D turned out.

  Another problem I have is the voices. I believe my dislike of anime can be attributed to the endless volleys of shrill, squeaky voices I endured during the countless kid-oriented anime programs I saw on TV as a child. As you are probably well aware, the voice duties for all anime heroes seem to be handled by women. In other words, the better part of kid-oriented anime is packed with thin, girlish voices, and for someone like myself�
��who can’t handle anything but the sweetest female whisper—that whole world has left me exasperated since childhood.

  What’s more, the way anime characters deliver their lines, they sound so pretentious. I mean, I realize it’s intended for children and everything, but it’s simply too much. I always ended up wondering if what I was watching was supposed to be some kind of opera. And the stories are naturally geared toward children—or as we say in Japan, “so simple they could only fool a child.” Why a program intended for children would want to fool them is something I could never understand—and that must be why I can’t stand them [laughs].

  Now, think for a moment about the technology back then—this was about fifty years ago. Movies weren’t too bad, but TV anime was positively wretched. And things only got worse once I became acquainted with American animation like Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, Hanna-Barbera’s Huckleberry Hound, Felix the Cat, and others at the movie theater. While Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) was the product of the blood, sweat, and tears of the genius comics creator Osamu Tezuka, when you stripped away the nationalistic cries of “Japan’s first serialized TV anime,” the difference between it and the foreign product was like night and day.

  Well, let’s just leave it at that. The quality of our homegrown product has improved greatly in recent years. As I’ve stated before, I’m extremely satisfied with the two animated versions of D. The same director and staff who have expressed an interest in doing an animated version of Demon Journey to the North Sea also made the second D anime (which I particularly enjoyed), so that’s practically a guarantee of high quality right there. The problem is, the president of the production company the director belongs to doesn’t care too much for the project [laughs]. Demon Journey to the North Sea is a work that I’m quite fond of, and I have high hopes for an anime adaptation of it. And I’d be overjoyed if all the readers of the English edition would join us in our support of such a feature.

  .

  Hideyuki Kikuchi

  February 19, 2007

  While watching Dracula A.D. 1972

  PROLOGUE

  .

  Once the sweet perfume began to waft through the crystal clear darkness, the villagers hurried off the cobblestone streets and hid themselves in nearby homes.

  The fragrance had always been part of the history of this village. On the evening of the village’s centennial celebration, the night the new female teacher arrived from the Capital, the evening when a daughter was born to the mayor, a silent night when winter’s white storms blustered—the fragrance that swept so sweetly over the road made the people avert their gaze from the castle on the outskirts of the village as the pain of eternal damnation left their eyes bloodshot.

  Why did the wind have to blow through town?

  People prayed in earnest for the aroma to be gone and waited expectantly for the dawn. However, the sun that rose would eventually have to set again, and night would cover the world like the wings of a crow. And every time the perfume returned, the people’s suffering carved deep wrinkles in their faces, and the community’s only watering hole set new sales records.

  The shades were drawn on every window, leaving only the streetlights to dimly illuminate the road where the fragrance alone still lingered. The aroma of flowers.

  As befitted an evening of this warmth-filled season, the wind seemed to request the poetry of the night.

  A castle gate studded with hobnails rumbled like thunder in a sea of clouds as it closed, but before it had even started to move, the black-lacquered carriage went racing through the arched gate to the central courtyard. The wheels creaked to a halt, and the door opened.

  Inside the carriage sat a girl who was scared to death. Although her ample breasts betrayed the wild racing of her heart, her plump face had all the color of a corpse. Even when the sweet aroma and dazzling colors crushed in through the open door, the girl didn’t move a muscle.

  How old am I again? the girl thought. Seventeen years and one month. Is this the end? Can’t I live a little longer? And just three days ago, I was talking with my friends about going to the trade school in town. Who decided this has to happen? Who chose me?

  “Get out,” said a voice like steel from beyond the door. It must’ve been one of those that’d been sent to get her.

  At the urging of a will that would brook no resistance and an eerie aura, the girl headed toward the door. The carriage steps had already been extended. As her nostrils filled with the fragrance and her eyes were met by a brilliant wash of colors, the girl suddenly felt as if she’d been swallowed by an abyss.

  “Go straight that way,” a voice told her, the speaker apparently pointing directly ahead of her.

  As the girl tottered forward, her mind was already half blank. She just kept walking. Although she felt something prick at her cheeks and her exposed arms, it didn’t bother her. When the girl finally halted, her breathing was terribly ragged. And not merely because of the distance she’d walked.

