The Detective Is Already Dead, Vol. 2

“…! What is…?”

A sea of blood.

The floor was littered with corpses that had been so badly mutilated, I wanted to cover my eyes.

“Ngh…”

Even Charlie, who should have been used to scenes like this, clapped a hand over her mouth. It was horrible.

But that didn’t mean we could turn around and leave. A man was standing there, like the king of that mountain of corpses.

“Are you Cerberus…?”

The sturdy, middle-aged man wearing a black robe looked exactly like the Cerberus I’d fought a month ago.

“…No, that can’t be.”

I’d confirmed it with Siesta several times. Cerberus had been killed, right in front of us—by Hel. In which case…

“Are you thinking I am Hel, who has inherited Cerberus’s ability and used it to take his shape?” The man had virtually read my mind. “Unfortunately, you are wrong. I am neither Cerberus nor Hel.”

The man’s figure warped, then stabilized in the shape of—

“Ha-hah. Remember this one?”

“…! Bat…!”

“Hey, yeah. I like that reaction.” He was talking like Bat now; with both this form and Cerberus, it was like speaking to the real deal.

“—Then who are you?!”

Charlie drew her gun, pointing it at the man.

That’s what I wanted to know. He could camouflage himself as Cerberus and Bat, but who was this guy anyway?

“Their parent.”

The man was still wearing Bat’s shape, but this time he responded in what was probably his own persona.

“Parent…? You mean Cerberus’s, or Bat’s?”

“Both of them.” He surveyed the pile of corpses with those clouded emerald eyes.

“…! Then— No, you can’t mean…”

The gun in Charlie’s hands wavered slightly.

This masterful transformation ability. There was no doubt about it: This man was the true identity of the counterfeit Ms. Fuubi who’d visited Siesta, Alicia, and me earlier. And as Siesta had said—that counterfeit just might be the head of SPES.

“We run into this thing the one time Siesta’s not here? Man, talk about shitty luck…”

I guess it was par for the course for me. That’s exactly what my knack for getting dragged into things does. I had to laugh at myself—or I’d never manage to stop shaking.

“What, it’s okay for a parent to kill their kids?”

Taking a cue from Charlie, I pointed my gun at the enemy boss, a few meters away.

“What are you saying? My status as a parent is what gives me permission to kill my children.”

…—! This was awful. The guy was as hard to reach as Hel, maybe even worse. Actually, I didn’t want to be talking to him at all.

“These are all my children. Offspring I bore. Thus, I am free to do as I please with them. Am I wrong?”

The false Bat cocked his head, as if he really didn’t see the problem in what he was saying.

“When’d I stumble into the world where men are the main childbearers?” I cracked a joke, buying time as I desperately tried to think of what we should do next— But…

“Do you intend to place me in your human categories of male or female?”

“What, are you saying you’re a monster instead?”

“No.”

At that, our greatest enemy, the foe we had to defeat, told us directly what he was.

“I am a plant.”

At that sudden bombshell, Charlie and I exchanged looks—but all we saw was bewilderment.

What the hell was this guy saying?

A plant? Had he just called himself a plant?

“Of course, that’s only in relation to the classifications with which you are familiar. However, I am neither human nor monster. I am Seed, a plant who flew to this world from the depths of space.”

Whoa, whoa, when did this story go intergalactic?

A plant from outer space? An invader?

Gimme a break… What on earth have we been fighting all this time?

“…Then you’re saying the other pseudohumans are actually plants, too?”

“‘Pseudohuman’ is just the name you chose to give them. Both I and they have only ever been plants. Here, you’ve seen these before, haven’t you?”

The next moment, a long, wriggling, tentacle-like thing sprouted from Seed’s right ear, exactly like the one Bat had on the plane three years ago. But now, what I’d thought was a tentacle also looked like the thick root of a plant.

“—What are you people trying to do? Why is SPES committing terrorist attacks?” Charlie interrogated Seed, careful to keep her gun aimed at his root while she spoke.

SPES: the secret organization Siesta had been pursuing, all this time. She’d said its name meant “hope” in Latin. But these guys had been sowing nothing but despair. They believed in some screwy book called the “sacred text,” committed acts of terror, and killed innocent people.

“Answer us, Seed. Is it world domination? Immortality? A desire for knowledge? It can’t be just the impulse to destroy stuff, can it? Or are you planning to claim it’s your mission, the way Hel did? Come on, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? If you’re a plant who came from some other planet, what do you intend to do here on Earth?”

Come on, bring it. I just listed all the evil motives I can think of. But I don’t care what answer you give me; I’m going to fire back with sound arguments and bullets. With newfound resolve, I squeezed the grip of my gun even tighter.

“It’s in order to survive.”

For a moment, that perfectly straightforward answer took the wind out of my sails, and I almost dropped the gun.

“…To survive?”

“Yes. We have only one goal.”

There was no telling what he was thinking as Seed used the root that had sprouted from his ear to lop off his own right arm. Still, he kept talking.

“Surface of the Planet Exploding Seeds— We will cover this world with our seeds.”

A true fiend

“That is the true meaning of SPES, and our real objective.”

