Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 5 - Chapter 28

The True End of Route X. 

"What do you mean Ma'am's gone…!?" 

Charl grabbed me by the chest and went into a frenzy. 

Her blonde hair was wildly dishevelled, and she turned her sharp, angry eyes on me. 

"…It’s as I said." 

I didn’t fight back, I simply told her the truth. 

"Siesta is not coming back to us. That's what the letter said." 

I remember the events of the prior morning. The moment I woke up, I noticed that Siesta wasn't sleeping next to me, and I found a letter on the desk instead. In it, she wrote her usual light-hearted words, a simple thank you for everything, and a farewell. 

Usually, she would sleep until the next evening, but it took her just a moment to disappear. At the wall next to my bed was a familiar musket. It's as though she was saying she didn’t need it anymore. 

And in the letter Siesta left behind, there was no mention of the all-important reason for her disappearance… No, there was logic in that. She said that she was going to retire from?famous detective?and become an ordinary detective again, and that she was going to travel alone from now on, and that she wanted me, who had grown enough as an assistant, to support Natsunagi, who was going to become the new?famous detective?one day. Her argument was a good one that I couldn’t really argue, and that's why I intuitively thought that it was not true. It wasn't just a hunch, it was the experience of spending three years with her telling me so. 

But the fact remained that Siesta was no longer around, and I had returned to Japan that day with only her musket, so I called Charl and the others to report. 

"So you just saw that letter and came back alone without knowing Ma'am's true intentions or anything? Then, Kimizuka, nothing has changed since a year ago…!” 

"Calm down, Charl-san!" 

A girl interceded between us. 

"Kimizuka-san, let me ask you again. Is Siesta-san really gone from you, Kimizuka-san…or from us?" 

Yui Saikawa turned her faltering eyes towards me, and we were in a room in her mansion. 

"Thank goodness you can walk again." 

Saikawa had been in a wheelchair just a few days ago, but now she was standing on her own feet. 

"Please don't throw me off. I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about Siesta-san…" 

Saikawa got a little angry, probably trying to reprimand me…only to stop. 

"Kimizuka-san, you look awful." 

"Haha, are you insulting me?" 

"…There’s no need to try and joke it off." 

Please sit down, Saikawa said, offering me a chair. 

"…Now that I think about it, I kind of had a hunch." 

So I plopped down in the chair and told the girls what I'd been thinking before I came here… and what I'd been feeling about Siesta's behavior lately. 

For example, Siesta had been saying stuff like she didn’t have time every once in a while ever since she was revived. However, I had assumed this might mean that we had to defeat SEED quickly or that we had to wake up Natsunagi. 

In addition, while saying that we had to hurry, Siesta actually took me to a distant foreign country to meet with?Tuners?I hadn't seen yet, or invite me out to a musical, or suddenly start reminiscing …but the inconsistency in her words and actions was something I had experienced a year ago. 

And above all, Siesta relinquished the position of?Famous detective?and appointed Natsunagi as her successor. She said that she could continue to be a detective even if she stopped being a?Famous Detective?, but there’s a different meaning to her retirement. 

"Perhaps, Siesta is—" 

"—! That's not possible!" 

Charl, who had finished listening to my story, looked down and shouted. 

"Ma'am just came back to life, the?Primordial Seed?was finally defeated, Nagisa will wake up, and we'll finally get to the happy ending she was talking about, right? But Ma'am is going to …Ma'am can't just disappear again, that's not…!" 

"Maybe Kimihiko's guess is right." 

At that moment, another person entered the room. 

It was the ex-maid?Siesta?—Noches. She apologized for being late for this matter and started talking, probably to reinforce my hypothesis. 

"As Charlotte said, the?Primordial Seed?was indeed destroyed. However, seed fragments still remain in this world. Yes, in Siesta's left chest." 

…Ahh, that's right. The?seeds? were removed from my body, Saikawa, and Natsunagi's bodies during the final battle against SEED. But it still remained in Siesta's heart. Until now, she had been benefiting from the power of the?Seed?, fighting the world's enemies with physical abilities that were impossible for ordinary people. 

"However, the?seeds?created by SEED have many different hidden blades. Those who consume it will lose their eyesight, hearing, or even their life span to the seed. And the end result is…" 

"Wait a minute!" 

Saikawa hurriedly interrupted Noches. 

