Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 8 - Chapter 3.5

 Pandemonium

We’d parted ways with Stephen and gotten out of the underground passage, and now, once again, Natsunagi and I were in a car driven by a Man in Black.

The sun had already set, and the black luxury car sped down the wide, dark street. We knew exactly where we were going; the tablet in my hand indicated our destination with a red pointer.

“So she’s here, then.” Natsunagi leaned over from my left to see the screen.

“Yeah. We can use Rill’s chip implant to pinpoint her location.”

The chip was there to monitor her health, and Drachma was in charge of it. Since this data was a violation of patient privacy, he normally never would have shown it to us. However, Stephen was her original attending physician, and he’d given permission for Drachma to provide this.

If Rill found out, she’d probably lose it, but she’d done the same thing to me on Christmas. Now we were even.

“She’s hardly moved for a while, though. And if she’s on a street…”

“Yeah, she’s almost definitely in a fight.”

What worried me was that, as Natsunagi had pointed out, Rill hadn’t really moved. I’d seen her fight, and she usually sprinted all over the battlefield. If she was steamrolling the enemy so thoroughly that she didn’t have to do that, great, but if that wasn’t the reason—if something was keeping her pinned down, I didn’t see any cause for optimism here.

“—Whoa!”

Just then, we braked suddenly.

The car tilted hard to the right, and Natsunagi tumbled into me. I ended up catching her in my arms, and our cheeks connected. I caught the light scent of citrus.

“You okay?”

“Y-yeah. Sorry.” Combing her hair with her fingers, Natsunagi shifted away from me. I could still feel her warmth on my left cheek, though, and my fingertips drifted to the spot.

“W-we didn’t, right? Our cheeks just touched, that’s all. Right?”

“Natsunagi, taking advantage of the confusion to do a thing like that isn’t, uh…”

“Liar! We totally didn’t! There was no ki… Nothing like that, I swear!”

“I know; quit worrying. I’ll forget about that, and I won’t tell anybody.”

“Qu-quit acting so mature about it… It just couldn’t happen, okay?! There’s no way I’d kiss you, Kimizuka. Like, for all eternity!”

As I tried to calm the agitated Natsunagi down, I took another look around.

Why had the car stopped like that? I couldn’t picture a Man in Black being a careless driver. When I looked out the windshield, I saw a crowd of several dozen people. They’d formed a line and were walking right down the middle of the street.

“Is this a Bon dance? Or some kind of festival?”

“But it’s winter. And they don’t look like they’re having fun.”

Natsunagi and I were both puzzled.

Was it some kind of protest, then? But nobody was saying a word.

“It can’t be…”

As I looked at the faces of the people in the crowd, it hit me. I’d seen that before.

“They’re Scarlet’s undead.”

Natsunagi’s eyes went wide. Like me, she was focused on the lifeless army of undead. They seemed rather vacant; they were struggling forward, just barely staying in formation.

“…I think the group’s getting bigger.”

As Natsunagi said, the crowd was growing larger.

Their numbers had swelled from a few dozen to a hundred, then to a march of several hundred people.

It was almost like Pandemonium. A hundred demons, stalking the night.

Where was this horde of undead, the white demon’s creations, marching to in the moonlight?

“The Diet Building’s up there,” Natsunagi pointed out, studying the map app.

“So maybe the protest idea wasn’t entirely off base?”

In that case, what appeal were the undead trying to make? What question were they asking the nation?

What did the vampire want from this world—?

“Don’t tell me… Is this the vampire rebellion?”

If it was, stopping it was the Ace Detective’s mission. Natsunagi’s job. We couldn’t just detour around this and go to Rill. That was a rule the Tuners had to respect…or rather, as far as Natsunagi was concerned, her position didn’t even matter. She couldn’t just leave when this was happening.

“Kimizuka, look!”

Just then, the marching group’s order was abruptly disturbed. As if Moses had parted the waves, a fissure appeared right down the group’s middle. There was someone at its center.

“Natsunagi, we’re getting out.”

When we stepped out of the car, the figure was standing a few dozen meters ahead.

I was too far away to make it out clearly, but it looked like a woman in a red dress. She wore a big tricorn hat, and… Was that long hair hanging underneath it?

“What’s up with those snakes?” Natsunagi was holding a set of opera glasses.

The way she’d just pulled a handy item out of nowhere was exactly like a certain other detective. Borrowing those from her, I took a good look at the woman in the dress.

“…What is she, a snake charmer?”

What I’d thought was the woman’s long hair was, incredibly, a whole mess of snakes. And something like drool was dribbling from their mouths and melting the asphalt with little puffs of smoke. Was it sulfuric acid or some unique poison? Either way, the worst part was…

“Um, doesn’t it sort of…look like she’s coming this way?”

“You see it, too, Natsunagi?”