As I stood there, stunned, the guy’s right arm began to regenerate from the wound in the blink of an eye, while a new body began to form from the severed arm on the ground. It wasn’t fully human-shaped, but it was rapidly acquiring all the bumps and hollows of a body.

“It’s like a cutting…”

“Yes. Exactly.” Charlie nodded.

“Charlie, I can still tell you don’t understand.”

“…Well, I thought I’d lighten the mood. It was getting too serious, you know?”

Don’t lie. Everybody already knows you’re kinda dumb.

“A cutting is when you clip a stalk off the parent plant, put it in the ground so it sprouts roots, and grow another plant from it. Basically—”

“It’s a plant…clone?”

Exactly. That was what Seed had meant when he’d called himself a parent. All the members of SPES were his clones. Seed was the original pseudohuman.

That was why he could take on Cerberus’s and Bat’s forms, and why he could use their powers. It was actually the other way around—Seed had shared his abilities with them.

“I am a plant that reached this world by accident—a ‘primordial seed,’ as it were. The most fundamental desire of all living things, plant or animal, is to leave descendants. I create clones from my own body, as I’ve demonstrated, then sow them across the planet’s surface in the hopes that they will find prosperity.”

“…Do you think that makes it okay to kill people who’ve done nothing wrong?”

“What problem could there be with eliminating an invasive species that obstructs the spread of my seeds?”

“—You’re the invasive species!” My finger pulled the trigger and fired at the root that had grown from Seed—but it was a no-go.

“Even minutes after its birth, its instinct to protect its parent seems to be functioning.”

The newborn pseudohuman from Seed’s severed right arm still looked like a mud doll, but it had unsteadily gotten to its feet and shielded him from the bullet. It crumpled to the ground, as if its strings had been cut.

“…Doesn’t that make you feel sad at all?” I took in the sight of Seed’s comrades, who lay around him. He’d said he hoped for the prosperity of his seeds, but what he was doing was the exact opposite.

“These were necessary sacrifices, to ensure the continued existence of my seeds. Don’t worry; their seeds haven’t been wasted.”

As he spoke, Seed took an object like a small, jet-black rock from the clone that had just collapsed. It was the same as the thing Hel had removed from Cerberus’s chest earlier.

“A seed…? You mean that rock?”

If I remembered right, Siesta had said those things were like cores that created pseudohumans. When Seed had called himself “the primordial seed,” was that what he’d meant?

“That’s right. Some of the seeds of our departed comrades have been inherited by her.”

“…! You mean Hel…?”

That must have been the “treatment” Chameleon had mentioned. So they’d transplanted seeds from Hel’s comrades into her? No wonder we hadn’t passed a single soul on our way here.

“Where is Hel now?”

From what I’d heard, Hel’s personality was probably in charge now. In that case, we had to find a way to defeat her and rescue Alicia as quickly as possible.

“As she isn’t here, there is only one place where she would conceivably be, correct?”

…! With Siesta?!

“Kimizuka! Ma’am is—!”

“Yeah, I know. Let’s hurry.”

Then, just as we’d turned to go—

“Do you imagine escaping will be that simple?”

I heard a familiar, unpleasantly polite voice from some untraceable location.

“Chameleon…!”

The very guy who’d taken Alicia from right under our noses. He was probably using his ability to make himself invisible, but he was definitely in the room with us right now.

“Ha-ha. It appears as though I’ll be able to entertain myself here as well.”

Here as well? Don’t tell me…

“Kimizuka!”

Keeping her gun trained on empty space, Charlie signaled at me with her eyes.

“Yeah, I know.”

Chameleon was talking as if he’d already fought a battle somewhere—meaning he had to have fought Siesta while she was off on her own mission. But Chameleon was here now, which meant… It couldn’t mean… But would Siesta lose to a guy like him?

No, wait. Of course. If he’d been with Hel, who was back to her old self, then—

“Kimizuka, let me handle this.” Charlie urged me to go to Siesta. “I’ll hold them here. Hurry—”

“I would prefer not to be ignored.”

Chameleon’s voice sounded as if it was moving all over the place. Not only could we not finish him off, but there was no telling when an attack would come flying at us. It was about ten meters to the door. How was I going to get that far—?

“You’ve interrupted your parent.”

And then, Seed vanished.

“Ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The next thing we heard was Chameleon’s scream.

For the first time, I got a clear look at him. He had silver hair and rather bland Asian features. Seed had his right hand clamped around his neck and was holding him suspended in midair.

“I was talking just now. Why did you break in?”

“…I’m…v-very…sorry…”

Chameleon barely managed to get the words out. A colored fluid was welling from his mouth.

“I am only letting you live so you can guard that. Don’t forget yourself,” Seed hissed, then slammed Chameleon into the floor.

He wouldn’t have done it to protect us. He’d only been punishing the guy for disrespecting his parent. However—

“Seed, why did you give us so much information about SPES?”

What were you even doing here? Why did you stay after you massacred your comrades in order to keep Hel alive? If you’re SPES’s commander-in-chief, wouldn’t you normally be the one to go defeat Siesta?

In response to those natural questions, Seed said…

“Because if I side with either of them, the plan won’t come together.”

With that enigmatic reply, he blinked out of sight.

