Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 8 - Chapter 3.6

The last remaining guidepost

“……Hff…hff…”

I might not feel pain or fatigue, but I couldn’t trick my lungs.

After I walked a little ways from the battlefield, I leaned against the alley wall, then slid down it into a crouch. Rapid, ragged puffs of white breath escaped from my lips.

“Freya, are you okay?” I asked the girl who stood next to me, once my breathing had calmed down a little.

As usual, she said nothing. From what I could see, though, she wasn’t hurt.

Pride had fallen without leaving a scratch on her.

Take that, I spat at him silently. He’d relaxed into the name of Lucifer, the Devil himself, and gotten careless. I’d destroyed that insolent pride of his.

“Why don’t you sit down, too? You must be tired.”

“………”

Freya gazed at my eyes steadily, tilting her head very slightly.

Maybe she was listening to my voice? Even if she didn’t have awareness or emotions, she might understand that I was talking to her.

…No, that idea was too self-serving. I was just trying to pick up on any change in her, the tiniest sliver of something. It was me being arrogant.

“I’m sorry for dragging you back here without asking.”

I knew my apology wouldn’t reach her, but I had to say it.

A week ago, when Scarlet had asked me if I wanted to bring her back to life, for some reason, I’d said yes without the slightest hesitation. Kimihiko had said he hadn’t felt any hesitation about taking the Ace Detective back; I was the same.

I didn’t know how Freya would feel about it; I didn’t know what her family’s wishes were. But I couldn’t turn down the chance to see her again.

Even though we hadn’t even been friends…

“You can live any way you want, you know.”

Even as I said it, I hated myself for being so irresponsible.

I could tell her to live as she pleased, but where was she supposed to go? If I abandoned her, she’d…

As I sat there hugging my knees, Freya sat down beside me. She was sitting in the same position I was in, but she just gazed up wordlessly.

“You’re looking at the sky again?”

This sky was full of stars; it wasn’t the one we used to watch together.

That sky had been endlessly clear and blue.

That was the place where Freya and I had always fought. How had it turned into this? Why were my battlefields so—?

A notification came in on my smartwatch. It was from Kimihiko, and the message was just one brief phrase: “I’m on my way.”

“He doesn’t even know where Rill is.”

Over the past week, I hadn’t responded to a single one of his attempts to contact me, but he still…

He really was stubborn. I shouldn’t have picked up a pet.

“What’s his problem? He didn’t even take Rill’s hand.”

Some nonphysical part of me was a little tired.

I buried my forehead between my knees.

What did I have now? Pole-vaulting had been my one redeeming skill, and I didn’t do it anymore. I hadn’t had any friends in the first place. I’d ditched my work partner myself. What did I have left?

I heard the sound of something being dragged.

I raised my head. …Oh, that’s right.

I did still have something.

I had him.

I have you.

I had the supernatural Gluttony.

“Killing you is the one guidepost I’ve got left.”

Three meters ahead, the supernatural opened his maw and howled.

Blades jutted out of his body. I knew it; he’d recovered and come back stronger.

Leaving Freya where she was, I lunged into the air.

I couldn’t waste time on this. I swung my staff, firing aqua-blue laser beams at the enemy.

“…No luck, huh?”

Even the lasers’ heat couldn’t damage Gluttony’s armored body. He started drawing the blades and throwing them at me, but his aim wasn’t great.

Dodging through the deadly storm, I charged at the enemy from midair. Gluttony drew something like a saw, locking it with my magic staff. In the meantime, other blades that had grown from his body grazed my arms and legs, but that was irrelevant now.

“Rill’s killing you if it’s the last thing she does. What happens after that doesn’t matter.”

After all, I had nothing else to wish for.

“……!”

However, Gluttony shoved me off with his monstrous strength, and the tip of my staff snapped. I tumbled over the asphalt, hearing dull crunching noises from way too many places. Even then, nothing hurt. The drug that shut down my sense of pain was still working. But…

“I’m still not strong enough.”

The capsule I ground between my molars then wasn’t like the ones I always took.

Stephen had said not to use this kind much, but I didn’t care what happened later. All I wanted was the strength to kill this supernatural right now.

“________■ah, ■______iy■!!”

As Gluttony charged in, I locked weapons with him again, and finally, I felt a response.

It really was a fast-acting wonder drug. I felt kind of dazed, but that feeling came with a well of new strength. This time around, the supernatural didn’t overpower me; I snapped his weapons instead.

“It’s Rill’s turn.”

For a moment, Gluttony shrank back. I landed a solid kick on the left side of his chest, shoving him away; a crack opened in his body, in the armor even lasers hadn’t been able to scratch. At the same time, I heard a dull crunch from my own body.