She was still quite a distance from us, but the woman in the dress was walking away from the horde of undead—toward us—step-by-step, dripping that mystery liquid as she went. She wasn’t an undead? Then what was she?

“The supernatural Envy.”

Out of nowhere, somebody gave us the answer. I hadn’t sensed him at all, but he was undeniably standing between Natsunagi and me, gazing at the slowly approaching enemy.

“Ookami!”

His longish hair was carefully styled, and his tall frame looked sharp in a suit. He was carrying that big sickle over his shoulder.

“Envy’s other name is the devil Leviathan. It’s a snake monster that governs the ocean.”

“Thanks for the explanation, but…Ookami, where have you been? Weren’t you supposed to be Natsunagi’s proxy assistant?”

“I was tracking the supernaturals. However, of course, I was never more than a kilometer from the Ace Detective.”

What was he, a stalker? This so-called proxy assistant had better not have done any peeping.

“Huh. I see we’ve got someone else who’s afflicted by envy here.”

“Who are you calling an envious assistant?!”

Did this Ookami guy have some illness that would kill him if he wasn’t sarcastic with me at all times?

“All right, I’ve got a job for the detective’s assistant. Kimihiko Kimizuka, take the Ace Detective and go where you need to go.” Promptly switching gears, Ookami focused on Envy in the distance. Apparently, he planned to be the one who’d fight her.

“…Another adult just saved our butts a minute ago,” I told him, thinking of Stephen. The Inventor had stayed in his lab to take on the supernatural Greed by himself.

“Ha!” Ookami snorted without looking back at us. “Well, saving kids is an adult’s job.”

My shoulders flinched.

He was probably imitating the way his old friend the Enforcer had lived. But to me, that way of life went back further—to Danny Bryant.

“No, he’s not around anymore.” I shook my head.

Still, it made me think of how many people were trying to follow in his footsteps.

“Ookami, are you sure it’s okay to leave this to you?” Natsunagi asked. Was it all right to let him handle Envy?

“Yes. Defeating the supernaturals isn’t your mission. Nobody will blame you for leaving to do your own job.”

He was right; the Ace Detective’s mission was shutting down the vampire rebellion. In that case, we needed to focus on finding the creator of this undead army.

“The one you’re looking for is probably up ahead,” Ookami said, pointing at the horde of undead—or rather, at the Diet Building they were marching toward.

Scarlet had to be there, and we had to stop him.

“But, Kimizuka, you’re…” Natsunagi gave me a concerned look. We’d originally been headed for Rill, and she was still probably busy with her own fight.

“I just checked, and Rill’s started moving again.”

The red pointer that marked her location was slowly advancing down the street. She’d probably won. On top of that, the alarm that was supposed to sound when she was wounded hadn’t gone off. In other words, she was fine.

“Let’s go, Natsunagi.” I offered her my right hand. “We’ll both go find Scarlet.”

“You’re sure?” Natsunagi’s red eyes gazed straight into mine. She was asking if I was making the right choice. If it was okay for me not to go to Reloaded.

“Yeah, this is the best move right now.”

“‘Right now,’ meaning…you’re not giving up on her, either.”

I nodded.

It was true that both my hands were full, since I’d taken Siesta’s and Natsunagi’s. My strength alone wouldn’t have been enough to save Reloaded on top of that. Even so…

“Both my hands may be taken, but your left hand’s still free.” Natsunagi’s eyes widened. “I’ll save you anytime, so I want you to save Reloaded.”

That had to be what kept the circle turning. Noches had scolded me, and I’d talked to Charlie, listened to Saikawa, and arrived at that answer.

Siesta had offered her hand to me once. Then I’d taken Natsunagi’s and set off, and this time, Natsunagi would save someone else. The person she saved would give their free hand to someone new. That was the one way I could hold something big in both hands without giving up on anyone.

Of course, Natsunagi had already saved a lot of people. I was one of them; she’d saved me time and again. That meant this might be a selfish request. I was leaning on her. However—no, in exchange… “I won’t leave you. From now on, I’ll go with you; I don’t care how unfair people are about me. No matter what enemies you make, I’ll stay your ally. Until the day you say you don’t need me, I’ll always—”

“Aaaaaagh! Enough! I get it, so quit! Stop!” Natsunagi clapped both her hands over my mouth, shutting me up. It hurt.

“H-he’s listening to this,” she whispered in my ear.

When I glanced over, Ookami was staring at me.

“Maybe wait for a safer time to say that, okay?” she added.

“A safer time?”

“…You know. When I can actually be embarrassed and happy and stuff.”

Oh. Sorry about that.

“Playtime’s just about over.” Ookami leveled his great sickle, narrowing his eyes.

Envy was close enough that we could see her clearly without the binoculars.

Leaving the situation to Ookami, Natsunagi and I got back into the car. We were bound for the Diet Building. The supernatural’s poison had melted a path through the army of undead, so there was a clear road right down the middle of the group.

The black car made for the vampire’s lair.