I relented. I was going to wait until Saturday to post this chapter... *Sigh!* I simply can't torment you for that long!
Chapter Fifteen - Manus Sinister Conservato
Wracked in mortal agony, D thought it was his end. He might be able to fight only weakly against his tormentor, but he wouldn't...just...give up... eeD might kill him as D had killed Alucard, and D might not be able to stop him, but he'd still fight...even as ineffective as that way...
D rallied his strength, determined to make things hard for eeD if nothing else, when a high, clear voice shouted, "Banish!"
"NOOOOO!!!" eeD screamed. "I was so close! So...close!"
eeD thinned and faded. Not believing the reprieve, D sat up slowly. He took a moment to assess himself.
He bled from dozens of cuts. None of them were lethal, but they did sap his strength. He turned his hand up and looked into Left Hand's face. The parasite's eyes were closed. He refused to open them and meet D's gaze. Left Hand appeared to have been crying, much to D's surprise. D gathered his courage and looked over to where Alucard lay.
Alucard stretched out upon the ground where D had placed him. His silver hair fanned out and pooled around his head. The unnerving stillness, as if Alucard were an object and not a person, told D harshly in that first glance that Alucard was dead. Fairy knelt next to Alucard's shoulder, stroking his face and hair and crying piteously. D wondered if he had been right to listen to Left Hand. Maybe he should have refused and found another way. For him to have survived, at Alucard's expense, was a bitter reality D didn't want to face.
D considered again the almost overwhelming power of eeD. D admitted Left Hand had been correct. If D could not bring himself to attack Alucard...the only way for D to survive was for Left Hand to...
D grimaced in anguish. He used Left Hand to absorb the souls of evil beings that if allowed free would grow in power and become revenants as Carmilla had. Those souls always struggled and screamed as Left Hand ingested them. D had always considered that moment, though it was necessary to protect people from the further evil of that particular soul, as the final, fitting punishment for the evil that soul had already done. Alucard had done nothing to deserve such a fate at his hand...at his Left Hand.
But...Left Hand had been right. If Alucard had been aware of Right Hand's control, he would have wanted D to free him, by any means necessary.
D wondered what he should do now. Alucard would have wanted him to comfort Fairy first, he decided.
"Fairy...I'm sorry," D told her awkwardly, kneeling next to Alucard himself.
"You...you had to. We could see the fight, but we couldn't do anything. Master Alucard would not have wanted to attack you," Fairy told him, dashing tears out of her eyes.
"How were you able to come here unsummoned?" D wondered aloud.
"The others. Sword, Ghost, Demon and Bat focused all of their energy to open a door for me. We thought perhaps I could..." Fairy stopped and wailed again. "The Life Apple doesn't work though! We thought it would! Life Apple has brought Master Alucard back from death before, but now..."
Fairy composed herself by reaching forward to stroke Alucard's cheek again. "I'll never accept another Master," she vowed softly.
D's hand trembled as he reached out to touch Alucard's face for himself. Alucard's cheek was already cold.
"Fairy, how did you stop eeD?" D asked, mainly to center and compose himself.
"You know that Alucard loved you?" Fairy asked before smiling sadly. "Just a simple, pure love for his brother. He never said anything out loud, but we, his familiars, could tell. Once I realized Alucard was dead...and not coming back even with the magic of Life Apple, I thought it would be best to make certain you survived. He would have..." her voice caught, "...wanted that."
"I took his amulet, the one with Dracula's face, and used it to craft a banish spell. eeD will never again be allowed to enter this dimension using the other half of..."
She petered off, but D heard her unsaid words, "Alucard's amulet."
Fairy started to weep gently again.
"Master D, please do me a favor. Once you've...I don't even know what vampires do when one of you dies! Do you bury your dead? No matter! Once you've completed whatever it is you do for a funeral rite, will you burn our cards? We don't want another to become our Master," Fairy begged.
D, overcome and unable to speak, nodded.
D suddenly wondered at Left Hand's uncharacteristic silence. He knew that Left Hand, despite his teasing, held respect and affection for Alucard. It was very strange that Left Hand would be silent for so long.
Left Hand's expression appeared the same. D could easily read the sorrow. Tears had left messy tracks down Left Hand's face. D smiled wryly. It was okay that Left Hand had cried, since D couldn't allow himself to weaken enough to weep. Left Hand could cry for him, too. He'd not even tease the parasite about it later, when he cleaned his hand. Reassured about the cause of Left Hand's silence, D turned back to regard Alucard.
There was not a mark on him. eeD, of course, had no reason to turn his blade on his unwilling ally, and D had refused to. The reason Alucard was dead was not that the vessel of his body had been rendered useless by damage or disease, but that his soul was gone. D touched the cold cheek again, before running his hand down along Alucard's right arm. D had felt the wiry strength and skill of that arm for himself, in the synergy with his brother. The synergy, that weird but comforting connection with the battle instincts of his brother, was now as dead as Alucard. The tears he'd resolved to let Left Hand cry for him threatened to spill from his eyes.
Fairy moaned softly, keening her loss. D knew if he looked at her he would lose his tenuous hold on his composure. Looking at Alucard was no better. D opted to look at Left Hand again. It was odd that Left Hand's restrained sorrow was easiest for D to bear.
Again, the parasite's eyes were tightly closed. Left Hand seemed to fight some battle within itself, judging by the strain on its features. Was it that Left Hand didn't want to cry in front of D? D had seen Left Hand cry before! Or was it that Left Hand was afraid of D? After all, it had been Left Hand who insisted that Alucard must be taken out of the fight. And it was Left Hand who had done the deed! Did the parasite think that D was angry with him for that? It had to be done, Left Hand had been right, Alucard would not want to controlled by someone else.
