Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts One and Two Read online

  Other Vampire Hunter D books published by Dark Horse Books and Digital Manga Publishing

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  vol. 1: Vampire Hunter D

  vol. 2: Raiser of Gales

  vol. 3: Demon Deathchase

  vol. 4: Tale of the Dead Town

  vol. 5: The Stuff of Dreams

  vol. 6: Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane

  vol. 7: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea part one

  vol. 8: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea part two

  vol. 9: The Rose Princess

  vol. 10: Dark Nocturne

  VAMPIRE HUNTER D 11: pale fallen angel parts one and two

  © Hideyuki Kikuchi 1994, 1995. Originally published in Japan in 1994 and 1995 by ASAHI SONORAMA Co. English translation copyright © 2008 by Dark Horse Books and Digital Manga Publishing.

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  No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Yoshitaka Amano

  English translation by Kevin Leahy

  Book design by Heidi Whitcomb

  Published by

  Dark Horse Books

  a division of Dark Horse Comics

  10956 SE Main Street

  Milwaukie, OR 97222

  darkhorse.com

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  Digital Manga Publishing

  1487 West 178th Street, Suite 300

  Gardena, CA 90248

  dmpbooks.com

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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  Kikuchi, Hideyuki, 1949-

  [Kyuketsuki hanta “D.” English]

  Vampire hunter D / Hideyuki Kikuchi ; illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano ;

  translation by Kevin Leahy.

  v. cm.

  Translated from Japanese.

  ISBN 1-59582-012-4 (v.1)

  I. Amano, Yoshitaka. II. Leahy, Kevin. III. Title.

  PL832.I37K9813 2005

  895.6’36--dc22

  2005004035

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  ISBN 978-1-59582-130-0

  ePUB ISBN 978-1-62115-497-6

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  First Dark Horse Books Edition: October 2008

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  STRANGE TRAVELING COMPANIONS

  CHAPTER 1

  I

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  Though the moonlight should’ve been entirely impartial, the road alone seemed to stand out like a blue snake—it was surrounded by darkness. The leaves rustled restlessly. The wind was picking up.

  The road was really a highway. A relatively high number of people and vehicles traveled it by day, but with the coming of night, it became a kingdom of the weird prowled by such famed creatures of the western Frontier as shape-shifting humanoids and matter-changing bugs.

  Apparently an unfortunate traveler had invaded their domain tonight. Five or six bizarre silhouettes surrounded a tall figure in front of a carriage way station that sat by the side of the highway. The way station contained bolt-firing pistols, short spears, and longswords that might be used in an emergency, but the figure showed no sign of taking them in hand as he soaked in the hungry gazes of eyes aglow with a green phosphorescence.

  What seemed to keep the fiendish forms from immediately pouncing on the man was the cruelty the Nobility had fostered in their creations—the desire to keep their prey in terror until the moment of death. But just then, the voice of the darkness turned that theory on its head as the man asked, “Why do you not come for me?”

  By the sound of it, it wasn’t the monsters who were waiting, but rather the traveler.

  “Then I shall have to make it easier for you to approach. Come!”

  With that last word, another light took hold in the darkness, streaking glows of crimson. In an instant, shadowy forms sprang at him from either side. One was an altered insect. Resembling a giant praying mantis, its body began to transform into something denser in midair, from organic to inorganic . . . to steel.

  The light of the moon shot up from below. A body that was intended to repel any kind of attack split like a rotten vegetable, spraying an oily substance as it fell to the ground.

  The bloodsucking moth-man who’d simultaneously pounced from the opposite side had phosphorescent flecks of gold flying from his wings as he was ripped right down the center. The scythe-like claws of the former and blood-siphoning proboscis of the latter had never managed to strike home.

  “Come!”

  In response to the traveler’s second invitation, a thunder beast firmly planted all six of its paws on the ground as it turned its helmet-like head to the heavens.

  Pale bolts of lightning struck the man. The air was ionized, and white smoke curled from the earth. Again and again, lightning struck.

  The figure raised his right hand. In it, he grasped a black blade with an elegant curve. The sword had a sheen unlike any weapon local travelers, soldiers, or fighting men would ever carry, and from the instant he pulled it out till he held it aloft, it absorbed the lightning continuously. And even after he drove it deep into the thunder beast’s chest, the creature likely never knew what had happened. Lightning crackled around the blade and, as if reading its wielder’s mind, leapt from its tip to the thunder beast’s face.

  Spasms gripped the monster. Though it used the electrical discharge in the air rather than from its own body to shock its opponents, the creature didn’t actually have any defense of its own against electricity.

  With a pale glow still clinging to the sword, the man raised it high, and then brought it down in a stroke. Though his arms already seemed fully extended, the blade that split the thunder beast’s head in two reached a foot further than it should have.