“Of course he can use Chameleon’s abilities too, huh…?”

Where had he gone, though? I could only hope that it wasn’t wherever Siesta was.

“Kimizuka, go now.” Charlie pointed her gun at Chameleon, who’d collapsed on the floor, and urged me to leave.

“Damn… Dammit…!”

However, Chameleon shakily got to his feet, clearly in agony. He cloaked himself again and attacked us from all sides. We couldn’t even see his shadow.

“I’m sick of watching this same move over and over.” Charlie fired at empty space.

“…Ghk! You have fine instincts,” I heard Chameleon say. Had that random shot grazed him?

“Instincts? Huh. You tell funny jokes for a reptile,” Charlie retorted. Urging me to go with a glance, she squeezed the trigger again. “The stench of your breath makes you obvious.”

If a girl said that to me, I’d never recover. Smiling wryly, I broke into a run, leaving the rest to Charlie, but then—

“Kimizuka!”

Something flew through the air, and I caught it in my right hand. When I opened my fingers, it turned out to be a key.

I already told her I don’t have a license.

“Let me ride behind you someday.”

“…Yeah, I’ll practice.”

And if I crash your beloved bike today…cut a guy some slack, all right?

If we meet again, away from this island

After that, I hopped on Charlie’s bike and headed for the opposite side of the island, gunning the engine the whole way. There were no civilians here and no need to obey traffic laws, so it didn’t matter if I’d never driven before. I just gripped the handlebars and thought only of getting to Siesta as fast as I possibly could.

I couldn’t believe Siesta would lose to a guy on Chameleon’s level. But if Hel was with him, fully revived, then just maybe…

“…Dammit.”

My thoughts went in the worst possible directions.

But if something happened to Siesta, Charlie and I would be no match for Hel, which meant Alicia’s rescue would fail as well. And that meant Siesta’s safety was top priority—

“…No, that’s wrong.”

Even if Alicia wasn’t part of this at all, if Siesta was in trouble—I would have gone to help her without hesitating.

“She’s trained me really well.”

Praying that I’d make it in time, I roared along on Charlie’s beloved bike.

“…! Siesta!”

When I found her, roughly two hours after we’d last seen each other, she was lying facedown on the ground.

Letting the bike tip over, I ran to my partner. “Siesta! Hey!” I picked up her prone body and rested her on my knees.

Her small, pale face was covered with sand. As I brushed it off with my fingertips, I called her name over and over.

“This isn’t funny! You promised you wouldn’t go off and die without telling me! Remember…?!”

No, this wasn’t gonna work. I needed to calm down, now more than ever. Calm down and do what I could, take the steps I needed to save Siesta.

“Gimme a break, all right?”

I rolled up my sleeves, laid Siesta back down on the ground, and put my hands against her chest.

I set my right hand on top of my left one, straightened my elbows, and pushed with all my weight behind it.

“—Five centimeters.”

Chest compressions don’t work unless you press down that far into the rib cage. Strangely enough, this wasn’t my first time performing CPR. After all, I get dragged into this stuff all the time.

I was grateful for that coincidence now as I pressed down on Siesta’s chest. She’d been so strong physically, and yet her body was so delicate that it felt like I could break it with far less pressure than this.

“Don’t you dare—die…!”

I kept on compressing Siesta’s chest to a regular rhythm.

Ten times, twenty…thirty.

Next, I had to give her two artificial breaths. I secured her airway, pinched her nose between my fingertips, then took a deep breath.

“Forgive me.”

Keeping my eyes wide open so I wouldn’t miss, I leaned in toward Siesta’s lips, and just then—

“I hadn’t considered the possibility that you might come here.”

Her blue eyes blinked open.

“…Heeeeeeeey! You stu— Y-you!” I leaned back so far that my legs gave out, and Siesta sat up.

“Hmm. Who’d have thought you’d come to me? That’s a problem. You’ve thrown off my plan.” While she was busy being confusing, she brushed the sand and dust off her dress. “Was it because your love for me was far more obsessive than I’d thought?”

“…I don’t really know what’s happening, but I’m going to object to that analysis anyway.”

“And another thing, Kimi—performing CPR is fine, but you’re generally supposed to make sure the person isn’t breathing naturally first.”

I was still hugging the ground, and Siesta looked down at me coldly.

“Wait, your heart was beating the whole time?”

“Well, no, it wasn’t, but…”

“So it stopped?!” Then why are you yelling at me?

“Oh, no, no.” Siesta waved a hand from side to side, dismissively. “My heart didn’t stop. I stopped it.”

“You…stopped it?”

I was really lost now, so for lack of anything better to do, I just took the hand she’d held out to me and got to my feet.

“Well, an enemy who was a bit of a pain picked a fight with me, so I was playing dead.”

“…I’ve been asking you for three years: What the heck are you?”

I wasn’t even surprised anymore. I was so appalled, my knees were trembling.

An enemy who was a bit of a pain… Ah, I think I get it. Chameleon must have gotten the impression that he’d killed Siesta, and felt his job was done.

“Well, ‘a pain’ may not be the word. I’m oddly incompatible with that one.” Siesta closed one blue eye in a deliberate wink.

