Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 8 - Chapter 3.9

 A word-soul sent to hell

After leaving the Diet Building in a car driven by a Man in Black, Natsunagi and I made for an alley not far from Gluttony’s rampage. As we got out, the awful sight that met us left us speechless.

“What…is this?”

There was blood all over the asphalt. And—

“Those are Rill’s clothes.”

Shreds of the Magical Girl’s costume were soaking in it, along with orange hairs and fragments of flesh. Nausea welled up inside me.

We’d come straight here; when we’d checked the tablet in the car, the red point that marked Rill’s location had abruptly vanished nearby. Combining that fact with what I was seeing, the deduction I reached was—

“Kimizuka, wait.” Natsunagi had gone ahead a few steps, and she crouched down, beckoning me over. “There’s a trail of tiny bloodstains, just drops, that starts here. She went somewhere.”

Rill was still alive, and she’d simply gone somewhere else.

“After a disaster like this? Besides, the trace…”

“There was definitely a big battle here, but maybe Rill got badly hurt, and the chip was destroyed. We can’t just assume the worst.” Natsunagi stood up, staring me right in the face. “Pull yourself together, Kimizuka.” I was still stunned and numb, and she scolded me rather harshly. “Our goal is saving Rill. If we assume that’s not possible right away, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. Am I wrong?”

…No, you’re not. You’re absolutely right.

When I nodded weakly, Natsunagi shook me slightly. “We can’t just rely on gut instinct like that. We can’t make decisions based on the very first theory we think of.” She tilted her head back, looking up at the cloudy night sky. “I bet Siesta had the ability to reach the truth instinctively. You and I don’t, though. It’s just like when we didn’t have the answer to the mystery Scarlet gave us back there.”

She wasn’t running herself down; I could see it on her face.

“That’s why we need to stumble our way through, considering all the possibilities, all the time. Let’s become a detective and assistant who consider all the options, then pick out the brightest one.”

“…Yeah. That sounds like us.”

This was no time for smiles. But we were facing in the same direction now, so we exchanged nods.

For now, we’d assume Rill was still alive. Where would she be?

“I didn’t see her in that footage, but I think she may have gone to Gluttony.”

“Yeah. If she has, though, what should we do?”

As we’d seen, Gluttony was on a rampage and stronger than ever. Ookami might be keeping him pinned down for now, but Natsunagi and I weren’t going to be any help in that fight. On the battlefield, any reckless courage we showed would only hold him back. If Rill were there, she’d probably give me the boot. —But.

“She never blocked me.”

In the week since Rill had left me, I’d tried to contact her over and over. She’d never responded, but she’d read my messages. I could see it on my app.

Rill was watching. She probably thought I was being a stubborn familiar, and I bet she was still sulking since I’d refused to take her hand, but she’d seen the words I’d sent.

“Let’s go.”

I faced forward, hoping my master was waiting for her pet to come home.

Our car arrived at the next site.

If the last battlefield had been a disaster, this one was hell.

Now an enormous monster, Gluttony was still storming around, trying to devour Scarlet’s undead. Even worse, the nearby street was lined with office buildings. I could see the workers who hadn’t fled in time.

Still, there was a reason the damage wasn’t spreading: Someone was blocking Gluttony’s attacks. Ookami, the avenger who’d inherited the Enforcer’s will, was parrying the enemy’s charges with his huge sickle. And…

“Ms. Fuubi!”

The redheaded Assassin launched an enormous needle and wire from something that looked like a handheld reel. The needle stuck into buildings, and the wire neatly tripped Gluttony.

These two were just managing to keep the supernatural’s violence in check.

“Kimizuka, is Rill…?” Natsunagi asked.

I scanned the area, but I didn’t see the Magical Girl.

Had she just not come here, or…? Another awful thought crossed my mind, but I shook my head. Thinking of worst-case scenarios was pointless; we were trying to prevent all that.

“Hey, civvy. Get the lead out and run already, wouldja?” Skidding backward, Ms. Fuubi was there with us before I could blink.

Her suit was dirty, and she’d gotten a few cuts.

“Do you have a strategy?” Natsunagi, a noncivilian, asked her. She wanted to know if they had a way to defeat Gluttony.

“I think firing a big-ass missile into him might do the trick, but there’s too many risks right now.”

She wasn’t wrong. Even if we called in the army, we couldn’t use that strategy without evacuating the regular citizens first.

“If we could at least lead Gluttony somewhere deserted, then maybe.”

Sure, but where could we conveniently lock up a monster like—?

“The stadium.”

An image entered my mind.

