That was the final answer

Charlie’s sword didn’t quite reach her, and she was forced to her knees.

Fuubi wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger now. It also didn’t look as if Charlie had any chance of turning the tables on her own. We’d been completely checkmated.

“You’re right. On my own, I can’t beat you.” Charlie openly acknowledged her own defeat…or so it seemed. “But we haven’t lost yet.”

She looked up at Fuubi with blazing eyes, and in the next moment—

“Shift right nine millimeters and down seven— Now, Nagisa!”

With a noise that reverberated in my stomach, a shot was fired from high altitude.

“—!”

The bullet streaked out of the dark sky, knocking the gun from Fuubi’s hand. And the person who’d fired it—

“That’s one of Siesta’s Seven Tools, all right. It’s not shaky at all.”

A familiar musket was protruding from the open window of the cockpit of a small fighter jet.

“…Well, look at that. You actually came back on your own.”

Fuubi glared up at the fighter jet in the dark sky. “I guess that means you’re ready for this—Yui Saikawa and Nagisa Natsunagi.”

That was the final answer

“Yui, Nagisa…”

Charlie looked up at the fighter jet flying near the lighthouse. It was a two-seater; Saikawa was in the pilot’s seat, and Natsunagi sat behind her.

“I heard you’d gone to the airport. So you went to get that?” As Fuubi gazed up at the sky, she looked thoroughly unamused. She rolled her neck, cracking it. “First you pilot a small boat, and now it’s a fighter jet. Compulsory education covers a heck of a lot these days.”

“Any well-rounded young lady should be at least this capable… Or so I’d like to tell you, but it’s almost entirely on autopilot. A certain someone with very good ears is piloting it remotely, relying on my eye.”

Saikawa responded lightly to Fuubi’s sarcasm. Apparently that quasi-pseudohuman was keeping an eye on our fight from some distant location.

“Ha! Are you two planning to side with this girl? She tried to kill you both, remember?” Fuubi snorted at Saikawa and Natsunagi.

“…!” Charlie bit her lip. She understood the weight of what she’d tried to do better than anyone.

But Saikawa said… “Yes, I’ll save her. After all, she’s my friend.”

Someone had tried to kill her, and she was still calling them a friend. She went on, speaking directly to a very stunned Charlie. “Then after that, we’ll have the fight to end all fights. You don’t mind, do you, Charlie?” Saikawa grinned down at her.

“For your information, you won’t just be fighting Yui,” Natsunagi said from the rear seat. Her expression was prim.

Oh, right. Earlier, Charlie had hit Natsunagi with a devastating attack, too.

Natsunagi’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Got that? When we fight, we’ll double-kill you: once for me, and once for Yui.”

Down on the ground, Charlie heard her out. “…Bring it anytime.” Her eyes were just a little damp, but she was smiling.

“Relax. That future’s never going to come.”

A cold voice. The Assassin sprinted through the dark, bent on destroying the future Charlotte wanted.

“…!” Tightening her grip on her saber, Charlie faced down her incoming enemy.

Fuubi’s gun had been shot out of her hand, and she was using a short survival knife now. Naturally, Charlie’s weapon had a better reach, but Fuubi’s skill far exceeded hers. Fuubi’s outlandish moves forced Charlie onto the defensive, and then—

“Too slow.”

—exploiting a vulnerability, she snapped the iron sword with a spin-kick, then knocked Charlie backward.

“…!”

There was a dull thud, and Charlie rolled across the asphalt. Immediately, Fuubi leaped to close the distance.

“Nagisa, do it!”

Just then, an airborne sniper targeted Fuubi. Saikawa used her eye to issue accurate directions; with her help, Natsunagi aimed the musket without hesitation and fired. “Sorry, but I can’t afford warning shots.” She kept firing at Fuubi; they’d brought the plane down a little to make it easier for her.

“You’re in the way,” Fuubi muttered, evading the bullets that struck the ground at her feet. And then…

“Huh?” Looking up, Natsunagi saw—a red-haired assassin leaping into the night sky. She’d caught the plane with a grappling hook and was holding on to a rope that hung from it. Fuubi jumped onto the cockpit, and then—

“…!”

She flipped her knife in a reverse grip and took aim at the startled Saikawa.

“No you don’t!”

From behind Saikawa, Natsunagi fired at Fuubi. The bullet pierced her right shoulder, and the woman staggered back. —However …

“Pain? You’ll need a little more than that to keep me from fulfilling my mission.” Fuubi’s expression didn’t change even as she fell from the plane, and she threw her knife into one of the engines on top of the main wings. There was a terrible grunch and a scorched smell. Black smoke billowed up, the plane listed to the left, and then they lost control.

“…! Nagisa, hold on to something!” Saikawa gripped the control stick desperately, but the jet kept losing altitude until it scraped across the asphalt in an emergency landing. The ground jolted upward as if an earthquake had hit, knocking me off my feet.

“…Yui…”

“Na…gisa…”

Natsunagi and Saikawa had gotten banged up pretty badly in the landing. They were obviously in pain, but the plane was in danger of exploding, and they managed to crawl out.

“So you finally came down here.” Fuubi started toward the two girls, her movements smooth and menacing. Dark blood was streaming from the Assassin’s right shoulder, but she still launched herself powerfully off the ground.

“—I can’t have you forgetting about me yet.” A figure cut in between them. “I told you, remember? I’m not alone. That’s what lets me commit myself to my job.”

“Charlotte, huh? But I’ve already destroyed your weapon.”

