"So, where do we go from here?" asked Hugue, focusing on the prosecutor as he pressed the elevator button. "Are we returning to the old Prosecutors Bureau safe house?"
"That would be fine, but you go there by yourself. I still have one or two things to take care of here. I'll join you after I'm done, so rest there until then," George answered crisply as the elevator arrived with a clear chiming sound. Five policemen exited the elevator, silently passing Roddenbach, who had changed places with Hugue in order to hide him. They were about to take the policemen's place on the elevator when Hugue and Roddenbach heard a voice.
"Wait," called out a low, rusty voice. A large man with a section chief badge who happened to be the best dressed of the five policemen turned around. "There's something I want to ask you."
"What is it, section chief?" asked Hugue in a deliberately unsociable tone. As he worked with the light source to shadow his face, Hugue inched his hand toward his sword so that he'd be ready to draw it at any time. If the policemen saw his face, it would be the end. If worse came to worst, Hugue and Roddenbach would have to cut their way through, possibly spilling blood—but as of now, that merely was a baseless fear.
"What cell number is that terrorist Hugue de Watteau confined in?" asked the large section chief gruffly.
"He's in cell number three. It's just around the corner after you turn right at the end," Hugue replied.
"Really? Thanks," said the section chief, saluting.
Immediately after Hugue returned the chief's salute, the chief walked down the corridor with his subordinates. His shoulders sagging in relief, Hugue edged toward the elevator.
"No, Hugue!" By the time Roddenbach screamed, the swordsman had unsheathed his sword as if it were a living thing.
Relying only on the image reflected in the lenses of Roddenbach's glasses, Hugue whirled the blade behind him. The grating, high-pitched sound of metal scraping against metal reverberated down the extent of the gloomy hallway.
"Pretty good, aren't you?" asked Luciano. Taking advantage of his height to thrust his sabre as far as possible, the giant section chief — or rather the man masquerading as a section chief — slid his long tongue across his lips. The policemen had surrounded the two men, creating a semicircular barrier. "You're the first one to parry the sword of Luciano Riggio,"
"Luciano Riggio — Yellow Pocket Luciano!" George shrieked as he repeated the name of the professional assassin whose arms were dyed yellowish-brown by special drug strengthening.
Upon mentioning Yellow Pocket Luciano, there wasn't a chance of anyone not knowing of the Vatican's fortified killer-soldier and his brutal way of working. His fees were extremely high, but nobody survived the aim of Luciano's sword. It was undetermined how such a dangerous man made his way inside.
"Darsus paid you?" Hugue asked as his face went pale from staving off the deadly sabre from a disadvantageous position. "Hired by a vampire, Yellow Pocket?"
"It doesn't matter who pays me. If I'm hired by a vampire, I can still kill God," said Luciano, smiling so wide as to make visible his teeth, which were the only white things on his dull gray face. His drug-strengthened muscles pressed the sword toward Hugue's blond hair. The strength of an ordinary person was no match against the power of a fortified soldier. As soon as Luciano's muscular arms contracted, he gathered all his might for one fatal blow against his target.
"Uh-oh, Hugue!" cried George.
"Don't move!" Hugue shouted.
As Roddenbach, who'd tried to jump forward, was pushed backward by the fake policemen, Luciano's sabre slashed against Hugue's sword. Hugue's body, which was as thin as it was tall, appeared as though it would be cut in two.
"You can kill God? Determined, aren't you?" sneered Hugue, screwing his face into an expression more evil than his opponent's. "But what if your opponent is a death god? Can you still kill him?"
All of a sudden, a shrill metallic noise resounded throughout the hall.
"C-crazy!" wailed Luciano, widening his eyes in surprise as his huge body was blown backward through the air. His shock was justified, considering the priest's thin arms had flipped the fortified soldier's body—more than double his own weight—with ease. But before Luciano could recover from such a jolt, white flashes danced before his dazed eyes.
"Unfortunately, my arms are custom-made," said Hugue, casting an evil shadow on his thin grinning face with the reflection from his unsheathed sword. In a low voice appropriate for a death god, Hugue whispered to the fortified soldier. "You picked a bad opponent, Yellow Pocket. Die!"