The sports field Rill had taken me to a week ago—we could temporarily trap and isolate the enormous supernatural there. It also wasn’t too far from here.

“Decent idea, but how do we go about that?”

…Good question. The next issue was how to get that monster several kilometers to our desired location. We couldn’t just say Hey, let’s take this elsewhere to an enemy like this.

“I’ll do it.” Natsunagi stepped forward. “I’ve got stronger DNA than anyone here. Gluttony’s bound to take the bait.”

“…Oh yeah. Seed’s blood.”

The medical trials Natsunagi had gone through at the SPES laboratory had given her Seed’s genes. As far as Gluttony was concerned, she might be the best, most valuable food around.

Still, that didn’t mean I could let her be the decoy. Just as I was about to say as much, though, I saw her eyes and realized it would be foolish to protest. Nagisa Natsunagi’s blazing red eyes were already fixed on the distant Lord of the Flies.

“Gluttony. Look over here.”

Natsunagi’s lips released a word-soul that made the air shiver.

In the next moment, Gluttony’s bulbous eyes looked our way.

“________■■uu■______iy■ah______■■i!!”

The Lord of the Flies laughed, flicking that long tongue.

The enemy had just noticed Natsunagi, the perfect bait.

“Get on, Detective!”

Grabbing a motorcycle that was lying in the street, Ms. Fuubi tossed Natsunagi a helmet.

The battlefield never waits for people to be ready. The bike sped off toward the stadium with the two of them, luring Gluttony away.

“Kimihiko Kimizuka. We’re going after them.”

As I was standing there, left in the dust, someone threw me a lifeline. Ookami was straddling another motorcycle and motioning for me to get on behind him. His suit was torn, and he was wounded. His back looked exactly like a hero’s back should. That’s something I’m missing, I thought as I got on behind him, and we set off in pursuit of the others.

“Sorry. I guess we’re interfering in your revenge now, too,” I said to Ookami’s back.

“Go right ahead. Unlike the Magical Girl, I’m fine as long as the evil’s ultimately destroyed.”

Apparently, all Ookami wanted was for someone to take Gluttony down. That meant our objectives and plans to execute them were in accord.

“Still, why are you getting involved in this? Walk me through your reasons.” Ookami wanted to know why we were heading for the battlefield when defeating Gluttony wasn’t the Ace Detective’s mission. “Is it because your companion just happened to be involved?” He didn’t sound like he was blaming me, but he’d caught me off guard. “Save what you can see. Help the people you can reach, at least. Sure, it sounds good, but this world is overflowing with unlimited evil.”

He was right. There’s always fighting going on in the shadows of the world. Even now, new crimes and evil were hurting people. We couldn’t save everyone.

“The fact that the Seven Deadly Sins exist is proof that this world’s bursting with evil. As I said before, they symbolize human malice.”

As the night wind blustered around us, Ookami spoke to me without looking back.

“Hatred, grudges, curses, sinful emotions that become diseases—cancers of the heart. It’s a tragedy, but humans can never run from their wickedness. As long as mankind exists, war, poverty, and destruction will, too. The chain of evil won’t be broken.”

And yet I’d save only my friends, only in the places I could reach. That was hypocrisy.

I didn’t need Ookami to tell me that. I was well aware of it already.

I couldn’t pretend I’d solved a problem like this with semantics: Hypocritical good that’s done is better than actual good that isn’t done. Not as long as I was standing next to a Tuner, someone who called herself a hero.

“Someday, you’ll run into that contradiction. What will you do then?”

Ookami’s question was abstract, but I understood exactly what he was asking me.

“A little while back, there was someone who would probably have had a ready answer for you.” That someone was currently in the middle of a very long nap. “But I have a partner who thinks about this stuff with me now. The two of us will keep on worrying and suffering, and someday, we’ll look for the answer to that question.”

Ookami was silent for a while. “I see,” he finally murmured. “In that case, I’ll look forward to the day when I get to hear that answer.”

He spoke over his shoulder as if he was guiding the kid behind him.

Before long, we reached our destination.

We weren’t the first ones there.

Gluttony was in the center of the large, oval sports field, monstrous and roaring. Natsunagi and Ms. Fuubi were right in front of him.

Now all we had to do was hold out just a little longer until an army helicopter got there and blew the monster away. As relief started to set in, I spotted her.

A figure was standing in the second-floor audience seating on the east side, with another small body lying beside it. —I knew right away. I’d seen that costume plenty of times when I’d fought beside her.

“________ou■______ah■■■______ii!!”

Gluttony howled, and the final battle began.

I ran across the battlefield, sprinting up through the audience seating, and then—

“Reloaded!”

—I called my proud master’s name.