Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 5 - Chapter 34

A volley of oath 10,000 meters in the skies. 

The explosion of hand grenades filled the battlefield with black smoke. A girl jumped in the air, and her maid's uniform was fluttering in the wind. 

"I'll leave it to you, Noches." 

Holding my useless right arm, I moved to the shade of the rubble. 

"I see. This is your companion now, I suppose?" 

But just then, through the black smoke flickering in the wind, Siesta's blue eyes caught sight of me for a moment. 

Our consensus was that we didn’t want Siesta to die. If by definition, those who share the same wishes and goals are friends, then the girl who’s running with a sword in her hand was definitely one of them. 

"Still, I didn't expect you to turn against me too." 

In response to Noches, Siesta held up her gun and tried to fight back…but at that moment, the weapon she was holding was shot down by a sniper from far, far away. 

"Charlotte, Yui, you too?" 

Siesta took one look at the building in the direction the bullet had come from, but then quickly turned her gaze back to the person she was now facing. 

"Noches, you weren't made for combat, were you?" 

Avoiding the stab of the one-handed sword, Siesta voiced her unhappiness at her former maid. 

"Yes, as you can see, I have been bluffing in anticipation of this." 

"So you have been planting seeds for two weeks to catch me off guard? That's pretty good preparation." 

Siesta replied with a cool face, probably not taking what Noches said seriously. Did she also realize that Noches had borrowed the power of a certain?Inventor?again? 

"It was Master's teaching that we should be ready to solve a case before it happens." 

Even so, Noches re-positioned herself low and closed the distance between them immediately. 

"I wonder if the tip of that sword is also coated with that anesthetic." 

Yeah, that’s right. If that grazed Siesta even by the slightest, we would win this battle. 

"…But Master, are you not cheesier than me, an android?" 

But then, Siesta pulled out a ballpoint pen from her pocket again and flicked Noches' one-handed sword. 

"I see. Are you implying that the pen is mightier than the sword?" 

"…You're the one who can't keep your mouth shut." 

Noches then switched weapons to her two pistols. The two bullets, fired by her amazingly ambidextrous hands, would certainly…hit the target standing on the ground. 

If the target wasn't Siesta. 

"From now on, none of your attacks will ever get through to me." 

Siesta kicked the ground and threw her body into the air in a backward leap looking down at the bullets tearing through the void below. 

"Then I shall keep going until I get through." 

Noches showed no signs of stopping her attack as she continued to fire away. The maid's uniform was filled with an inexhaustible supply of heavy weapons. Seeing the situation, I thought about what I should do once again and tried to move from my spot. 

"A contest of endurance? That's not very intelligent." 

On the other hand, Siesta continued to dodge Noches' bullets with precision. She kicked the asphalt, ran along the walls of the building, leaped across the roofs, and eventually reached the elevated train tracks. Vines were growing everywhere due to the battle with the?Primordial Seed?, and thus there were no trains running on the empty tracks. 

"I shall not let you escape." 

Seeing this, Noches too followed Siesta, using abandoned cars and telephone poles as footholds. 

"…I’m completely out of their league." 

But it suited me perfectly well. I couldn’t possibly take the shortest route to the elevated tracks like they did. I ran for a few minutes through the deserted streets and somehow made it to the station. 

I leaped over the empty ticket gates, ran up the stairs before I could catch my breath, and my legs got tangled as I ran to the end of the platform. Then, as I cast a hazy glance toward the end of the tracks, I saw Noches on one knee with Siesta pointing a gun at her. Siesta had probably seized the gun, and Noches could not move from the spot. 

"Charl-san, the wind has stopped!" 

A moment later, an idol's voice rang from Noches’ wireless earphones onto the battlefield, which Noches had accidentally dropped. Another bullet flew out of nowhere and missed Siesta's feet. 

It was a sniper shot from a building hundreds of meters away. By using Yui Saikawa's?left eye?to read the wind, Charlotte Arisaka Anderson's sniper shot would be even more accurate. 

It’s true that the?seed?that was dormant in Saikawa's body was retrieved by SEED the other day, but the ability that remained in that left eye hadn’t disappeared. It was as if SEED had tried to leave only the sapphire eye in this world. 

Now, if only their attacks and the pressure of their combination, could slow down Siesta's movements— 

"—That attack won’t work a second time." 

Siesta kicked aside Noches who was in front of her, and quickly turned around and pointed her gun at the blonde agent who was approaching from behind. 

"…Ma'am, you're not surprised I'm here, are you?" 

Charl, who held a dagger, stopped moving immediately. 

Considering that Charl had been sniping from a building far, far away, Siesta couldn’t have expected that Charl herself would climb up the elevated train tracks by herself. But Siesta did. 

"I knew that Assistant and Noches had been deliberately making me listen to Yui's voice all along. The instructions that sounded like they were coming from Charl were all a bluff. The truth is, Charl has been lurking nearby, watching for an opportunity." 

—She knew. 

At gunpoint, Charl bit her lip and threw away the knife she was holding. 

"I didn't expect you to point your blade at me too, Charl." 

"An apprentice must one day surpass her master." 