I’d probably broken my right toes. It was fine, though; I couldn’t feel it either way. Besides, I knew which bones I could break without them compromising me in combat. I could still run, and I could still jump.

“What color are supernaturals’ hearts?”

The tip of my broken staff was nice and sharp. If I shoved that into his chest…

“……!”

But then Gluttony’s sharp talon pierced my right wrist.

“Oh, good. It didn’t tear off.”

That was fine, then. As long as this attack landed, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t scared. A few weeks earlier, when I’d seen this guy in the Fair-Weather Doll’s white cloth, I hadn’t flinched. As blood spurted from my right hand, I thrust the staff into Gluttony’s chest.

—It was hard. Like he was made of iron on the inside, too.

“So you’ve left your humanity behind, hm? Just like Rill.”

I’d snapped too many muscle fibers. Even with the strength from the medicine, I couldn’t summon up any more force. I yanked my staff out and leaped back.

“Freya, if you can’t get away on your own, at least stay behind Rill. Whatever you do, keep out of his attack range…”

As I spoke to her, I realized that Freya was looking over her shoulder. A huge shadow crawled out of the blackness there—whatever it was wasn’t a normal human. The silhouette had six arms—Pride, the supernatural I thought I’d killed.

“You weren’t dead?”

Gluttony was in front of us, Pride behind us. Being caught between them was going to be rough. It would have been one thing if I was alone, but I wasn’t going to be able to protect Freya completely. Should I grab her and leap to safety? Would I be able to get there in the first place? I had a choice to make, and in that moment of deliberation—

—Pride’s neck broke with a jolt.

Then as if it had been severed by an invisible wire, the supernatural’s head rolled onto the asphalt. A red figure stood on top of the alley’s outer wall.

“Fuubi Kase.”

That lightning-fast attack had been the work of the Assassin.

“We haven’t met since that Federal Council last year, huh.” As Fuubi spoke, she was winding the wire she’d used to dispatch Pride back onto its reel. “I couldn’t resist cutting in. Should I have kept my nose out of the Magical Girl’s job?” She grinned at me.

I see. Apparently, this was payback for what had happened at that council.

“No, those rules should probably be changed after all,” I said, thanking her in a way that wasn’t actually thanking her. “But why are you here?”

“I had a personal concern about these supernaturals.” Alighting on the ground, Fuubi gazed at Gluttony. So there was a reason the Assassin had gone out of her way to get involved with the Seven Deadly Sins?

Either way, though…

“That’s Rill’s prey.”

I wasn’t going to give her time for a conversation. Without waiting for Fuubi’s response, I lunged at my enemy.

“■, ■■gi______a■ou!!”

With a dissonant, staticky cry, Gluttony charged me like a wild beast.

In a battle of strength, I wouldn’t lose now. I leveled my staff, prepared to lock weapons for a third time—but the enemy went right past me.

On reflex, Fuubi shielded Freya.

However, the supernatural wasn’t after them, either. Gluttony grabbed Pride’s head off the ground behind them, then bit into it. He devoured its flesh and blood, swallowed it down, and howled.

“He just ate…the supreme devil.”

I didn’t even have to think about what that meant now.

A great bulge surged through Gluttony like a wave, and then the blades began dropping out of him. It was as if he was shedding his skin, and the next instant, something like insect wings sprouted from his back. Six of them. He’d absorbed Pride’s power.

The supernatural was being reborn as a monstrous insect.

However, the second the enemy seemed to notice us again, he turned and lunged away. Did he assume he wouldn’t be able to beat us even now? In that case…

“Fuubi, take care of that girl.” Leaving Freya to her, I started to run.

“Wait!” Fuubi shouted, but I was out of earshot almost immediately.

I wouldn’t let that thing get away. There was no way.

If I didn’t kill him today, he would hide for ages and ages again, then come back even stronger. I wasn’t about to give him the tiniest advantage.

Run. Run. —Run.

How long had I been running, completely absorbed in the chase, when it happened?

Something stabbed deep into my side.

My sensations were numbed, so I didn’t really know. I couldn’t feel pain, cold, or heat, but when I looked down…I saw that something had impaled me through the stomach.

“________oh.”

It was a single spear. Blood dripped onto the asphalt.

Sensing a presence, I looked up. Gluttony was on the roof of a nearby building, laughing with his tongue out. He’d thrown one of those new weapons.

Once he saw me fall to my knees, the enemy left.

Apparently, he didn’t intend to eat me. There must be better prey nearby. In the end, my strength was a product of science. I didn’t have the outstanding genes Gluttony wanted.

“………”

I couldn’t speak anymore. It wasn’t just my voice; my vision was going black.

I can’t lose. Magical girls must not lose…but…

I collapsed onto the hard asphalt.

As I fell, I reached out with my left hand, seeking help from an invisible hero.