Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 5 - Chapter 32

The name attached to this feeling. 

"Well then, be my guest." 

As soon as Siesta muttered it, she disappeared. 

"…!" 

But I knew her strength better than anyone in the world. Siesta's movement was basically instantaneous. I threw myself in an absurd direction. And the next moment, a shot rang out nearby. 

"I guess I can't kill you with one shot." 

It seems that my bad luck prevailed this time, and I succeeded in dodging the bullet while rolling on the ground. I ducked behind an abandoned bus. 

"Can't you just give me a little time?" 

"The word ‘wait’ doesn't work in war. For that matter, how do I win this battle?" 

"Hey, don't fire before you’re actually sure…that I admit defeat, that is." 

"I see, so it's only a matter of time. But given your personality, I'm afraid this is going to take much longer." 

Not only did Siesta never expect to lose, but she also implicitly dissed my unwillingness to give up. 

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to reverse the balance of power between us today." 

I shot a bullet from behind the bus…but Siesta acrobatically leaped over it. 

"You're too kind to aim at my legs." 

"You're the crazy one for aiming at my head out of nowhere." 

"You won't admit defeat if I don't inflict even one fatal wound, will you?" 

While we exchanged the usual battlefield banter, I used the large bus as a shield to catch my breath and think of a plan. The battle with SEED two weeks ago had left the place in disarray, so I was able to keep my cover. 

"Do you really think you can beat me like that?" 

"…!" 

The voice of the famous detective descended from above my head, having raised my own death flag. Before I knew it, Siesta was on the roof of the bus, and she jumped without hesitation before kicking me in the right arm. The pistol fell out of my hand. 

"…In fact, I exceeded your expectations at least once." 

I ducked my body under the bus for a moment, not paying attention to the dropped gun. 

"That's just out of emotion. It doesn’t matter if you can’t beat me through skill." 

Yeah, that's a good point, but I knew that too. I’d been thinking about it, and so I stood on the battlefield. That's why I couldn’t simply retreat. 

"…!" 

When I saw Siesta's feet from under the bus, I jumped out of the vehicle and opened fire with the other gun in my holster…but. 

"…Seriously, I could have died." 

Siesta seemingly anticipated this as her bullet whizzed right by my face. No, it only grazed me by a few millimeters, and a thin stream of blood flowed from my cheek. 

"Do you want to die?" 

Siesta tilted her head in a dumbfounded manner. 

Still as relaxed as ever. So, 

"You said it yourself—this is war." 

I didn’t hesitate and continued to fire at Siesta randomly. Obviously, I wasn’t going to kill Siesta with these bullets; that would be defeating the purpose. In other words, this attack is based on the trust that Siesta will dodge. But in the process, if just one bullet, just like the one that just grazed my cheek, if just a little bit of the bullet grazed Siesta— 

"I see." 

Siesta dodged the hail of bullets with the movements of an action actor, leaped high as if she just jumped off a trampoline, and landed on the rubble a few meters above the ground. Then looked down at me with a blank expression. 

"Is there some kind of anesthetic in that bullet of yours?" 

Too bad, she’d seen right through my plan. 

"…" 

"You've got the same look as usual." 

Siesta dodged another one of my bullets as she jumped down, giving me unnecessary advice on how to improve my poker face. 

"Your victory condition isn’t, but to immobilize me, and," 

…The hasty shooting might have alerted her to this plan. But still. 

"Yes, every weapon I use has that drug. Even 0.01mg in the body will stop an African elephant or a blue whale. In other words, if I get even one shot, I win." 

The issue however was that I couldn’t get a scratch on her fatal wound. That restriction would be the greatest pressure on the battlefield. While she saw through my plan, I could still use that against her. 

"I'm not going to take even a millimeter of your attack from the start." 

But the next thing I know, I feel a presence behind me. By the time I realized it was Siesta, I got kicked in the right arm again, and the gun in my hand flew away. 

"…! You’re right, I don’t have anything to use in my right hand…" 

I immediately drew a knife from my pocket and held it up with my left hand to confront Siesta in front of me. 

"I wonder if the tip of that blade is coated with anesthetic as well." 

I saw a ballpoint pen in Siesta’s hand and flicked my knife with it. Siesta's powerful kick exploded in my abdomen. 

"…Grr…ha!" 

The moment I was out of breath, the laws of physics sent my body sprawling across the asphalt. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed with pain all over, but I overcame that with the unwillingness to give up as I reached for the gun I've been missing. 

"Yes, you shall die here." 

At the same time…or rather, a tad earlier, Siesta’s voice stopped me in my tracks. I slowly looked up to see Siesta holding the gun with her left hand, pointing the muzzle at me. 

"If I pull this trigger now, you'll die. But you won't. I don't think you're stupid enough to know what that means." 

Siesta's blue eyes narrowed slowly. Just as I had started this big fight while making this a repeat of the hijacking incident four years ago, Siesta was trying to get me to admit defeat, as if this was a reenactment of how she subdued Bat. 

"…You've been calling people stupid for so long, and now you're finally going to do it?" 

But Siesta was right. If I didn’t want to be hurt, if I didn’t want to be fatally wounded, I should probably back off here. But when I saw Siesta holding the gun with her left hand facing me, a conversation I had with her came to my mind. 