Still, could normal people literally play dead?

“What kind of body do you have anyway? Geez.”

Smiling wryly, I was about to retaliate with a karate chop, when—

“Huh?”

—the next thing I knew, I was sitting on my butt on the ground.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Uh, I just sort of…”

Siesta gave me a blank look. And then…

“Did the relief make your legs give out?” she asked with a little smile. “Because I was fine?”

“—. Quit smirking. Don’t let your lips wriggle like that, either.”

“May I be frank about what I’m feeling right now?”

“No. Don’t. Don’t you dare. I’m not listening to anything you say.”

“I think you’re adorable, Kimi.”

“Aaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaah! I can’t heeeear youuuuu!”

Dammit, why did I have to take this humiliation? All this after I’d driven here full-tilt on a bike I couldn’t even ride. After I’d actually attempted CPR. It was so weird. This was obviously weird…

“What should I do? Shall I stroke your head after all?”

“Absolutely not!”

“How about a hug?”

“No way in hell!”

“Or to borrow your turn of phrase, ‘press my boobs against you.’”

“You can’t just do that. I mean it. To me or any guy.”

“Oh, but you already touched my chest a minute ago, didn’t you?” Siesta giggled. “Thirty times, even.”

“Not fair. Siesta, you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you? Socially.”

“Heh-heh. You really are fun to tease, Kimi. —It really was fun.”

“…Siesta?”

Suddenly, her smile grew slightly melancholy.

When I saw her face, I knew everything. I’d been right next to her, watching her profile, for three years. No matter how little I wanted to, I knew what had happened, and what was about to happen.

“Siesta.”

“What?”

“Let me take you up on that hug after all, just once.”

I stood up and turned around.

A lone girl stood there.

“If we survive and meet again, away from this island.”

Rematch

“So. Which one are you?” I asked the girl who’d been standing behind me.

“You’d think you could tell by looking at me.”

She had red eyes, and a red military uniform. There were several sabers at her waist. She was obviously the one we’d fought to the death in London, and her name was—

“Hel…”

She wasn’t Alicia. The girl who was standing here right now was Hel. The enemy we had to defeat.

“I think we can assume that the treatment’s been completed—using your companions’ lives,” Siesta said, coming up to stand beside me. She watched Hel with stern, piercing eyes. She must have heard about that earlier, maybe from Chameleon.

“Companions? Who would those be?” Hel tilted her head, as if she genuinely didn’t understand what she was hearing.

I’d seen that expression just a little while ago, when I asked Seed whether he felt guilty about killing his children.

“Do you seriously not know?”

Was that the difference between humans and plants? Did these guys give top priority to their seeds’ prosperity?

“What about Chameleon, then? Even in London, you two were working together…”

“I only used him because he was a perfect cover,” Hel replied casually. “I imagine he thinks the same way. Chameleon has no interest in me as an individual. To him, I’m just a symbol, a red military uniform.”

…Actually, when Alicia had been the dominant personality in Hel’s body, it had taken Chameleon several weeks to find her. With their sharp ears and noses, Bat and Cerberus might be different. Did these people not view each other as individuals normally?

“Unlike you people, I have no interest in playing at being comrades.” Hel sneered at Siesta and me with her frosty red eyes.

“…That was a very significant way to put it.” Siesta stepped in front of me, facing Hel a few meters away. “What is it that you really want to say?”

“Oh, nothing. Only that you seemed to have been on very friendly terms with her.”

“Her”… She meant Alicia. That was why Hel had been talking about “playing at being comrades.”

“That’s right. That’s why we’re here to save Alicia.”

“I know. That’s why you’re going to kill me.”

The next instant, the ground bulged up, and a tangle of thorny vines like bramble canes shot up from it.

“Meaning I’m allowed to kill you as well, aren’t I?”

The bramble whips turned on Siesta and me.

“What the heck are those?”

“It means the enemy wasn’t stupid. I’m sure they’ve planted the entire island with their seeds.” Siesta analyzed the situation for me, using a term I’d heard only a short while ago.

“…Okay. So we have to fight the whole island, huh?”

Right now, everything on this island was preparing to attack us, with their survival instincts in high gear. Quite literally, the seeds had already been sown.

And yet as she faced down the enemy of the world, the ace detective didn’t even flinch.

“Actually, this is a very fitting place for our final battle.”

“Isn’t it? For your last moments, I mean.”

Siesta’s musket and Hel’s red sword took aim at each other, forming a straight line.

“I’ll win. And I promise I’ll make Alicia’s wish come true.”

“No, you’re going to die here. You can’t save that girl.”

There was a single gunshot, and the sound of a sword slicing through the air.

With that, their rematch was on.

I only wanted to be loved

Siesta and Hel’s fierce battle had already lasted for more than ten minutes.

When the bramble whips attacked her, Siesta’s musket shot them down with perfect precision—and when Hel capitalized on those openings, holding her saber at waist-level and leaping at her, Siesta swung her musket like a sword to counter it. I hung back, attempting to provide cover fire, but—

“Assistant, you’re in the way.”

“Not fair…”

With the help of her overwhelming experience and instincts, Siesta fought on equal terms—or no, even better—with an ultimate foe who had the land itself on her side.