In the black smoke, Fuubi pivoted on her right leg and raised her left leg high. But then—

“I’ll borrow your help too.” The smoke cleared, and there was Charlie, holding SIESTA’s rapier.

“…!” Fuubi couldn’t stop. Her left leg swung toward the sword Charlie had thrust out, but—

“Kkha, hah…”

The agonized cry had been Charlie’s. Fuubi had kicked her again, knocking her back several meters.

“Charlie!” Saikawa dragged herself toward the other girl. “Are…are you all…right?”

“…Ghk. Yes… But one of my legs is out of commission now.”

Charlie had gotten the wind knocked out of her, but even so, she managed a smile. “This is how I… How we do things. Even if we can’t win on our own, if we all combine our strength…”

“You’re still playing friends? This is so pointless.” Fuubi sneered.

“It’s not…pointless…!” Natsunagi spread her arms. She stood as if to shield Saikawa and Charlie, who was on her knees. “We are…the final hope Siesta left. None of us will lose, and we won’t give up. We’ll all…win together…!”

Fuubi spoke quietly, either to her, or maybe to Saikawa, or to Charlie. “What…are you people?”

Her red hair had come loose, streaming in the night wind.

“You talk about companions, bonds, friendship, feelings, love, ties, connections—a last wish. What good is any of that to the world?” Fuubi’s voice grew rougher and angrier. “Yui Saikawa: Your death will save the world. Charlotte Arisaka Anderson: If you kill Yui Saikawa, you’ll save the world. Nagisa Natsunagi: If you were as strong as the former ace detective, you would save the world. So why don’t you do it? What, you can’t? Oh, well, I understand everything now. So just—!” Like the blazing flames, Fuubi screamed, her face filled with rage. “If you can’t do that! If you’re helpless…! Then at least be ashamed of yourselves. Don’t sabotage the people who are fighting to save it!”

That scream might have been the first time I’d ever heard her say what she really felt.

“You’re right.” After a short silence, Natsunagi murmured, “I think what you’re saying is probably correct. You’re more right than I am, anyway. I’m sure there are people who would call that justice.”

“If you understand that, then—”

“But,” Natsunagi interrupted Fuubi. “The detective was too right, and she died.” Justice didn’t necessarily win. “So I want to choose something I know might be wrong. Even if it isn’t correct, even if justice doesn’t win, even then—I want to choose a future where the people who are precious to me are smiling next to me.”

I don’t want to let anyone else die.

Natsunagi flat-out rejected Fuubi, and maybe Siesta as well.

“Then we’ll never see eye-to-eye.”

I was sure Fuubi’s fury hadn’t cooled—but she seemed to have given up on changing her mind. “That makes this easy. The last one standing wins.”

It was the simplest conclusion, and the most brutal one.

…But that was the only method left.

Actually, I don’t think talking was ever an option here.

“Evil, meet your doom.”

The Assassin ran like the wind. Soundlessly, so fast you couldn’t even see her, she went to ensure justice was done.

“Nagisa!”

“Nagisa—!”

Natsunagi was still standing in the way, arms spread wide. Behind her, Charlie and Saikawa screamed.

“It’s all right. Even if I can’t see her, she’s definitely watching me. She can hear my voice, too. Meaning—that ability will work.”

Then Nagisa Natsunagi’s red eyes glowed.

“Fuubi Kase, you can’t take a single step from that spot.”

Fuubi stopped dead.

“…!”

She stood petrified, her eyes wide with astonishment.

Just one more step—her knife had frozen just before it plunged into Natsunagi’s chest.

Natsunagi’s red eyes were using the mind control. When she talked to Hel, then accepted her, she’d become able to use that ability.

“…! This isn’t…enough to—!”

However, the Assassin wouldn’t stop until she’d destroyed her target.

“Don’t think you can stop me with an ability you just picked up!” Slowly, bit by bit, breaking down the mind control through sheer force of will, the knife descended toward Natsunagi. “Don’t think nobodies like you three can stop me by yourse…”

Fuubi’s eyes were wild with rage—but suddenly, her face went blank.

“Wait a second… ‘You three’? The robot’s out of the picture, but how long have I been fighting just the three of you?”

Realizing she’d missed something, she spoke to her targets without really thinking it through.

“Hey, where is he? Where has Kimihiko Kimizuka been for the past few minutes?”

It definitely wasn’t arrogance. It was an accurate self-assessment.

Earlier, she’d disabled the powerless, lousy excuse for an assistant with one attack. She had me outclassed in every way. Even if I’d eventually recovered, as long as she could see me, she’d be able to deal with me. On that note, Fuubi had focused exclusively on Charlotte, and on the newcomers, Natsunagi and Saikawa. Her decision hadn’t been a mistake.

Except for one thing.

If she’d made just one miscalculation, it was that…

“Kimihiko Kimizuka—you swallowed Chameleon’s seed, didn’t you!”

…the risk in gaining a pseudohuman power hadn’t scared me one bit.

“I don’t give a damn about side effects. You can take my senses or some years off my life, as much as you want of whatever you like. I’ll let you eat it all,” I told the seed of the parasitic plant that had settled inside me. Meanwhile, I made myself invisible and raced up to Fuubi. Right now, all I wanted was to KO that disgusting police officer. She’d twisted my beloved partner’s justice, and as long as I could hit her for it, that was enough.

Are you sure it’s enough?

I felt as if someone, somewhere, had whispered those words to me.

It’s fine. It’s not like I’m causing trouble for anybody, I told the speaker, clenching my fist.

I mean, it’s true, isn’t it?

“This is my story.”

Then I punched the justice of this world in the face and sent it flying.