A moment later, for the umpteenth time, a single bullet grazed the ground beneath Siesta's feet. 

"How did you get this far with only your?left eye??" 

As it hit the rail, it made a violent metallic sound, distracting Siesta for a moment. Meanwhile, Charl stepped back and pointed the muzzle of the gun she had pulled from its holster. 

"You think you can beat me with a quick shot?" 

Siesta did the same, holding her pistol with her right arm straightened. 

"…Well, yes. It's true that I'm still no match for you, Ma'am." 

But, Charl said valiantly. 

"Maybe all of us can surpass you." 

That was the signal. 

"I don't usually let people play this role without a license." 

I straddled the motorcycle that was prepared beforehand, twisted the throttle along with my head, and descended to the tracks below the platform with the engine roaring. And then, 

"…! Why did you do that?" 

Charl threw herself over the edge of the tracks, and Siesta's eyes instead turned towards me as I charged forward on the bike with the?famous detective?musket at the ready. 

"…I didn't give that to you for that purpose." 

"Yeah, return to sender." 

Since that day four years ago, it’s been my job as the detective’s assistant to hand this over to you. 

"But first." 

The target’s about 20 meters away. 

I readied my legs on the bike and used my free hands to fire the musket. 

"Well, I certainly didn't expect this attack." 

But, Siesta's blue eyes turned to me as I blasted down the deserted railroad tracks on my bike. 

"—For the third time, I knew you'd team up." 

And with that, Siesta pulled the trigger in her left hand. The bullets we shot at each other hit each other with the precision of a sewing needle hole. Bam! And they were nullified in mid-air. 

But by the time that happened, the bike I was riding was already in front of Siesta. If I were to hit Siesta with this momentum… 

"…Dammit." 

I swerved and leaned my weight to the right as hard as I could, trying to avoid collision with Siesta. Inevitably, my body is thrown into the air— 

"Are you a fool?" 

I thought I heard a voice seemingly reproach me for trying to do something rash. And then, for a brief moment, I felt my body softly still in midair. 

"…Ow!" 

But right after that, my body was rolling on the railroad tracks. I felt as if my whole body had been whipped. Still, there was no time to gasp in pain or catch my breath on this battlefield. I quickly looked up from the gravel to check the battle situation, and what I saw was. 

"Because this is a battlefield, Charlotte." 

"—!" 

A bullet fired by Siesta had grazed Charl's right shoulder. That shot was surely a courtesy that should not be missed by agents who risked their lives on the battlefield. 

"…Not yet. Not yet, I'm Ma'am and…" 

But Charlotte stood up again with blood pouring from her shoulder, still holding her gun in an attempt to right her master's wrong. Seeing her apprentice, Siesta seemed hesitant as she pointed her gun. Was she thinking about where she should shoot to stop the target's movement for sure, or...? 

"…Charl-san!" 

Then a girl's shadow intervened. The voice of an idol, which I had heard through the phone earlier, was ten meters away from me. 

"—For the fourth time. I know that dedication too." 

Siesta sighed and muttered. 

There was a lag between the shot and the impact, and Siesta, aware of this lag, must have noticed that the sniper was getting closer and closer. Saikawa stood in front of the wounded Charl, gun in hand, and Siesta pointed her gun at Saikawa. 

"I will not let you." 

At that moment, Noches intervened like the wind and kicked up Siesta's right hand. The gun the latter wield flew high in the air. 

"I'm sorry, but I might as well." 

But that didn't stop Siesta from kicking Noches sharply in the stomach again. 

"—!" 

Saikawa and Charl were knocked aside along with Noches, and the three of them rolled on the gravel of the railroad track. Finally, there was no one left to stand in front of Siesta. 

"—Is this the end?" 

She closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. After a few moments, Siesta opened her eyelids again. Her blue eyes stare at us, and I couldn’t see any emotion in them. In other words, the usual famous detective was standing there. 

"Nagisa can't come here, she's still asleep. So it's Priestess, Assassin…or Vampire, but no matter who comes next, I won't lose." 

Siesta said, picking up the musket I had dropped on the tracks with her left hand, and she fired it high into the sky. 

"I'm going to protect the world, so I will kill myself. If you want to prevent me from killing myself, I shall defeat you, and protect you. This is my last job as the?famous detective?." 

That was Siesta's oath as a defender of the world, as a?Tuner?, an ally of justice. In order to keep the?world destroying seed?from sprouting in her body, Siesta must complete her story with her own hands. 

"Therefore, you are my last enemy—Kimihiko Kimizuka." 

With that, Siesta turned her musket on me as I stood up again. 

"Well, this is the first time I've ever been called by my name properly, and here I am." 

I chuckled and pointed my gun at Siesta as well. 

There were two corrections to be made to the oath that Siesta had taken. The first is. 

"…You really never learn, do you, you and your friends?" 

Siesta sighed at the three shadows that stood up behind me. 

Yeah, it's not just me. No one here had yet given up on standing in front of Siesta. 

And Siesta misunderstood something else. 

Siesta, I won't let you finish the job. 

I immediately saw the chance to win.