“—Goodness. You’re so desperate, it’s ridiculous.” Hel had taken a big leap backward to put some distance between them. She was smiling with a frustration that didn’t match what she’d just said. “So you want to retake my master that badly, do you?” she sneered, then snorted contemptuously.

More importantly…

“…Your master?”

That phrase tugged at me.

From what Alicia had told us earlier, she’d been created inside Hel’s brutal personality. Hel was the dominant one, and Alicia was her shadow. But from what Hel had just said—

“—Are you telling us you took over Alicia’s body?”

Had Alicia really been the dominant one, and Hel the shadow? Had Hel forcibly flipped their power dynamic?

“I didn’t take it over.” Hel narrowed her red eyes. “I switched places for her sake.” She insisted that it had been a kindness. “This body is a little different from the other SPES officers, you see. Originally, she was a normal human.”

“What…?”

According to what I’d just heard at that lab, the members of SPES were all artificial beings who’d been cloned from Seed’s cuttings… No, wait. That was wrong. I knew a pseudohuman who wasn’t like that.

“Bat…”

The blond guy I’d met at ten thousand meters, three years ago, was a semi-pseudohuman who’d forcibly attached a SPES ability to his own body. Had Hel—had Alicia—originally been human as well, like him?

“However, because of that, they were always performing all sorts of experiments on this body.”

Experiments—the word sent goose bumps prickling across my skin.

“She was always crying out from the pain and the heat. It sounds as though my master went through some truly torturous experiences. Then one day, when she finally couldn’t take the pain any longer—I was born. My master created me.”

…So that’s what had happened.

It was a textbook case of dissociative identity disorder. After long-term emotional and physical agony, when she was unable to take it anymore, she’d created a different personality to reduce the psychological damage. Hel was a shadow personality that Alicia had made for herself.

“That is how my master and I are connected. Our suffering halved, our sorrow halved as well. That is how we’ve lived so far.”

“In that case, I’ll end both the suffering and the sadness for you right now.”

A daydream raced across the battlefield; any further conversation was useless. Siesta launched herself off the ground, closing the distance between herself and the girl in the military uniform so fast, you could barely see her.

Determined and resolute, she pointed her gun at her.

“Oh, I forgot to mention one thing,” Hel murmured softly without so much as flinching. “Suffering halved, sorrow halved— And of course, we share pain equally as well.”

The next moment, Hel’s head abruptly fell forward, and then…

“…What? Where am I?”

She looked around blankly; the cruelty in her eyes nowhere to be seen. And then her eyes landed on—

“Huh? Kimizuka?”

I was a short distance away, and she spotted me first thing, but she didn’t notice the other individual right in front of her or the gun turned on her. The muzzle fired a shot.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” With a scream, the girl crumpled to the ground. The bullet seemed to have grazed her; dark red blood streamed from her right shoulder.

“Alicia…!” I shouted.

“Kimi…zuka…”

…! I’d been right. It really was her. Convinced, I tried to run to her, but—

“Don’t come over here.”

But the one who’d shot Alicia warned me over her shoulder.

“—Siesta, that’s Alicia! We can’t…”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t aim at anything vital.” Siesta kept the gun trained on Alicia.

“My, my. How kind of you. If you’d shot through her heart or her head, you two would have won.”

In the next instant, briars burst up right under Siesta’s feet.

“…!”

She instantly withdrew, retreating to stand beside me again. A few meters beyond the riot of brambles, the girl in the military uniform unsteadily got to her feet, holding her shoulder.

“So my master is that important to you.”

The red eyes beneath her service cap had reverted to Hel’s cold ones. There was no doubt about it: Hel was in charge now, and she switched with Alicia’s personality whenever she wanted…!

“However, I won’t lose to anyone who’s that naïve. This time, I will carry out my mission as SPES.”

Hel’s red eyes opened wide, and she sprang on us with her sword. At the same time, a horde of brambles attacked us. If we tried to fight, Hel would probably flip back to Alicia. In that case, we wouldn’t be able to lay a hand on her—

“Oh, it really was a lie.”

Quietly, Siesta murmured.

It sounded a lot like what she’d said to Bat three years ago, on that hijacked airplane. That sentence meant shit was about to get real.

“What are you talking about?” Hel tilted her head, caught by surprise. However, the briars didn’t stop moving. They surrounded Siesta and me…and then withered away.

A drop of water trickled down my cheek, and I looked up. “Rain?”

There was a helicopter up there, high in the sky. Was it scattering some sort of liquid…?

“Weed killer,” Siesta said. “It’s a custom-made, super-fast-acting variety. Don’t worry; it has no effect on humans.”

“Always ready for anything, huh…?”

It had been a counter for that biological weapon, a technique that killed plants and left humans alive. Ms. Fuubi was probably the one in that helicopter.

“…!”

Hel, still holding her military sword, attacked on her own, while Siesta swung her musket like a blade again.

“What? What about me is a lie?”

However, Hel’s hands were trembling slightly around the grip of her saber. In response, Siesta said:

“You have no real interest in SPES, do you.”

She spoke without mercy.

