Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 9 - Chapter 5.03

Beyond the wish

Two weeks earlier, on the day that Natsunagi and I had crashed the Federation Government’s conference, Odin had told us a story. It went like this:

Fifteen years ago, someone had burned down the town where Scarlet lived. Scarlet had been the only survivor, and impressed by his strength, the Federation Government had scouted him for the Tuners. He would have only one mission: to kill all the vampires that had spread across the world.

Scarlet had agreed, on one condition. His old friend—who was also a vampire—had died when the town burned. Scarlet was going to revive her, and he wanted the government to make an exception to protect her. The Federation Government had consented, permitting only two vampires to live.

However, that was when a problem had arisen. Once revived as an undead, the girl’s instincts from her past life—her wish to live as a human—had erased all her memories of her time as a vampire. Scarlet must have been more than a little surprised, but even so, he’d respected her wish and withdrawn to fulfill his mission of killing his kin as the Vampire, all alone.

Meanwhile, the girl had been reborn as a human, and the Federation Government couldn’t afford to let her remember her time as a vampire. As such, they’d come up with this story: While traveling overseas by herself, the girl had been involved in an incident which left her with amnesia. The government continued to protect her from a distance, and as long as Scarlet continued to carry out his mission, the contract remained valid.

However, the tale hadn’t ended there. Although the girl had accepted her situation, she’d begun to search for her origins. She’d grown up, turned the singing she excelled at into a career, and traveled the world in search of her hometown. Time passed, and she’d found her way to a certain detective.

“She’s our client, Marie.”

Seated in the wheelchair pushed by Natsunagi was the former Parasol Witch, wearing a black dress.

Scarlet stared at her, startled, while Marie looked up at him with a lonely smile.

Odin hadn’t told us the name of the girl Scarlet had brought back to life. Yet once we’d gathered that much information, the answer had presented itself. Marie’s hometown, which we’d been trying to find for her, had been one of the villages where vampires lived, hiding from the world.

The dissertations and other public materials we’d researched had only said that they were an ethnic minority; nobody had known the truth. Most likely, that information had been concealed by one organization or another.

The burned-down village I’d visited in Scandinavia two months ago had been another former vampire town. The inhabitants had all been killed, though, and become food for that old vampire. When I’d thought about it, I’d realized they’d only been able to serve as preserved rations for him because they were vampires—there was no way regular human corpses would have lasted that long in the ground without rotting.

Based on all these facts, there was no doubt about it. Natsunagi and I had originally thought that Marie’s request and the vampire rebellion were separate incidents, but they’d been connected all along.

“Scarlet. You realized we’d made contact with Marie, didn’t you?”

Two months ago, Natsunagi and I had met Marie, and we’d heard her request at Saikawa’s house. It was immediately after that that Scarlet had taken me on that helicopter ride in the night sky. Later, when we’d met Marie at the restaurant to report on our progress, Scarlet had appeared at the park on our way home. In other words, he’d been watching us the entire time.

Most of all, he’d told us not to meddle in his job. In retrospect, that had been weird: When we’d talked to Scarlet at the Diet Building, before meeting Marie, he’d asked us if we could solve the mystery of why he kept killing his kin. He’d practically handed us a letter of challenge.

His sudden change of attitude had been because the detective had gotten involved with Marie. Scarlet had worried that Marie would recover her old memories if we continued helping her. He’d probably shown up in our neighborhood and scattered his blood from the helicopter because he hadn’t wanted Elizabeth or any other vampires coming in contact with her.

“Scarlet, your wish was to let Marie live her life over as a human. You wanted her to permanently forget you and her entire race. That’s why you’ve always—”

“No.” Scarlet cut me off. He was wearing his usual cold expression again. “I do know that woman, which is why I called out her name. However, she is no vampire. She’s a human child who wandered into my hometown, long ago.”

He was lying. I could tell right away.

Scarlet went on without making eye contact with any of us. “I only ever encountered her once. After that, the town was burned, and I was constantly on the move, so we never met again. That is all there was to our relationship.”

“Scarlet, wait.”

“Poor girl, losing her memory like that, though. She must not remember me, either.”

“Scarlet!” My voice echoed around the room before being replaced by silence. “Look at Marie. Look at her face when you talk.”

She wasn’t crying.

Still, Scarlet must have been able to see something in that expression.

“…What, then? Assuming this delusion of yours is true, are you saying that woman remembers everything from when she was a vampire? Can she speak of it, here and now? No doubt that is why she hasn’t said a single word so far: because she has no such memories.”

“Scarlet, no. That’s not—”

Suddenly, a figure moved.

Marie had risen to her feet, leaning on Natsunagi’s shoulder for support.

She said something, but…

“______________”

There was no sound. Her lips were moving, but no words emerged.

Marie had lost her voice four days earlier.

Up until two weeks ago, although she’d had a cough, she’d still been able to converse normally. However, a few days after that, her voice had begun to get scratchy, and then it disappeared entirely.

At first, we’d thought it was because her chronic illness had worsened. Now that we’d heard the whole story, though, we knew better: It was the curse of being a vampire. Her short biological lifespan was nearly over.