  “Two to go—I wish I could tell you to attack me, but the one I’ve been waiting for has come. Away with you!”

  And with that command from the man, the surviving creatures that’d been frozen in place as if awaiting their fate each gave a low growl and immediately vanished into the darkness to either side of the road. They were so incredibly fast that it almost looked as if they’d teleported away.

  Flicking the gore from his blade with a single shake, the man slowly looked over his shoulder. At the far end of the highway that ran down from the north, the silhouette of a horse and rider had just come into view. Though the moonlight was bluish, the man on the steed seemed to be robed in a hue far deeper than the darkness. Beneath his wide-brimmed traveler’s hat, a pair of oddly glowing eyes gazed ahead.

  Stepping over the thunder beast corpse that lay at his feet, the man moved forward. A blue haze swirled in the middle of the darkness—at least, that was how it seemed. For the man was covered from the shoulders down by a cape the color of the deepest sea. The click that came from the vicinity of his hip was apparently his blade being returned to its sheath.

  “Balazs?” the black rider asked from his mount’s back.

  “Indeed. How like the greatest Hunter of this day and age to be so punctual,” the man said, although he didn’t seem to consult a watch.

  However, the rider had indeed appeared exactly
at the appointed time.

  “Though I must say,” the man continued, “my body trembled the instant you approached. Otherwise I never would’ve let those last two creatures get away.”

  The rider had approached without the man on the ground even noticing his presence until the very last moment.

  “From the time I turned onto the highway, you should’ve been able to detect me. I wasn’t trying to go unnoticed,” said the black rider.

  With this remark, the man on the ground was made out to be a liar even though he knew all along whom he was dealing with—though it appeared he’d actually been paying the rider a compliment.

  Which of them was right?

  “State your business,” said the figure in black.

  “Will you not dismount at least? I have the most wonderful liquor.”

  There was no reply.

  Not seeming to take any particular offense, the man continued, “Then I shall tell you. I wish you to see me to the village of Krauhausen.”

  The village was on the far edge of the Frontier—a hundred and twenty miles to the west. And it really was the edge, with an ominous chain of mountains miles high towering just beyond it.

  “You’re fully capable of going alone,” said the rider.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the figure in blue responded.

  His hair was golden and flowing, and his ultramarine eyes possessed great beauty. The moonlight only added to his air of mystery, until it seemed that everything surrounding him was reduced to a blur. Everything save one person—the rider still up in the saddle.

  “There is someone in the village who won’t particularly welcome my arrival. As soon as I approach, I’m sure I shall be greeted with violence. Honestly, I don’t believe I can make it on my own. I need your help, D.”

  “Tell me why you want me to accompany you. And don’t say it’s because you’re not confident in your own abilities.”

  “One reason should already be clear to you. The other I cannot say. But the one who awaits me in the village is a Noble. I want you to destroy him. And that will have to suffice for now.”

  D said nothing as he gazed at his strange would-be employer. While it was certainly understandable that someone might want him to dispose of a Noble, refusing to disclose the reason was a grave breach of protocol. From the very start, D’s attitude had been somewhat unusual. He turned his back.

  “Please wait,” the figure in blue—Balazs—called out. “I had no desire to expose the shameful actions of my own parents, but it’s unavoidable. The name of the Noble who waits in Krauhausen is Vlad Balazs. He’s my father.”

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  The horse wheeled around once more.

  “Do not ask me why I would have you execute my father,” Balazs said in a hard tone. “I must see to it that he is destroyed. That is my sole purpose. I can’t allow my power to be whittled away by needless opposition. Although it may be unheard-of for a Vampire Hunter to enter the employ of a Noble, I beg you to break with tradition. Will you not accept this assignment?”

  There was no sound—even D couldn’t help but fall silent at this explanation. For a vampire to seek assistance from someone whose very purpose was to destroy them, and furthermore to have as the target one’s own parent, was not only completely unheard-of, it was truly bizarre. What thoughts flitted through the mind of the young Hunter of unearthly beauty?

  Presently, D replied, “Okay.”

  He spoke from horseback to the other warrior.

  “Many thanks,” said the man clad in blue. “I haven’t been out of my castle much. I thought it would be best to leave everything to your judgment for the duration of our journey.”

  “Fine.”

  “Splendid! Now, for your compensation—”

  The figure he mentioned was exactly a hundred times the accepted rate.

  “Here’s an advance.”

  He pulled a small bag out of his cape and tossed it to D.

  Catching it in his left hand, D didn’t even look inside before saying, “Okay.”

  The coins were a precious metal worth a hundred times their weight in gold.

  “While you’re with me, I won’t allow you to feed on humans. If you should happen to break this condition, I will destroy you on the spot.”

  “Understood,” Balazs said flatly. Somehow, his voiced resembled that of the man in black. “Oh, I must be forgetting my manners not to have introduced myself properly. I am Byron Balazs, son of Vlad, the regulator of the western Frontier.”