“…I’ve told you over and over. I am obeying fate…and acting in accordance with the will of SPES. That’s why I’m—!”

Her red eyes were wavering. For the first time, Hel seemed genuinely off balance—and there was no way Siesta was going to let that opportunity slip past her.

“You said so yourself,” Siesta reminded her. Her expression remained steady.

“You are a completely new being, created by Alicia’s defensive instincts. Meaning there’s no way instincts as a member of SPES could have taken root in you.”

…! So that was what this was about… If what Hel had told us earlier was true, the one who’d had SPES abilities and instincts to begin with was Alicia. Hel was only an acquired personality Alicia had created in self-defense. By rights, Hel shouldn’t have instincts as SPES.

“That means you’re just a fake who’s been desperately trying to get close to SPES.”

Hel was staring at the ground, and Siesta verbally cut right through her.

“Then…,” Hel murmured. When she raised her head, her face was suffused with anger. This was the second time I’d seen her this way. “Why would I do that?! What reason do I have to do all this for SPES…?!”

That’s right; she’d been just as angry back then, too.

Siesta must already have realized it, in that instant.

Once again, the detective spoke to the girl in the military uniform, as if reasoning with her gently.

“You probably wanted your father to love you.”

The monster cries

“—!”

“You just wanted love. You wanted someone to see and accept you. That’s all.”

“No!”

Hel’s pupils had dilated; she adjusted her grip on the hilt of her military sword and raised it high. The blade closed in on Siesta’s throat—but Siesta dodged it lightly, and the tip sliced through empty air. Hel’s attacks didn’t seem as spirited as they had earlier. Siesta’s theory had been right on the money.

“Then why are you so upset?”

I fired at Hel’s feet to keep her at bay.

“…!” Hel scowled a little, retreating temporarily.

“Let me rephrase that. Why did you switch personalities with Alicia back there?” Siesta asked a second question as she kept her gun trained on Hel. “Because you actually hoped I wouldn’t aim at anything vital if you did? …No. You just wanted to hurt her.”

“…Well, I won’t deny that. After all, I was born just to take on the pain of the dominant personality. Maybe I had some desire for revenge.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s right. You have emotions. You aren’t a plant…and you’re certainly not a monster,” Siesta said. “However…you’re still lying.”

“…Lying…”

“The real reason you’re forcing Alicia to take that pain isn’t a thirst for revenge. It’s jealousy.”

“—! Silence!”

Hel flew into a rage. By the time I realized what was happening, she’d leveled her sword and locked blades with Siesta.

“You were jealous of Alicia. She’d caused you all that suffering, and yet she’d found companions in myself and my assistant. You hated her so, so much…and you envied her.”

“No… No, no!”

“I’m not wrong. You just wanted to be loved. You wanted friends.”

“Silence!” Hel’s red eyes glowed.

“You are going to kill yourself, here and now…!”

The next moment, Siesta had drawn her handgun from its holster and set it against her own temple.

Hel had used her ability, that power to interfere with human consciousness and control actions.

However—

“Siesta, you’re not going to die.”

When I spoke, Siesta promptly released the gun.

“Wh-why…?” Hel stared at us, confused, and Siesta explained.

“It’s simple. I trust my assistant more than anyone else—even myself.” Siesta glanced at me, then spoke to the ultimate enemy who dominated the field in front of her. “Even if my mind tries to embrace its own death, if he firmly denies it, then I’ll believe him without a second thought. That’s all it is.”

“…! Then…” Hel’s eyes turned to me. At that—

“Assistant, you won’t die, either,” Siesta said to me.

It was the spell that held our odd partnership together.

We both trusted each other more than we trusted ourselves. That was all it was.

Really, that was all.

This one minor thing, unconsciously cultivated over those three years, made us invincible.

And that was the one and only way to cancel out the brainwashing inflicted by those red eyes.

She could say whatever she wanted to try to take control of my mind, but if someone I trusted more spoke to me, I would be free again.

To me, that “someone” was Siesta—and to Siesta, it was me.

If you say that’s a deus ex machina development, well, at least call it the power of our bond, all right? It had taken three years to develop, too disgustingly stubborn for us to break even if we wanted to.

“—! A bond? That’s just— That’s not…!”

She didn’t want to admit it, but she couldn’t summon the words to deny it, either.

Hel dropped her sword, holding her head. This was probably the plan Siesta had come up with.

If we were going to save Alicia, of course we couldn’t kill her body. We’d have to remove Hel’s personality—and so Siesta had struck at Hel’s psychological contradiction, trying to destabilize her emotionally.

“That’s right, Hel. You don’t have to obey that sacred text. You don’t have to kill anyone else. You can have friends without those things. You’ll create bonds, too.”

I could see what Siesta was trying to do. “You don’t have to force yourself to listen to what that Seed guy says…”

But before I could continue—

“I can’t afford to lose.” Hel retrieved the red-hilted military sword. When she raised her head, her eyes were blazing red.

“Hel, you’re…”

“I admit it.” As Hel turned to face Siesta, she wasn’t wavering the tiniest bit. “I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be needed. I wanted someone to say that my birth had meaning… But nobody would have done it. It isn’t that I wanted companions, no matter who they were. I just wanted Father to love me. I wanted him to accept me.”

