Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 4 - Chapter 4.1

A certain man's monologue 

"…I-I'm tired." 

A teeny-weeny voice rang, and the girl slumped weakly on the spot. 

She usually sings and dances intensely, so she probably had more physical strength than most people… Given that she's saying such words of weakness though, I guess she's really reaching the limit of her physical strength. Not much we could do then. 

"We'll have a break in an hour." 

"You're a demon!" 

Shaking her mesh hair, the girl, Yui Saikawa, barked at me like a dog. 

"Rest! Rest! I need to rest now! I'm invoking my landlord authority!" 

And so she laid down on the dojo floor, flailing her limbs about. It seems she's not going to move from her spot. 

"I'll wait for five minutes." 

After that, we left Fuubi Kase's apartment and went to the martial dojo of the Saikawas. It's the third day of the training to awaken that ?left eye?, but the results were still less than ideal. It's impossible to win against SEED at this point. 

"Listen up, that ?left eye? gets far more visual information than an ordinary person. Take advantage of it to learn more about your opponent's actions at…." 

"You are not allowed to teach! Bat-san, take a break too! 

It's quite a rare experience to be scolded by a young girl. With this refreshing feeling in mind, I reeled the ?feeler? of my right ear back. I intended to train her ?left eye? until she could at least evade my attacks. 

"I thought you were training me to be able to do that ." 

Yui Saikawa got up on the spot and asked me, looking troubled. 

"You see, I too have a ?seed? inside me, right? Maybe I can grow something like a feeler from my left eye. " 

It's a little gross though , so Yui Saikawa muttered. 

"Haha, you don't need to grow that. Actually, you shouldn't." 

I mocked myself and told her how this ?feeler? worked. 

"It looks like a feeler , but it's actually something like a branch that sprouted. It can freely change its hardness and elasticity, and can grow back no matter how many times it's cut off… It's certainly easy to use as a weapon." 

"Then…" 

"But," 

I interrupted the Sapphire girl. 

"If it sprouts, it shows that the seed is using your entire body as nutrients." 

Right, this ?seed? gives a person extraordinary physical, recovery, or psychic powers, but the price was that it would drain a lot of nutrients from the human body. Such were the seeds—a double-edged sword that would demand equivalent exchange. 

"That's why Bat-san's eyes are…" 

Yeah, that's right. I got these bat ears, and the cost was my eyesight was taken by the ?seed?. Some ?SPES? were like me, half-androids, who had their lifespans drained as nutrients, and then they wilted and died… No, those who died might be the luckier ones. If the ?seed? gained enough nutrients and the physical body still couldn't die, then… 

"Well, Missy, you don't have to worry about that." 

I wasn't trying to comfort her. I merely stated the established fact about the ?seed? inside her, as I too had it. 

"Fortunately or not for you, Missy, you were discovered by SEED as a potential vessel. Appropriate measures were taken to prevent the side effects, and you were planted with a ?seed? called the ?left eye?. It's hard to imagine that it will germinate now." 

In fact, the eye disease she had suffered from as a child has completely cured thanks to the amazing recovery ability she gained from the ?seed?. The possibility of her having any side effects now would be almost zero. 

"…I see, so that's why Siesta-san and Hel-san couldn't produce a ?feeler? even though they had the ?seed?." 

"Yeah. You can say this was the condition for being a potential vessel.  It's basically those who successfully prevented the ?seed? from going crazy and do not have any side effects." 

In other words, when the seed germinates, it means some kind of side effect will occur…or has already occurred. 

"Is Kimizuka-san okay?" 

Yui Saikawa muttered with a teeny-weeny voice, being worried about the guy who's not here now. 

"He definitely wants a wish fulfilled so badly that he didn't care about such a risk." 

Nobody else could interfere at this point. He had to continue down the path of carnage on his own, without stopping, as long as that's the future he chose. 

"Right now, you should worry about yourself first, not others." 

I told her that she didn't need to worry about the side effects, but that also meant that SEED would continue to target her as a vessel, and unless SEED was defeated, her safety would never be guaranteed. 

"Fufu, You're surprisingly overprotective, aren't you, Bat-san?" 

Then the Sapphire girl smiled at me for some reason. 

"Oh, but no matter how much you care about me, you can't fall in love with an idol. You're not Kimizuka-san." 

What are you talking about? Don't apply the same mood when you chat with your friends to me. 

"Ha, you've been talking about that guy all day." 

But then I realized I was talking about him too. 

"… Please don't hit me where it hurts. I'm supposed to be the joker, aggressive one, and the one saying all the nonsense." 

I see. It's difficult to communicate. I've forgotten how to do it after living in a villa for a few years… Nope, in my case, it's been this way since I was born. Haha. 

"But, why are you so overprotective of me?" 

And then that's what she asked me. To be honest, I really didn't want to talk about this either. 

"I guess we're similar in some way." 

But it's not a topic I had to avoid. 

I recalled the face from a long time back behind my eyelids and muttered so. 

"? I'm Japanese though." 

Did she know I was talking about someone? 

Yui Saikawa felt that appearance-wise, she didn't resemble—my little sister, and asked so. 

"Yeah. Looks-wise, that agent girl amongst your friends will resemble her most, I guess. I believe she has blonde hair and emerald eyes?" 

"Ah, yes, you mean Charl-san… I see, your sister has the same hair and eye color as you." 

Yes, in that dump of a house. She was still a little girl at the time. Her bright blond hair shone in the sun, and her eyes glittered like jewels, laughing—but that was more than twenty years ago. 

"So, you're saying that I'm like your little sister on the inside, Bat-san?" 

"Well, something like that." 

I said, recalling my old memories again. 

"She's a cocky little brat at least." 

"We aren't similar at all then!" 

"What are you talking about, you're exactly the same." 

Even the way they tilted their head. Seriously. 

She was cocky, selfish, and knew that I was vulnerable to her smile—but at heart, she's a straightforward, kind, and strong girl who could live for someone else. 

It was because of that little sister that I was able to say— 

"Okay, break's over." 

I swallowed the words that were rising in my throat and urged her to continue her training. 

We chatted a little too long, but there were still many things I needed to teach the Sapphire Girl. That was my thought as I dragged my heavy body—and then, 

"Bat-san." 

Yui Saikawa called out my name. 

"Can I talk to you one more time about that person?" 

"…What's wrong?" 

She then said something that would determine our fate. 

"It's a message from Kimizuka-san—SEED will be coming to us soon."