Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 5 - Chapter 30

Nagisa begins to run. 

"Natsunagi…" 

I called out her name again, stunned. 

Nagisa Natsunagi, my classmate and partner, who I had once parted with by death and who had been asleep ever since was now blinking in front of me. 

"Yes, my name is Nagisa Natsunagi…hehe, it’s been a long time." 

Then Natsunagi slowly raised her body and gave me a peace sign with a mischievous grin. 

"Hey, Kimizuka, are you crying? Ahaha, you missed me that much…!?" 

I hugged Natsunagi as hard as I could. 

"W-wait… Eh? Ki-Kimizuka…?" 

I could hear Natsunagi's panicked voice right next to my ear, but I wasn’t in the mood to check her face or her condition. But for now, if I could, I wanted to stay like this. 

"…! This is really unexpected…no, Kimizuka? …Eh, eeeeh~…" 

Natsunagi stiffened and looked confused by this situation. 

"Hey Kimizuka, is your character okay? You're not usually the type to do something like this, are you?" 

"…Shut up." 

Argh, my nose got stuffy while I talked. 

I hugged her tightly, trying not to let her see my face at least. 

"…Ahh dear, guess I can’t help it." 

I felt a soft touch wrap my back. 

Natsunagi's arms were holding me. 

"Yeah, I see. That's right, I've always wanted to be treated like this." 

It was basically a reenactment of the time I met Natsunagi in that evening’s classroom. At that time, she was looking for me as a detective, to find the owner of her heart. But in fact, the wish for the heart had already come true at that time, and Natsunagi hugged me in her arms. 

"Erm, well, what’s this about? Oh, after all these tears and snot, do you still want to play with me? Really?" 

"…! You don't have to try to recreate that scene!" 

I shook off her arms, and we finally looked at each other. 

"Pfft." 

"Pfft." 

And then we both giggled. 

It's been a while since I've seen Natsunagi smile like this. 

"Kimizuka, you look terrible." 

Then Natsunagi pointed out my reddened eyes. 

"You wanted to see me that badly, huh?" 

I said to Natsunagi teasingly. 

"Yes, I missed you." 

I told her exactly how I felt. 

"I wanted to meet you and be angry with you." 

"…Uuu." 

Natsunagi turned away, looking unhappy as if she had a premonition of what was to come. 

Since Natsunagi had woken up, I would first tell her off. Sacrificing her own life to save her friend wasn’t the decision. It's not a future anyone would want…but. 

"Well, I’m not in a position to tell you off." 

And when I said so, Natsunagi turned her face towards me. 

I could not deny the possibility that if I were in Natsunagi's position, I would have done the same thing. In fact, I did consume the?seed?, for I was prepared to sacrifice my own life. 

"Besides, I’m so happy to see you alive that I can’t bring myself to be angry." 

"…What is that about?" 

Natsunagi laughed in exasperation, then wiped away the tears that had somehow collected in the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. 

"But, Natsunagi, why did you suddenly regain consciousness?" 

While that was a joyous outcome, we shouldn’t dismiss it as a coincidence. I asked her why this miracle had happened. 

"Why, I wonder?" 

Natsunagi looked out the window of the hospital room. 

"While I was unconscious, I stood by the edge of the beautiful waves. Not in the dark where I couldn't see anything, not in a birdcage where I couldn't go anywhere, like how I was in the past… I was by the clear blue sea and on the white sandy beach where I wanted to run barefoot. There, I've been sitting on the edge of the waves, looking at the ocean." 

It's probably the unconscious world inside Natsunagi. But unlike the time when Hel had controlled her consciousness, it was a mental landscape that Natsunagi had reached as a goal after she assumed she had completed her mission. 

"But as I was looking at the sea, a small hand tapped me on the back." 

Then Natsunagi's right hand reached out to her left chest. 

"When I turned around, there was a cute little girl in front of me who looked like she had just stepped out of Wonderland, like a doll. She was desperately trying to say something, but for some reason, I couldn't hear her voice." 

Natsunagi clutched at her left chest…and her heart within, as though she was remembering that moment. 