"W-wait, priest!" cried a voice seconds before Hugue plunged his sword. But it wasn't the voice of the fortified soldier whose eyes had bugged out as if he were about to die. It was a fake policeman—his gun aimed at Roddenbach—who shouted, trying to save his boss. "Can't you see this? If you don't want me to put enough holes in your pal's head that the wind will blow through it, throw down your weapon and come quietly!"
"No, Hugue!" George exclaimed without trembling, in spite of the handgun pressed to the back of his head. He forced out a louder cry, as not to be overridden by the fake policeman's shout. "Forget about me! Escape by yourself. Ugh!"
"You shut up!" Luciano shouted, hitting the prosecutor and shoving the gun muzzle into his temple.
"Well, what are you going to do? If you hesitate, I'll blow off one of his ears. How about that?" asked the man.
"Stop," said Hugue, responding to the crude threat by moving his sword away from Luciano's heart. Dexterously twirling the sword once in the air, he thrust it deep into the floor. "I'll do as you say, so let him go."
"What are you doing, Hugue?" George screamed, staring in disbelief at the face of the swordsman who'd let go of his treasured sword. "I told you to forget about me! What are you doing?"
Hugue didn't answer the distraught voice and instead warped his mouth into a bitter smile. Suddenly, a large shadow stood up before his eyes.
"This jerk—threatening us!" shouted Luciano, shaking with anger. Yellow Pockets stood up and fiercely swung down his sabre, striking the cheek of the swordsman.
Hugue's body staggered after receiving the blow, which felt as though it had busted a cheekbone. Before Hugue bad time to lean against the wall, he felt Luciano's kick sink into his stomach. The swordsman's body folded at the pain in his solar plexus, and he knelt on the spot. Blood from his esophagus and broken molars dripped from his mouth, which was gaping in attempt to get oxygen.
Suddenly, a man said, "Um, Luciano, I understand how you feel, but if we don't escape right away, time—
"I know!" shouted Luciano, angry that his subordinate had the gall to hurry him. Luciano appeared as though he was still trying to drive away his humiliation from earlier, but he also seemed to acknowledge that there was no time. As he grasped the sabre in his other hand, he held it high over the swordsman's head. "Farewell!"
"Hugue!" screamed George as the triumphant flash of the sabre hurtled toward the swordsman.
All of a sudden, a hail of bullets pelted down through the ceiling, shooting through the assassin's body as he was trying to skewer Hugue, and pulverizing the head of the fake policeman who'd held George hostage with a gun. It was a miracle that Roddenbach wasn't the least bit injured, although he'd been confronted with death for most of the episode. There was only one person who could've pulled off such a stunt.
"Gunslinger!" exclaimed Hugue. Still cringing on the floor, Hugue gazed up weakly at the short shadow that had been shot up like a honeycomb and was descending through the ceiling.
Tres hefted his handguns in both hands, announcing to everyone curtly, "Request that nobody move. Throw down your weapons and kneel."
"D-damn you!" said a policeman.
As if released from a spell by Tres' steely tone, the fake policemen who had been standing there aghast moved, pointing their guns at the intruder.
Another policeman shouted, "I don't know who you are, but we'll beat you to dea—"
"Point thirty-eight seconds late," said Tres. His two handguns emitted such an impressive amount of fire and smoke that it didn't seem real. The policemen who still had their fingers on the triggers were blown backward and their heads were turned into lumps of blood, leaving vile red blossoms to adorn the wall near where the headless corpses were piling up.
"Come, Roddenbach!" shouted Hugue. It had taken only a few seconds from the first warning to the massacre, but Hugue considered that to be enough of a delay to plan his escape. Standing up, he drew his sword, which was still stuck in the floor. Grasping the shoulder of the young man, Hugue threw him into the elevator. "Go ahead!" Hugue shouted as he closed the elevator's lattice door from the outside. "I'll go, too!"
"All right!" George said obediently, probably afraid he'd be grabbed as a hostage again.
"Wait above—I'll come no matter what!" Hugue shouted. "Yeah," George replied.
After confirming that the elevator had started, Hugue turned his eyes to the hallway. There wasn't one human standing on two feet in the red-stained corridor—except for one human-shaped machine whose glass eyes were sparkling.
"Former Agent Hugue de Watteau," Tres said, pointing his two smoking guns at his former comrade, "throw down your weapon and kneel. If you resist, I'll shoot you to death."