"You..." D said softly to Left Hand, wondering how to reassure Left Hand without distressing Fairy. Left Hand winced, the tiniest motion, a tightening of the skin around his eyes and mouth. D couldn't explain it, but that tiny motion made his thoughts go in an entirely different direction.
D's eyes widened. It could not be possible...could it?!
Barely daring to hope, D placed Left Hand very deliberately down on Alucard's chest. He waited, he wasn't certain for what. He felt nothing but the distressing stillness and incipient stiffening of Alucard's mortal remains. He wondered if he were wrong.
Alucard's chest rose gently against his hand. Hardly believing it, D placed his fingers on the artery in Alucard's neck and felt the pulse flowing there, before Alucard opened his grey eyes and stared up at him in shock.
Alucard gasped and tried to sit up. D helped him, supporting Alucard's weight while the flowing blood rushed life and feeling back into tissues that had become cold and stiff.
"ALUCARD!" Fairy screamed. "You are all right!" she dashed forward and completely tangled herself in his hair in her delight to be near him.
Alucard laughed at her enthusiasm and helped her to free herself.
"Took you long enough!" Left Hand groused at D. D's eyes widened in his surprise as he fully realized what Left Hand had somehow managed to do.
"Left Hand! You...!" Alucard gasped.
"Shhh, my boy. No need for that now!" Left Hand advised firmly.
"What...happened?" D asked. He could feel that Alucard didn't need his support anymore. Still...it felt right to hold him and reassure himself that Alucard really was moving and breathing and...living, again. It wasn't quite the synergy, but D could tell that Alucard wanted the reassurance of his support too.
"Right Hand said he was using me so eeD could become 'real' in this dimension. I've had such strange dreams since coming here...it seems they happened whenever Right Hand claimed a piece of my soul. I saw you, in one of those dreams."
Alucard glanced up into D's eyes.
"It was strange, almost like you were a portrait or work of art and I was admiring your beauty. I waited for you to notice my beauty in turn, and you ignored it. I started to...hate you."
D recalled the day where Alucard had glared at him the whole time, hatred glittering in his eyes.
"I think that might have been eeD's first independent thought," Alucard cupped his chin. "Hating you somehow made him alive and gave him will. He's..."
"My reflection," D finished. "It makes sense. Carmilla was a powerful vampire."
"She commanded him to leave the mirror and hunt you. I saw that in a dream right before..." Alucard broke off. "The next thing I was aware of was trying to wake up, to break the most hideous nightmare I have ever had. A voice, an insane voice, talking to me, its thoughts and memories starting to enter my mind...then watching as I...attacked you. I wasn't able to stop it."
"eeD said his Right Hand was controlling you," D told Alucard.
Alucard nodded, "eeD was...is...a reflection of you, D. But backwards, filled with hate. Carmilla gave him the amulet and sent him to kill you. He discovered that in this one dimension, of all the ones he could get to using Dracula's amulet, he wasn't solid. He thinks it's because you are here, the original he is a reflection of. When eeD found me he thought to enrage me enough to find and kill you for him. That's why he disguised the reverse twin of the amulet that appeared when he left the mirror as your hat pin and left it in my sanctuary. When that plan didn't work, Right Hand started to take control of my soul, so that eeD would have the power to become solid here. The idea was eeD could then kill you himself. He used me...to get to you."
"It was horrible! I could see, I watched as Right Hand forced me to attack you!" Alucard cried out, reaching out and almost touching one of the wounds he'd been forced to inflict on D. "I couldn't break free. eeD hates you very much."
"I couldn't beat him," D admitted softly. "If I could have, I never would have let Left Hand...ingest you."
"I think that might have been the only way," Alucard reflected. "Right Hand is very strong. I couldn't break his control."
"So Left Hand absorbed your soul and took you away completely."
"Yes."
"I've never seen Left Hand absorb someone for so long, and not destroy them," D pondered.
"It's vast, inside Left Hand. A vast, dark place. And he...doesn't look like this. At least...I don't think so. My memory is hazy...but there's a void in him. I could see others..." Alucard shuddered, "on the edge of the void, suffering as they were dissolving slowly, ribbons of energy flowing back to feed Left Hand. Hundreds of others..."
D looked into his palm and reflected that he knew almost nothing of the parasite in his hand.
"What prevented that from happening to you?"
"Left Hand did. I was dragged toward the void like all the others, but if I got too close, Left Hand would reach forward somehow and and pull me back. It took...a great effort on his part to do so..." Alucard admitted.
"I feed on anything I ingest," Left Hand explained serenely. "And souls are the most sustaining of all. But your soul...D'd get upset at me if I let anything happen to you, Lambchop!"
"Hey!" Alucard protested half-heartedly.
"...I feel...kinda weak..." Left Hand muttered.
Left Hand's eyes fluttered and closed. A spasm of alarm crossed D's face. He cradled Left Hand with his right and stared at him intently.
"Is...is he all right?" Alucard asked reaching forward boldly to brush his fingers against Left Hand's face.
"I think so. I think he's sleeping," D finally realized.
Alucard laughed, to ease his tension. "Oh! Where is eeD?" he asked suddenly, looking around apprehensively.
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Author's notes -
It wasn't planned, but I like the symmetry of having Alucard's Fairy save D, while D's Left Hand saves Alucard!
During the rewrite I need to make it a bit clearer (without getting too sappy) that when Fairy tells D that Alucard loves him, it is the love of a brother for a brother, not anything shounen.
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get!
stargarde@stargarde.com
Next chapter teaser - Chapter 16 - Parting Ways