Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 8 - Chapter 2.8

 Battlefield of revenge

Natsunagi and I desperately ran down the stairs of the deserted office building.

Thanks to the power outage, the elevator was still unusable. If we wanted to escape, we had to get down twenty-seven floors.

“This is our chance, while he’s eating,” I said.

Natsunagi gagged, clapping a hand over her mouth.

“Sorry,” I apologized, but I kept running. Gluttony had promptly started to devour the White Tengu’s corpse. He’d opened his huge mouth, sinking his teeth into flesh and slurping up the blood with his long tongue. That had to be the source of his name… Frankly, I didn’t even want to think about it. I just sprinted down the stairs toward the exit.

“You know about that man, Kimizuka?”

“Not well, but…he used to be an enemy of the world.”

I filled Natsunagi in on what I knew about Gluttony. Including him, there were a total of seven supernaturals named after the seven deadly sins. They had once been designated enemies of the world, but the designation had been removed for some reason. And Gluttony was Reloaded’s sworn enemy.

“Apparently, he’s in the habit of eating any living thing that has outstanding genes.”

“…And we have to escape from it.” Turning pale, Natsunagi ran down the stairs.

The nineteenth floor—the stairs seemed to go on forever. They reminded me of that night at the hospital last Christmas. I hadn’t been able to use the elevator that time, either, and I’d kept running downstairs for all I was worth—

“Kimizuka! Look…!”

I’d been keeping my eyes on my feet, but Natsunagi grabbed my arm and yanked. Gluttony was on a landing a few floors up, peering down at us. Because of that mask, I couldn’t tell whether his eyes were on us or not, but that protruding mouth was definitely smiling.

“Natsunagi, this way!”

I tugged her by the hand through the stairwell door, taking us into the eighteenth floor.

If we’d stayed on the stairs, he’d have caught us in no time. Racing down a hall, we looked for somewhere to hide.

Turned out I was right. There was a dull crash back in the stairwell, as if someone had dropped a ton or two of steel. The supernatural had jumped down, and now he was hot on our heels. Natsunagi and I ducked into a room with rows and rows of desks.

“For now, let’s hide here.”

I led Natsunagi to the very back of the room, where we hid behind what was probably a senior worker’s desk.

It was five thirty PM; there was a thunderstorm outside, and the lights in the office were off. The two of us hugged our knees in the dark, holding our breath. Before long, we heard a sharp, metallic clanking out in the hall.

“…Ah-ha-ha. That’s really pretty scary.” Natsunagi was doing her best to sound cheerful, but she buried her face in her knees.

What options did we have?

We couldn’t use the elevator or the stairs. We were still on the eighteenth floor, nowhere near low enough to survive jumping out a window. We had no way to escape.

“I’ll draw the enemy away.”

In that case, we’d have to fight. I took out the gun Ms. Fuubi had given me.

“Natsunagi, if he shows up, you go through the opposite door. Don’t stop; run all the way down to the first floor.”

“…No. You’re not strong, Kimizuka. He’ll kill you in a heartbeat.”

“Don’t worry. He apparently eats the corpses as soon as he kills them. You should be able to get away while he’s busy with…”

But Natsunagi had raised her head.

“Don’t say that. Don’t even joke about it,” she said, looking me straight in the eye. “If we die, we’re dying together.” She meant it.

“That’s a little codependent.”

“Do you hate needy girls or something?” Natsunagi pouted.

I gave her a wry smile. “I could never hate you, Natsunagi.”

Then I lunged out from cover and got up on top of the desk.

The supernatural was already really close.

“Sorry, but before you eat me, have a couple of bullets to chew on.”

I pulled the trigger and fired once, twice. The shots hit him in the head and chest, but that armor or whatever it was deflected them. Then Gluttony tossed his greatsword away, leaning forward in a loose motion. That beast-like stance reminded me of the White Tengu he’d just eaten. Then he opened his big mouth and laughed.

Were those white fangs and long tongue going to devour me next? …No way in hell.

Now on all fours, Gluttony leaped at me, and I jumped down from the desk and slid under him. Then I fired a shot from his blind spot. The bullet went straight through his jaw, his one vulnerable point.

“________! Ah, ■, uh, ■■!”

It was the first time Gluttony had spoken.

Technically, it was more sound than speech, but the bestial cry had to be proof that I’d done damage. Like me, Natsunagi had pegged this as a chance; she darted out from behind the desk and started running toward us, except—

“Natsunagi, dodge!”

“Huh?”

—the supernatural wasn’t down yet. Although we couldn’t see his eyes, they were definitely turned toward Natsunagi. I leveled the gun, aiming at the supernatural’s right arm as he reached for her and firing without hesitation, but the bullet cut through empty space.

I hadn’t misaimed, and the enemy hadn’t dodged. Just before I fired, someone else’s attack had blasted Gluttony away.

“I heard protecting the detective was the assistant’s job. Was I wrong?”

The newcomer taunted me lazily. He was holding a weapon that looked like a big sickle over his shoulder, and its tip was red with blood. Gluttony had collapsed a few meters away; his side had taken a whole lot of damage. Once Natsunagi saw that, she ran up to me.

“If it hadn’t been for you, I would’ve shot that thing—Ookami.”

The proxy assistant turned back slightly, glanced at me, and smirked. Natsunagi was staring, too, startled by Ookami’s intrusion.

“Weren’t you and Natsunagi acting separately today?”

