Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 9 - Chapter Ep2

An epilogue from the future

“This is the story of the vampire rebellion.”

I told Siesta and the others the tale of the vampires, basing it on the memories the Sacred Relic had returned to me.

It was like that time with Reloaded; I’d already known most of the story, but certain keywords like “Singularity” and “Phantom Thief” had been missing.

In addition, the Sacred Relic had shown me a few of Scarlet’s last moments that I hadn’t known about. That meant this item wasn’t just limited to things I’d seen and heard personally—it was a record of specific phenomena. That suggested we’d be able to learn various truths that had escaped us before.

“That really was one heck of a time, wasn’t it?” Nagisa said, thinking back. She took a sip of tea. “With Yui as well.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure Saikawa is where she is now because she overcame this all those years ago.” She was a global phenomenon, and right now, she was incredibly far away. It made me so happy to see how successful she’d become, but it was also kind of lonely.

“I see. So the incident with Yui happened at the same time as the vampire rebellion.” Siesta, who’d still been asleep back then, nodded a few times.

“Come to think of it, you knew what Scarlet meant with all that ‘bride’ talk even before you fell asleep, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I first met him at a Federal Council just after I became a Tuner, and he took a liking to me. When he found out my heart was rather special, he decided I was qualified to be the ‘bride’ he needed to carry out his plan.”

Ah. So Scarlet had told her about his plan directly?

“Then you suspected that the Vampire would become an enemy of the world someday,” said Mia. “Even the sacred text didn’t clearly state that.”

“Well, I didn’t know everything… I didn’t even know about the real bride he wanted to protect.” Siesta’s eyes looked sad as she mentioned Marie. “I’d anticipated that Scarlet might turn against the world, but what he wanted was to break the curse of the vampires’ short lifespans and give his race new lives as humans. I didn’t know whether that would be good or bad. Still…” She looked at Nagisa and me. “You two did a job I couldn’t. Thank you again.”

“…There’s no need to thank us. All I did was grant my client’s wish.” Nagisa grinned and shook her head. “Besides, my decision ended up dashing Scarlet’s hopes. I don’t know whether that was really the best choice.”

“You did fine. You really were a proper detective that time, Nagisa, no doubt about it. And you supported her decision as her assistant, Kimi.” Siesta turned to me, smiling.

“A compliment from you? That’s rare.”

“I have to thank you for saving me, at least.”

“…I dunno what you’re talking about.”

I’d stormed into the Nightless Castle and said some pretty embarrassing stuff, all to save Siesta from becoming Scarlet’s bride. I remembered it just fine, but I pretended that part hadn’t come back to me.

“Still, thanks for coming to my rescue.”

Siesta gave me a smile so brilliant I couldn’t even attempt to give it a score. I mumbled some unintelligible response and drank my tea.

“All right. Should we get into that other subject now?” Mia said, getting the ball rolling.

Pouring a fresh round of tea for all of us, Olivia picked up the thread of the conversation. “A term I’m not very familiar with came up in the story you just told. What was it? ‘The Phantom Thief’?”

Yeah, I figured they’d be particularly curious about that.

Arsene, the Phantom Thief, aka Abel A. Schoenberg.

He was the twelfth Tuner—the one I’d forgotten.

Why had I forgotten him? Who exactly had made me forget?

“You spoke about him with Fuubi. She said the Phantom Thief could steal absolutely anything, even if it wasn’t physical.”

Right. The Phantom Thief could steal people’s hearts, or the concept of a thing from the place it should be, and he could even overturn common sense. If we assumed that to be true…

“Did the Phantom Thief engineer the weirdness that’s currently happening to the world?”

Was he stealing the memories and records of mankind from every corner of the globe?

“But how would he manage something like that?” Nagisa asked. “And why?”

“I…don’t know.” It was a perfectly natural question, but one I had no answer to. We hadn’t known everything about the Phantom Thief back then, either. In order to find out more…

“We’re going to need a new Sacred Relic.”

But where could we get one?

The first had been left to us by the world’s wisdom, Bruno Belmondo. This second one had been discovered by Mia Whitlock, who could see the future. In which case, the third one…

“Let’s go talk to her,” Nagisa said resolutely. “To Fuubi Kase. She was pursuing Abel harder than anyone else.”