  Her almost nonexistent consciousness had detected a faint figure standing directly ahead of her. It approached her like a beautiful mirage. The sight of the woman in a dress left the girl frozen with fear—but much to her own surprise, the girl also felt a vague fascination. She knew what was going to happen. When she saw that the dress was white and she hazily made out the woman’s face, the girl then shut her eyes.

  What would she do if the woman who’d come to suck her blood was some hideous Noble? She knew them from the masks she’d seen at village celebrations. They were monsters, mentally and physically warped.

  The girl was seized by both shoulders. A chill spread through her like ice. That, and a sweet perfume. But before she could notice that the latter was actually the breath spilling from the woman, the girl lost consciousness completely.

  Even as pale fangs punctured her tragically thin carotid artery she remained completely still.

  As the girl’s head fell back and she went limp, the woman gently laid her body down on the stone road, then turned around. When she’d taken a few silent steps, there were suddenly footfalls behind her and she detected a presence thoroughly unsuited to this place.

  “You goddamned monster!”

  Perhaps two seconds passed from the time the woman turned until the powerful man pounced on her. Although the man weighed nearly twice as much as she did and had the momentum of his dash behind him, the woman wasn’t knocked back at all. Instead, black iron went through the center of her chest and came out her back.

  When the man let go of the blade, the woman finally fell back a step.

  “I did it,” the man—actually a kid of fifteen or sixteen—muttered like a death rattle. “I did it . . . I really did it! Nagi!”

  Judging by the way he then raced over to the girl and hugged her close, his last cry must’ve been her name. His movements carrying both the despair of having lost a loved one and also the faintest hope, the young man shook the lifeless form.

  “Get up, Nagi,” he said. “I took care of the one who bit you. Now you’ll be okay, right? You should be back to normal.”

  “Absolutely,” said a voice that poured ice water down the young man’s back.

  He looked up. A figure in white stood quietly in the moonlight.

  “However,” the woman continued, “in order to destroy me, you must pierce my heart. And you were a bit wide of the mark.”

  The young man got goose bumps as he rose to his feet. The girl’s lifeless husk was still clutched to his chest. Dead or not, he wasn’t going to let her go. That was the resolve that seemed to radiate from every inch of him.

  “Will you not run?” the woman asked. “If you don’t, you shall end up exactly like that young lady. Although if you loved her, that may be for the best. Now—come to me,” she said. “Or would you prefer that your young lady feed on you instead of me?”

  Before the young man even had time to comprehend the full meaning of the woman’s words, a pale arm had wrapped around his neck.

  �
��Nagi?!”

  There could be no more heartrending cry than his in the entire world.

  Cradled against the young man’s chest, the girl opened her eyelids.

  The young man knew her eyes had always brimmed with hopes for the future. He’d seen them sparkle with the dreams of a seventeen-year-old. And he knew that it was not his face but rather that of another young man that her eyes often reflected.

  But now her eyes reflected him. In shape and in color, they were no different than before. However, the normally sharp black pupils were clouded and dark, and where the memories of a seventeen-year-old had been there was now a despicable vortex of hunger and lust.

  “I’m so hungry,” the young man heard the girl say, though it seemed like her voice was something out of a nightmare. “You came to save me, didn’t you? I’m so glad. Let me give you a kiss as thanks . . .”

  “Stop, Nagi—don’t do it!” he shouted. Pulling free of the arms she wrapped around him, the young man knocked her cold body to the road.

  The girl didn’t even cry out.

  “My, but you are a cold-hearted paramour.”

  As if triggered by the woman’s voice, the young man started to run. Though panic gripped him, at least part of his thought processes remained wide awake.

  In one spot in the dazzling mix of colors the young man saw a glimmer of a different material. Leaping into the riot of color, he left the whole mass of flowers trembling.

  It only took the young man about a minute to strap on what he found there. As he fastened the last belt around his left thigh, he heard footsteps closing on him from all four points of the compass. They didn’t sound like those of the woman he’d just encountered—they had a foreboding tone to them. As the ground seemed to tremble beneath his feet, the young man felt his stomach tighten. The next thing he knew, he was shaking, too.

  The second the wild mix of colored blossoms to his right was pushed aside, the young man kicked off the ground. A heartbeat before his airborne form was due to sink, wings opened on his back.