"I know the rest. Mr. Albert told us before what happens to people who have been eaten up by the?seed?. But Siesta-san was originally a candidate for a SEED vessel, wasn't she? Then…" 

"…I see, Siesta wasn't a perfect fit." 

I said, and Noches nodded quietly. 

That was before Siesta had conspired with Mia to deceive SEED. The original entry in the?Bible?showed a future where Siesta would be defeated by Hel. That was one fact that could be derived from that authentic history. Siesta was a lesser vessel for the?Primordial Seed?compared to Hel. 

"Nagisa Natsunagi is the only one fully compatible with the ?Primordial Seed? ." 

At this moment, the words that the?Inventor?Stephen had offhandedly mentioned a week ago came to mind. Natsunagi was the most suitable vessel for the?Primordial Seed?, and Siesta was destined to be eaten away by the Seed in her heart. 

"Then, no way, Ma'am." 

And then Charl said something decisive. 

"Are you saying that she’s trying to disappear before she becomes a monster?" 

Yes, a person whose body has been completely consumed by the?Seed?will lose his or her sense of self and fall into a monstrous form. Just as we fought the berserking Chameleon on the cruise ship, or Betelgeuse which was created as a biological weapon, such was the ending for those who were controlled by the?seed?. 

Siesta knew it was a matter of time until this happened. That's why she disappeared from our sight before the time limit came. 

"Wait, wait. What if Ma'am knew that she would eventually become a monster, and she…?" 

There’s no need to mention what Siesta would do in that case. 

Before she transformed into a monster, she— 

"…!" 

Charl ran out of the room. 

"Where are you going?" 

"Isn’t it obvious!? To find Ma'am…!" 

"She's!" 

Charl's shoulders jumped at the unexpected outcry from me. 

"She knew what she was doing, and that’s her choice." 

"But then! Just because she knows he's going to become a monster, it doesn't mean she's choosing to die…!" 

"That's not true." 

I told Charl, staring at the floor. 

"You know how much we thought about Siesta, how happy we were to see her again. Yet she knows all of that and made this choice." 

"…!" 

Thus, it’s a different story than the last time. 

It's true that we got her back again, beyond Siesta's will or intentions. 

But this time, Siesta knew all about our feelings. She knew. And then she decided she had no choice but to do this, and disappeared from our sight. I couldn't easily disregard the silent intentions of such a famous detective. 

"Don't worry, let's calm down first." 

Suddenly, I feel a warm touch on my hand. 

“Hold your hands together, roll your shoulders, breathe calmly, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and exhale. Feel the blood moving, open your eyes, and your blurry vision will clear up.” 

That was Saikawa's usual spell. She gently took my opened hand. 

"Siesta-san has made her choice. Now it's your turn to choose, Kimizuka-san." 

She takes off her eye patch and stares at me with two different colored eyes. 

"…Am I allowed to choose again?" 

"Of course, it's your life, Kimizuka-san." 

Saikawa approached me with a smile that somehow made me want to cry. 

But I couldn't give her an answer so easily, considering that my selfishness had caused the situation. 

"We've always been like this, haven't we?” 

It was Charl who looked away and let out a lonely sigh. 

"We'd have conflicts, we'd argue, we'd fail, and then we'd get on the wrong side of each other again. 

Yeah, that's right. Every time we did that, Siesta would scold us, sighing at us like we were idiots, but in the end, the detective would guide us down the right way with a smile at the very end. But that Siesta is no longer here. All because of my naive wish. 

"Charlotte, I'm sorry." 

The one person who can lead us to tomorrow is gone. 

"The detective is still here!" 

Charl came up to me with loud footsteps, angry or bawling. 

She put her hands on my shoulders and yelled out loud. 

"There's another detective in our group! Because that day, she told me…that she was the detective, that she was Ma'am's legacy, that she wanted to continue being the famous detective!" 

The scene on the cruise ship someday comes back to my mind. Back then, Charl had never acknowledged Natsunagi as the famous detective, thinking that only she herself was worthy to carry on that mantle. 

But now, Charl has entrusted this role to her. She had entrusted our futures…and Siesta’s, to another famous detective who remains alive. 

"Kimihiko." 

Noches called out to me. In her hand was the key to her car. 

Would the answer lie wherever Natsunagi was? Wouldn’t it just be confronting a reality that we couldn’t change? I didn’t know. 

"If you do not know, let go." 

Noches, who had once been conscious in Siesta's body, said as she looked over her back. 

I felt a trace of the famous detective in her and found myself stepping forward.