…She was right. After the series of incidents involving vampires, we’d ended up working with Ms. Fuubi time and time again. She’d had only one goal: capturing Abel A. Schoenberg. However, the fact that Abel was also the Phantom Thief had completely disappeared from my memories… Just that one single piece of information. As we’d thought, the Phantom Thief was key.

“But didn’t the Assassin…?” Olivia asked.

“Break out of jail?” I finished. “Yeah.” Fuubi Kase had been arrested for treason, but Bruno had helped her escape before he died. What was their goal? Where was she now, and what was she up to?

“…Hmm? What’s up, Siesta?”

Siesta’s gaze was fixed on the smartphone in her hand.

“I haven’t been able to get a hold of Charlie lately. It’s been about two weeks now, and I still don’t know where she is.”

“You either? I messaged her once after the Ritual of Sacred Return, but she hasn’t even read it.”

Needless to say, Charlie was an agent who flew all over the world, so this sort of thing had happened before. Sometimes that was worrying in its own way, though. It was one thing for her to be ignoring messages from me, but if she wasn’t even responding to Siesta…that could be cause for concern.

“You’re worried about Charlie? You’ve changed, Kimi. You never used to get along.”

“We’re not exactly all buddy-buddy now, either… We’ve been through a lot, though. Quite a bit of it was while you were asleep.”

Reminiscing a bit, I looked through the messaging app Charlie and I sometimes used. Her most recent text had been a photo of a little snowman by the side of the road. When had we gotten close enough to send each other pointless photos like that? I hadn’t really known how to react to the snowman, though, so I’d replied, “It’s well-built.” She’d responded with “I didn’t make it,” and a stamp of a sleeping cat. I didn’t feel like we’d really been communicating.

“So we have two problems. Should we split up?” Mia suggested. Did that mean one team would look for Charlie and the other would go after Ms. Fuubi?

“But if we do that, won’t you people start fighting over who gets me?” I said.

“Okay, then let’s split up into the girls’ team with Siesta, Mia, and me, and the boys’ team with Kimihiko by himself.”

That was just bullying.

“That’s fine, too.”

“No, Siesta, it’s not fine.”

“Although I just said I haven’t been able to contact Charlie, I actually received what looks like a scheduled text from her. It seems she set it up just before the Ritual of Sacred Return.” Siesta read the message aloud. “It says, ‘If you aren’t able to get in touch with me when you get this, I want you to look for Fuubi Kase.’”

“So…Ms. Fuubi may know why Charlie’s gone missing?” Nagisa mulled over the meaning of the message.

About three weeks ago, Charlie had said she’d be absent from the Ritual of Sacred Return in order to carry out an important job. Had Ms. Fuubi been involved in that? Had Charlie left that text for Siesta because she’d thought something unexpected might happen?

“All sorts of incidents are getting tangled together,” Mia said with a soft sigh. “The past and present twist again and again, converging into a single future. That future branches into multiple possibilities, and in the end, we choose one of those routes…” Mia gave me the faintest trace of a smile. “Let me witness your choice.”

“Either way, it looks like we need to find Fuubi Kase.” Both to talk about the Phantom Thief, and to get her to tell us where Charlie was.

I got to my feet and stretched my arms.

“You seem more enthusiastic than usual.” Watching me, Siesta laughed a little.

“Of course I am. How many times do you think that woman’s arrested me by mistake?”

In other words, this was my best chance to get a little revenge.

“Okay, let’s get out there and arrest that cop.”

I’d think up something to charge her with by the time we found her.

When I opened the door, Siesta was in there. She was wearing animal ears and a dog tail, which was attached to her butt.

“You shouldn’t talk about butts with girls, you know.”

“I didn’t say anything. Quit reading my mind,” I retorted mildly, like I always did. Siesta’s tail wagged back and forth.

“So? What kind of cosplay is that?”

“I thought even you might get tired of cat-eared maids all the time.”

“Don’t make it sound like I ask you to do stuff like this!”

That said, for the record, I wouldn’t get tired of it… Just for the record.

“Honestly, I wish you’d put yourself in my shoes: Imagine having to wear cosplay on a regular basis just to keep you happy.”

“You don’t have to resort to any weird little tricks. I don’t plan to quit being your assistant or anything.”

“Heh-heh. Anyone would think you were the faithful hound here,” Siesta said, and for some reason, her tail started gently wagging again.