“Guarding the Ace Detective is my job. I’ve been tailing you the whole time. I was never more than a hundred meters away.”

So he was basically a stalker, then. Although, his enthusiasm for his job was impressive.

“Still, who’d have thought you were such a fighter?”

He’d said he was officially with the Security Police, but what was up with that huge sickle?

“As long as I’ve got this, no one dies on my watch,” Ookami muttered huskily. Then he shot Natsunagi a sidelong glance. “Either way, we’ll talk after that thing’s down. That okay with you, Ace Detective?”

“Yes, absolutely! Let him have it!” Natsunagi thrust out her fist, entrusting everything to her dependable partner.

“He completely stole my job, didn’t he…?” I grumbled.

Ookami nodded to Natsunagi, then faced forward. Even though Gluttony was bleeding heavily from his side, he got to his feet. He roared, and the fight was on. Tongue wriggling, he drew two of the greatswords that grew from his back. Now upright again, the supernatural sprinted toward us.

“This won’t take long. I’ll have my revenge.”

Revenge? But there was no time for me to ask what he meant. Ookami dropped into a crouch and swept his great sickle in a horizontal slash, countering the enemy’s attack.

With a violent, metallic clang, the blades locked. In terms of weapons, Gluttony had an overwhelming material advantage—when one blade broke, he just drew another from his shoulders or back.

And yet it was hardly an equal fight. How was that possible? Frankly, Ookami didn’t look all that strong, but not one of Gluttony’s attacks had even scratched him. Maybe he was just a combat genius, but…

“This room’s a little cramped. Let’s do this over there.”

Pushing Gluttony with his sickle, he launched them both right through the office windows.

Without so much as a glance at each other, Natsunagi and I ran over to the broken windows.

What we saw was the combatants still grappling, weapons clashing, as they plunged down from the eighteenth floor.

“Kimizuka, we need to go, too!”

“…Yeah, let’s get down there fast.”

That said, it wasn’t like we could jump. Instead, we headed for the stairs and ran down all eighteen floors without pausing to rest.

Outside, the sun had already set, but the rainstorm had mostly abated. We hurried through the drizzle, searching for the battle.

“Kimizuka, look!”

There they were, in an intersection a little way from the office building.

Gluttony was a lot more torn up than he had been earlier; Ookami had scratches, and his clothes were dirty, but he was steady on his feet. The pair were facing off across a distance of a few meters. The fight was just about over.

“Gluttony, I’ll take on your sins.”

Ookami got a better grip on his sickle.

Having lost his weapons, Gluttony opened his mouth and howled weakly.

“Nobody else is allowed to kill that guy.”

A gunshot skimmed past Natsunagi and me, then past Ookami, heading straight for Gluttony. With a bellow that made me want to cover my ears, the enemy dropped to one knee.

I didn’t even have to turn around to know who was responsible.

Reloaded was the only one who’d say that.

Hair wet, dressed in her street clothes, the Magical Girl staggered forward. Holding a gun instead of her magic staff, she approached her mortal enemy one step at a time.

“Rill won’t let anyone get in the way. This guy is dead. Rill’s going to kill him. That’s Rill’s, her only—”

In the next moment, she vanished.

The next thing I saw was Rill lunging at Gluttony, shoving her gun down his throat. Gluttony bit down on her arm, but that didn’t seem to faze her. She pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t go off. It had been crushed between Gluttony’s teeth.

“Let Rill go, you piece of—!” I fired my gun instead.

Gluttony dodged, but during that brief moment, his powerful jaws released Rill’s arm. Ookami grabbed the opportunity to scoop her up and put some distance between them and Gluttony.

“Reckless courage is a sin.”

“Let…go!”

Rill shook herself free and headed back toward Gluttony, bleeding arm and all. “It’s him! Rill swears she’ll kill him, if no one else! If she doesn’t, that day, that promise with Freya, won’t ever…!”

She reached into the distance with her bloody hand. Beyond it…

“This place seems a bit too chaotic.”

Someone had spoken.

“The many wills of many people are intersecting, which makes it difficult to pull the tale back on track.”

The voice belonged to a latecomer to this party.

I recognized the voice, though. In fact, you could say I’d been listening for it. Not that I was happy to hear it now.

The sun had set, and the streets were dark; he appeared from nowhere in particular.

“Have no fear—I will take on all of it. Who wishes to kill whom? Who wishes to let whom live? I can make it all happen. Yes, I, the Vampire.”

The white demon, Scarlet—the vampire we’d been searching for—had shown up on his own. He walked toward Gluttony, who was breathing roughly.

“—Scarlet. Why are you here? Why now?”

“Ha-ha. It’s been quite some time, human. Your expressions are as hysterical as ever. You should learn a bit from that woman’s composure,” the vampire sneered.

By “that woman,” he meant the absent detective.

“Come, let us bring down the curtain for the moment. You may resume once all the preparations have been made.”

Gluttony, gasping feebly beside Scarlet, began to vanish into the darkness.

“Wait!”

I hastily leveled my gun, trying to stop him—

“Kimihiko Kimizuka. This is not your time.”

The vampire’s eyes turned toward me. The next thing I knew, I was kneeling on the asphalt.

“W-wait…!” Rill screamed, but neither her voice nor her outstretched hand reached into that deep darkness. Both Scarlet and Gluttony melted into the shadows.

“Rill…”

In the dark, the Magical Girl’s back was trembling slightly.