Natsunagi already knew who was there, certainly. 

"But then, I heard another girl's voice coming from her mouth. That voice was also very familiar to me, and I couldn't separate the two… I found myself following the voice, just moving along." 

…Yeah, that’s how we always were. We've been moved by her voice when she was our enemy and when she was our friend. She, who bore the name of the underworld’s ruler, wanted to push Natsunagi back into this world. And that word spirit spoke for the voiceless voice of the girl with the peach-colored hair. 

"What did she say to you?" 

I asked, and Natsunagi looked up, saying. 

"Start running," she said. 

The dignified face was different from any other Nagisa Natsunagi I had seen. Nagisa Natsunagi, who has had several other beings in her heart, memories, and consciousness, had thus wholeheartedly accepted the will of those other beings, and surely was reborn again. The girl who had suffered from being a nobody was no longer there. 

"I feel like everything else went by so fast." 

Natsunagi's expression suddenly relaxed. 

"My body, every cell in my body was screaming to meet you. So I ran, ran, and ran past the old Nagisa, now I’ve caught up." 

I'm coming for you. 

Then Natsunagi put her fist lightly against my chest. 

"Why me?" 

"Because, Kimizuka, you were so depressed that you couldn't pick yourself up." 

I could tell even in my sleep, Natsunagi gave a wry smile. 

"…That's why you're." 

That night, Scarlet told me that human instincts were rooted in the DNA of the body, just as blood ran through it, the dead that vampires brought back to life were resurrected with those instincts. 

I didn’t know where Natsunagi's heart, soul, and consciousness lie within her body. Was it her brain, her heart, or each of her cells? But at the very least, we knew what Nagisa Natsunagi's instincts were—detective, and passion. 

Natsunagi, who couldn’t be anybody for a long time, found the path she was supposed to walk when she took on the role of a detective one day. She pursued Siesta, sometimes choosing a different path, but still never lost sight of her duty as a detective. 

That's why, now, the detective had awakened to my call. It was the same as when I battled Chameleon on the cruise ship. Siesta, whose consciousness had been sleeping within Natsunagi's body, woke up when I was in a crisis. This time too, Natsunagi— 

"Aren’t you two quite fond of me?" 

I felt all the baggage fall from my shoulders and teased her. 

"Now, about that problem you're having..." 

"…Oy." 

In response to my retort, Natsunagi giggled as she covered his mouth with the blanket. 

"Too bad, I'm afraid I don't really like Kimizuka." 

Yeah, I know. I don't like you or Siesta one bit either, so it's a mutual thing. 

"But we'll run to you whenever you need us, Kimizuka." 

Natsunagi's ruby gaze turned to me. 

"We'll ignore all common sense, we'll deviate from all theories, we'll replace that coincidence with the word ‘miracle’, and we'll go meet you, Kimizuka." 

If that's what you want. 

Natsunagi spoke for the other detective who wasn’t present. 

"…Say, Natsunagi." 

"Hmm?" 

Natsunagi looked at me gently. 

"Then, if I want to see Siesta again…" 

"Oh, yeah!" 

Then Natsunagi sat up in bed and confidently puts her hands on her hips. 

"That's why you came here, isn't it, Kimizuka?" 

"…You knew." 

As expected of this famous detective, she then said "You have to be up to date when it comes to such stuff" like she had heard that line somewhere before. 

"I mean, I heard you mumbling something to yourself earlier, Kimizuka." 

"…Couldn't you have woken up earlier or something?" 

I just got called a wimp for no reason. 

"In short, Kimizuka, you’re wondering if it's okay to overturn Siesta's answer again, right?" 

Yeah, that's right. Siesta knew all of our thoughts and wishes at this moment, and I didn’t know if it's okay to ruin the decision she made because of my selfishness. 

"Then..." 

Natsunagi's voice cut through my hesitation. 

"Why don't you just rely on such vague things as thoughts and wishes?" 

And with that, she abandoned her one and only weapon, her passion, and said. 

"We’ll surpass Siesta once again. Not just with our feelings this time, but with our abilities." 

And so began our strategy meeting to surpass the famous detective.