It was an ordinary scene in my daily life. In terms of money, we had no money, and we were sitting at a table in a cheap apartment in a foreign land. Siesta was acting like most Japanese, holding chopsticks in her right hand and poking at a side dish, so I asked her. 

"Siesta, aren't you left-handed?" 

She nodded her head dubiously at this obvious question. Of course, Siesta had always eaten like that, and on the battlefield, she had held her gun with her right hand. Still, I had mistaken Siesta for being left-handed because I had been brought into this world by her left hand. 

—Let's go on a journey, Siesta always reached out her left hand to me and gave her billion point smile, so that’s why I made the mistake of assuming so. 

"Are you a fool?" 

Siesta chided me as usual. 

"The hand that holds the gun is my right hand." 

"You’re saying that while holding chopsticks?" 

We exchanged a few snide remarks, but for some reason, Siesta smiled and said, 

"So from now on, I'll only offer my left hand to you." 

Siesta's philosophy was both understandable and illogical. It’ll probably be a cliché if I tried to explain it, but as long as I keep the answer in my heart, she would continue to extend her left hand towards me. So that day, I didn’t ask Siesta to explain any further. 

If there’s one thing I knew, it's that Siesta is standing here on the battlefield with a gun in her left hand that she should have been holding out to me, and in Siesta's words—I wasn’t so stupid enough to know what that means. 

"…Yeah, you're right. I've lost." 

Siesta held me up at gunpoint, I fell to my knees, pathetically admitting defeat. 

—But. 

"So, can I just say one last thing?" 

I was in the middle of an unobstructed scramble intersection. 

I slowly stood up, raising my hands in the air as if to show that I have no intention of resisting. 

"Begging for your life?" 

"Don't try to take my life when I've already admitted defeat." 

I sighed as I saw Siesta with a threatening look. 

"It's not that, it's just that I don't think I’ve answered the question…of why I'm trying to stop you." 

That's what Siesta asked me just before this battle started. Why won't you let me die, the monster I'll eventually become? Why do you keep chasing me, why do you keep trying to get involved with me? The answer that came to my mind was so obvious, but that's why I didn't say it to Siesta. 

Looking back, that’s how we always were. We didn't tell each other the important things, we thought we understood each other, and we always found ourselves at odds, yet believed in this invisible bond…no, it certainly connected us, but after some point, we started to rely on it too much. 

I was sure there was a bond between us, but we never confirmed it with words because I didn't think we needed to. I thought we could communicate by putting our backs to each other in a firefight. 

"Thoughts are more than just words. It sure sounds good when you put it like that." 

I took a step, two towards Siesta, undaunted by the gun pointed at me. 

"! What…?" 

Siesta, perhaps unsure of my intentions, exerted more grip on the gun in her left hand. 

"I'm just trying to demonstrate that you have to say it to get it across." 

It's been three years. We've talked so much. 

But apparently, we've been slacking off a little too much. 

"Why would I want to bring you back to life? Why did I think those three years of trouble would be fun? There's only one answer to that question, isn't there?" 

I've never said this simple thing before. It seemed to me that if I said it, everything would seem like a cliché. 

"It's because I like you." 

I stood before Siesta and said these words, her blue eyes widened in surprise. 

I wasn’t going to try to explain whether this feeling was so-called infatuation, family love, or neighborly love. I couldn’t name this feeling as of yet. But still, that would be the closest and simplest word to this feeling that I have had for the past three years, and still have till this point. 

"Well, that’s surprising." 

Siesta lowered her gun, probably without realizing it herself, and muttered in an absent-minded voice. 

"You never noticed that before, did you, Famous Detective?" 

"…The problem was that your level of tsundereness was extraordinary." 

We exchanged a few words, and then our mouths slackened. 

Apparently, this time, my words had reached her. 

"—But." 

But a blue flame flickered again in the depths of Siesta's eyes. 

"Some problems can't be solved by emotion alone." 

A gunshot rang out. The bullet from her gun passed right by my cheek. 

"You knew that. I'm not going to be persuaded by your confession now." 

"I didn't mean to confess though?" 

"Oh, I see. A marriage proposal perhaps?" 

Why is this a choice? I chuckled as I raised my hands meekly again. I had already admitted defeat, to begin with. I couldn’t resist at all when I had no weapon at hand. 

"After all, I'm no match for you." 

But I'd known that from the start—because. 

"From here on out, we'll take the challenge." 

The next moment, there was a deafening explosion and a cloud of black smoke. 

"A hand grenade…!" 

When Siesta noticed the intruder, she leaped backward and left the scene. 

However, following Siesta, a girl burst onto the battlefield, cutting through the black smoke. 

"Is it not a little too cruel to not meet the maid who had taken such good care of you until now?" 

The maid with the rapier in her hand rebelled against her master, her silvery hair fluttering in the gales—and then. 

"Charl-san, now!" 

A girl's voice echoed across the battlefield from the phone in my breast pocket. I then heard gunfire, and it was the sound of an agent sniping at a Famous Detective from the roof of a distant building. 

"…So that’s how it is." 

Siesta narrowly dodged the shot that pierced the asphalt. Having realized what I…or we were up to, she frowned unhappily. 

"Sorry, Siesta, but this is the real final battle." 

We’re not going to stop until we save the famous detective.