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  II

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  Viewed objectively, it really was a strange journey—although the term “earth-shattering” might’ve been more apropos. The employer traveling with the Vampire Hunter was one of the very bloodsucking Nobles he was supposed to destroy. Needless to say, Balazs could only act by night: This was what the baron said should be apparent to D. By day, he rode in a blue carriage drawn by a team of four horses, and his vehicle had been parked off in a nearby forest when he fought the monstrous creatures. Apparently the four cyborg horses had been told to comply with D’s commands, and they followed him meekly.

  However, it was plain for all to see that the vehicle belonged to the Nobility. As they went down the road by day, travelers and pedestrians stopped in their tracks with their eyes bugged. Many got off the road and hid. Some even readied their weapons. What’s more, the young man who seemed to be acting as a guide possessed a heavenly beauty that no human could hope to equal no matter how they tried. And it was perfectly natural that this thought should pop into the heads of everyone along the road.

  There goes a Noble and his servant.

  There were some who served the Nobility that were still living, breathing humans. In many cases, it was a victim whose blood they’d stopped drinking just before the person was about to join their ranks—people who’d dropped off into a kind of hypnotic state highly open to suggestion. However, there were also those who retained their senses and still swore fealty from the bottom of their hearts—in a word, “traitors.” D must’ve appeared to be one of the latter. But the people who thought that naturally had their expressions tinged with perplexity due to D’s incredibly good looks.

  Ordinarily, such a pair would travel back roads by day so that they wouldn’t draw much attention and take to the highway by night. Or else they’d sleep somewhere deep in the woods by day and move solely in darkness. If one were to follow the Nobility’s natural disposition, the latter option made more sense. However, D went right down the highway while the sun was shining, and stopped at night.

  “Why don’t we go when it’s dark?” the baron asked on the third evening of their journey.

  “Are you in a hurry?”

  “No.”

  “Are you bored?”

  “No,” Balazs replied once more.

  Undoubtedly the interior of the baron’s carriage was furnished with amusements unimaginable by D. Although the Nobility’s scientific prowess may not have unraveled the secrets of time, it had essentially mastered matters of space.

  “In that case, deal with it.”

  “You’re in charge. I don’t mean to complain, but considering both our physiologies, wouldn’t it be far less taxing for us to travel by night? It would also be that much easier for you to keep tabs on me.”

  Gently raising the brim of his traveler’s hat, D looked at the baron.

  Transfixed by that gaze, the vampiric Noble shuddered at the hue of the eyes that threatened to suck him in.

  “Do you want me to keep tabs on you?” asked the Hunter.

  A thin smile seemed to skim the baron’s lips.

  “No.”

  “I don’t want you to get the impression that I trust you,” D added in a voice like ice. “My job is getting you to the village of Krauhausen. And if I were a foe who knew you were coming, I’d choose to attack you by daylight.”

  “I see. That makes perfect sense,” the baron remarked with a gorgeous grin. Though beautiful, his smile al
so bordered on ghastly. “Although you may not trust me, I have consummate faith in you, Vampire Hunter ‘D.’”

  He then added, “However—”

  At that moment, the creak of what sounded like wooden wheels could be heard to the north of the woods where they traveled, coming from the highway. The roar of engines then came in due course—a number of them.

  “There are five, counting the carriage,” said the baron. “They’re more than a half mile from here.”

  Though the wheels and the engines surely raised quite a din, only the ears of a Noble would be able to isolate each individual sound over such a distance.

  “Would you mind if I went?” the baron asked, having already risen to his feet.

  “Do as you like,” D replied.

  Although he knew there were no homes in the area before he even spoke, in light of the powers the Nobility possessed, it would be hard not to consider the Hunter’s response indifferent . . . or even irresponsible.

  Once the baron’s blue cape had vanished into the darkness, D pushed his hat down over his eyes and sat back against the roots of a massive tree to sleep.

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  Racing madly down the road was a white carriage drawn by a pair of horses. It was so elegantly crafted, it was apparent at a glance that it belonged to the Nobility—and up in the driver’s seat, a young man was madly working a whip. Yet his visage was as expressionless as a stark white Noh mask, and he didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the sound of gasoline-powered car engines now less than fifty yards behind him.

  As the upright collar of the man’s coat was flattened by the force of the wind, the neck that was left exposed bore a pair of swollen and discolored wounds at the nape—punctures undoubtedly left by fangs. Neither human nor Noble, this being was merely a puppet who moved at the commands of the master who’d given him the kiss of the Nobility—a Cesare.

  Although he’d avoided the post towns, he was spotted by a bunch of rustic youths who’d been out playing too long on the back roads, and they decided to give chase. But whether that troubled the driver’s numbed brain or not was difficult to determine.

  At that moment, a cold voice linked the youth to the vehicle like a thread.