Hel pointed the tip of her blade at Siesta.

“And I’ll live, fight, and destroy the world for it. That is my survival instinct.”

It was something completely unbreakable, an enormous evil—a conviction.

“That’s fine.”

The only one who could confront this enemy of the world was the ace detective. With her gun at the ready, Siesta accepted the declaration of war.

“We’ve killed the plants. We’ve rendered your red eyes useless. All you have left is that sword. Let’s settle this, shall we?”

“Getting cocky because this is gun versus blade?”

“No. It’s because this is me versus you.”

“You’re really irritating.”

“No matter how we met, I’m sure we never would have gotten along.”

“You’ve got that right. So let’s end it here.” Hel lowered her center of gravity, poised to draw her sword.

With lightning speed, she slashed at Siesta—and just then…

“…! An earthquake…?”

Out of nowhere, the ground bulged upward; with a roar, it began to crack. Did we miss some of the roots? I wondered, and I’d braced myself, when—

“Assistant! Look out!” Siesta shoved me hard, sending me flying.

The next instant, the ground jolted up dramatically. A large rift opened between me and Siesta—and something emerged from the ground.

It looked like a huge reptile, and its grotesque coloring seemed familiar. However, it was much larger than it had been before, a full ten meters long now. As the earth rumbled, it bellowed—and then it spotted its target.

“Siesta…!”

The biological weapon had been revived: Betelgeuse.

Its eyeless head was turned toward Siesta and Hel.

“—Over here, monster…!”

I squeezed the trigger of my Magnum until I was out of bullets…but Betelgeuse didn’t seem to care. It faced the others, ribbons of drool trickling from its enormous lower jaw.

“Is it…hungry…?”

Betelgeuse was a monster that ate human hearts.

There were two people on the other side—and a hungry monster was bound to prioritize numbers over anything else.

“Siesta!”

Beyond the huge monster, I caught a glimpse of a girl with pale silver hair. Immediately afterward, there was a howl like a whale’s moan—and then a large burst of red like a flower.

In that last instant, my eyes met the girl’s, and she seemed to be smiling.

To the most.…..person in the world

“Bitten by my own hound.”

After the dust cleared, what I saw—was Betelgeuse’s enormous body. Even after its vicious rampage, it was lying on the ground, with Hel’s foot planted on its head.

And—

“Siesta…”

My partner was lying on her back. Red blood was dripping from the left side of her chest.

“They were keeping it isolated in the lab, but maybe the smell of food drew it here,” Hel commented, then stabbed her sword into Betelgeuse’s neck. The monster seemed to be dead already.

“Oh, I want you to stay where you are for a bit. Don’t move.”

Her red eyes glowed…and I stopped in my tracks. Before I even knew what I was doing, my feet were trying to run toward Siesta.

“I’ve lost a little too much blood…”

Keeping me pinned with her ability, Hel walked right in front of me toward Siesta, her steps unsteady. Now that I was paying attention, I saw that the left side of Hel’s chest was also deeply wounded, and dark red blood was streaming down her front.

“Now then.” Hel reached down toward Siesta.

“…! Don’t you touch her!”

I tried to run toward Hel…but my body wouldn’t move. It was like I’d turned to stone. If I wanted to undo the brainwashing from those red eyes, someone I trusted from the bottom of my heart had to be there with me. And she was gone.

“My heart’s been damaged again, you see. I need to trade it for a new one,” Hel murmured.

Of course. In London, as Jack the Devil, she’d stolen heart after heart. It had been trial and error, a search for the one that would be most compatible with her body. Now, since Betelgeuse had attacked her heart and damaged it, she was trying to get a new one again—from Siesta.

“…! Stop! If you want a heart, I’ll give you mine! Just not her… Anyone but Siesta!”

“I told you earlier, remember?” Hel briefly stopped moving and glanced at me. “You’re going to be my partner one day. That means you have to take care of your life…doesn’t it?”

Hel narrowed her red eyes—then plunged her right arm into Siesta’s bloodied chest.

“Stop…!”

But my body wouldn’t move. I couldn’t even blink as I watched the horrible scene play out.

“I’ll take the ace detective’s heart. Now I’ll be unequaled.” Hel drew her right hand out of Siesta’s lifeless body. A pulsing heart rested on her palm.

“S-Siesta…”

All I could do was stare in a daze. As I watched, Hel reached into the hole in the left side of her own chest, took out her own heart, and casually crushed it in her hand, then pushed Siesta’s heart against her chest. The heart slipped into her body, as if that was where it had always belonged.

And it was over.

In just a few motions, Hel had stolen Siesta’s heart.

“Finally, I’ve found a heart good enough for me. Now I’m sure Father will…,” Hel murmured with satisfaction. She didn’t spare a glance for Siesta’s corpse. She just looked at the sky behind her. A white moon was shining there.

“Siesta…”

Numb and drained, I stumbled over the broken ground to Siesta. Hel’s work was done; I’d been released. I tripped several times before I finally reached my partner’s body.

“Siesta.”