“There, you see? She can’t say anything.” The corners of Scarlet’s lips rose very slightly. “She hasn’t regained her memories. Or rather, nothing of the sort existed in the first place. She isn’t my old friend. She isn’t even a vampire.”

“You’re wrong! Marie remembers everything!” If Marie couldn’t tell him, I’d do it for her.

Scarlet, even you must realize the truth.

“She remembers the pictures and books you liked; all of it. She’s been talking with us over the past two weeks, and it’s all come back to her. Those days she spent with you in your hometown, fifteen years ago—”

“Not one more word!”

An incredible pressure closed around my neck, and I couldn’t breathe.

“Kimizuka!”

Natsunagi’s voice sounded far away as the back of my head slammed into the ground. Scarlet was choking me, his face a demonic mask. “You’re wrong! Everything you’re saying is wrong! I have no memories with that woman! She isn’t a vampire; she isn’t a devil! She’s human!”

The white demon was crying.

Even if he wasn’t shedding tears, his heart was screaming.

“That girl is human! She’s not like me. She doesn’t have to kill anyone, or hurt them, or be unfairly persecuted. She isn’t an enemy of the world. She’s just a human…!”

Scarlet couldn’t admit it.

He was the last person who would ever admit the fact that Marie was a vampire. After all, the moment he did, it would mean Marie’s wish hadn’t come true. He wouldn’t be able to let her live and die as a human, when that was what he’d spent his whole life and betrayed all of his comrades to accomplish.

“Am I wrong?”

The hands that were choking me eased up.

There was nothing I could say.

The world, or a girl? I hadn’t been able to choose in the way Scarlet had, so I had no right to talk. That wasn’t territory I could intrude upon.

Was that it? Was that why the previous Ace Detective had known about the coming crisis, but hadn’t mentioned it? Had she thought the choice should be left to the king of vampires and his true bride?

In that case, should we do the same?

“Scarlet, you told us something earlier. You said that all we could do was take the roles we were assigned and play them out onstage.” The speaker was the girl who currently bore the title of Ace Detective.

After bringing Marie here, Nagisa Natsunagi had teared up and bitten her lip, but she’d only watched without speaking. Now she handed down her verdict.

“In that case, as the Ace Detective, my role is to protect my client’s interests.”

There was a moment of silence before a quiet song began to play in the sanctuary.

A girl’s voice was coming from the smartphone in Natsunagi’s hand.

“This is…” Scarlet’s golden eyes widened.

That’s right. You know this song.

After all, Marie had hummed it ever since she was a child.

“How? Who’s singing…?” Even as he spoke, it hit him. “The sapphire girl?”

“Right. Saikawa got her voice back.”

Not completely—not yet. A few weeks ago, after Saikawa had talked to the three of us and decided to live, even if it wasn’t pretty, her voice had slowly begun to return. Maybe our conversation had taken the pressure off her. It wasn’t perfect, and her vibrato wasn’t back yet, but even so, Saikawa sang straight to the person she needed to reach.

It was only after Marie had lost her voice that she’d finally managed to sing a song all the way through. It was as if Marie had entrusted her own singing voice to Saikawa. Now Saikawa had reclaimed the voice that had been shut away, to sing the song of Marie’s memories in her place.

“…………”

Scarlet listened to the song in a daze. After a little while, though, the melody changed, and Scarlet’s expression changed along with it. The lyrics Saikawa was singing now weren’t from the part of the song Marie had sung for us two months ago. Back then, she’d said she only remembered a fragment of it. But now—

“You get it, don’t you, Scarlet? Marie taught Saikawa this song. That’s the greatest proof there is: Marie remembers what happened fifteen years ago. She remembers the days she spent with you. She remembers what she was…”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Scarlet screamed and fell to his knees, staring at the hands he’d used to slaughter so many comrades.

It was clear to him now. The fifteen years he’d offered up for her sake, the blood of the kin he’d slaughtered—it had all been for nothing.

“Marie!” Natsunagi shouted.

Marie was crawling on her hands and knees toward Scarlet.

“Why…?!” Scarlet yelled, slamming his fist into the floor. “We were so close…! Just a little longer, and you would have ended your life as a human, all your memories happy ones. So why…? Why?!”

Scarlet looked up, his face a mask of grief, but Marie just shook her head at him.

She was crying.

“I only wanted…only wanted you to…live out your life as a human…!”

Scarlet crumpled to the ground, and Marie hugged him tightly. Then, setting her hands on his shoulders, she silently mouthed two words:

I’m sorry.

Those words rejected every day of the last fifteen years of Scarlet’s life, while also releasing him from their spell. Scarlet’s face twisted, and another wordless scream echoed through the sanctuary. Marie just kept stroking his back.

“Aaaah, aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

There was nothing we could say. The least we could do was not look away. Nor would we plug our ears. Natsunagi and I would see the choice one man had made, and the results of it, through to the end. After all, we would have to pass this story on.

After a few minutes, silence returned to the sanctuary. Slowly, Scarlet raised his head and gazed at Marie. From his expression, he seemed to have come to his senses.

“—We last met fifteen years ago,” he said. “It’s been a long time, Jeanne.”

His words acknowledged his own defeat, and his reunion with his true bride.