Kneeling, I pulled her bloodied corpse into my arms. Her body was small and thin. I didn’t have to check her breathing to know she was dead. Her eyes were still open. I closed them with the palm of my hand, then wiped away the blood that had spattered her pale face with my fingers.

“Siesta.” I called to her, one more time.

There was no answer. Of course there wasn’t.

The detective was already dead.

“……—, ………—!”

I’d thought I wouldn’t cry. After all, she hadn’t been my lover or my friend. We were only business partners with a common interest. Siesta wasn’t special to me at all.

And yet no matter how many times I wiped them away, drops of water kept falling onto her face.

“…I’m sorry.”

With a trembling hand, I stroked her head, cradled in the crook of my arm.

As before, Siesta still didn’t answer.

“Give it back.”

Instead, I spoke to Hel.

Gently laying Siesta’s body back down on the ground, I used what strength I had left to stand up.

“Give it back? Give what back?” Hel turned around, apparently mystified.

“That heart belongs to Siesta. You’re going to give it back.”

“That’s out of the question. This is mine now.” As Hel spoke, she set her hand over the left side of her chest.

And something inside me snapped. “Don’t touch Siesta with that filthy hand!”

The next thing I knew, my feet were moving. Everything in me wanted that thing dead—my body, my bones, my flesh, my blood. I drew my knife and lunged at Hel.

“I don’t understand.” Knocking my knife aside with the guard of her sword, Hel frowned. “The first time we met, you told me you didn’t trust anyone but yourself.”

I swung my blade over and over…but before long, Hel gave me a look of disgust and slashed my right arm. The knife fell to the ground. Okay, then—, I thought, clenching my left hand into a fist.

“…So it’s come to this, then. Your fist won’t reach me.” Hel’s red eyes glowed, and my body froze up again. “But now, you’re bleeding out and yet you refuse to relax your fist. As you try to strike me, your bloodshot eyes are even redder than mine. Why?” she asked. “Where is that anger coming from? Is it because of what you mentioned earlier? That bond?” She wasn’t finished asking.

“What were you? What were you to her?”

My raised fist wouldn’t move. Maybe because of the blood I’d lost, my feet weren’t steady, either. Still, I flogged my stalled brain and thought.

What had I been to Siesta?

I didn’t need Hel to ask me that. I’d been thinking about it myself, all this time.

How had she seen me?

But it was too late to know now. The dead won’t tell you a thing. I didn’t know what Siesta had thought of me, and I’d lost all hope of ever finding out.

Still…

I thought with my unsteady brain.

What if I turned the question around?

What had I thought of Siesta?

That day, we’d met in midair at ten thousand meters, and we’d traveled together for the past three years.

…Frankly speaking, I’d been sick of it.

After all the crap I’d been dragged into before, I’d loved ordinary routine more than anybody, and I’d wanted to stay in that tepid bath forever. But she’d dragged me out of there—and that leap out of the window at the cultural festival had ultimately been a leap into the extraordinary.

I don’t know how many times I’d prayed to the gods, and to the ace detective, to give me a break.

Listen, do you have any idea how many times I almost died?

How many times did I get injured, or pulled into gunfights, or go for three days without food or water, or camp in bear-infested mountains, or chase murderers, or get kidnapped, or locked up, or fight pseudohumans and biological weapons, and get into unfair situations, and after all of it hear my partner say, “Are you stupid, Kimi?”—

Do you have any idea how many times I smiled?

Siesta acts cool most of the time, but did you know it’s actually pretty easy to make her laugh? She doesn’t like people seeing her be too genuine, so whenever she feels a laugh coming on, she always turns away from me, takes half a minute to get her face back to normal, and then gives me an “Are you stupid, Kimi?” I crack up watching her, and Siesta gets cranky, and that’s the full routine.

She’s more of a kid than you’d think.

It’s fine for her to tease other people, but she won’t let anyone tease her. She’s bad at lying. She’s bad at being social, too. She can’t wake up in the mornings. She can’t even wake up at noon. She sleeps a lot, eats a lot. When I buy two kinds of cake, she gets mad if I try to pick one first. And then she eats them both. And enjoys the hell out of it. Then, when she sees me watching her and laughing because she’s completely unbelievable, she takes her fork, scoops off the bit with the strawberry on it, and holds it out to me.

That was what Siesta was like.

You think she was an ace detective who fought the world’s enemies?

That wasn’t what she really was.

Yeah. I only stayed with Siesta because she was fun.

Yes, I’d had way more than my fill of hardship and pain and bitterness over the past three years.

But in a thousand unfair cases, I’d smiled ten thousand times.

I’d smiled with her.

“Just what kind of relationship did Siesta and I have, you ask? How did I feel about her?”

That’s been completely obvious right from the start.

Strength flowed back into me—or maybe it was an adrenaline rush. My bones creaked; my muscles shook; my blood boiled. I didn’t really care, though. This might just destroy my body, but it didn’t matter. As long as I took out Siesta’s enemy, that would be enough.

“You broke the mind control…”

I saw Hel, her red eyes wide.

I raised my left arm, which was wet with blood, and yelled out my feelings for my partner, who would never hear them.

“She’s the most precious person in the world to me!”

My clenched fist bore down on Hel; her face was right in front of me.