That's why I wasn't qualified to pat that head
I ran through the dark streets.
Fortunately, I knew where she was now. I was headed straight for the location on my phone.
"Near here, huh?"
Finally reaching my destination, I looked around. There wasn't a soul in sight.
Then I stepped into a certain church with a distinctive, towering steeple. "I can't see a thing…"
At this hour, of course, none of the lights were on. I headed into the depths, navigating by the glow of my smartphone.
Then I entered the sanctuary, where I could sense a faint light. It was coming from the moon, its beams filtering through the stained glass windows and faintly illuminating my surroundings.
I have to find Alicia, fast, I thought. I took a step forward, and just then— I sensed something.
It wasn't close yet—but that thought didn't last long. It was on me in an instant. I couldn't fight when it was this dark. If my opponent had been hiding in here for a while, their eyes would already have adjusted. The enemy had the advantage.
"Is that what you thought?" I shifted my eye patch to the right. My left eye
was already used to the dark. Then I aimed my gun at the figure right in front of me.
"—I surrender."
Caught off guard by my unexpected counterstrike, my opponent meekly raised both hands.
"I never thought I'd see the day when I raised the white flag to you. I may have gotten a little rusty."
"Why don't you just be happy about how much your assistant's grown— Siesta?"
We traded verbal jabs, then shrugged at each other.
I lowered the gun, shifting my eye patch back to its former position. My right eye had pretty much adjusted by now.
"What were you doing here, Kimi?"
"I could ask you the same thing. Why are you here?" I'd told her to go back home and sleep.
"I'm clearing the place out. I guessed Hel might come here, so I had them evacuate the children."
…Ah, right. The clergymen weren't the only ones at this church. There were a lot of orphans as well. This was the church that had taken Alicia in.
"What made you think Hel would come here?"
"Hmm? You ask some very odd questions." Siesta tilted her head; her expression was the same as always. "I came here because I wanted to ask you that exact same thing."
"I have several complaints about all of this, but first off, how did you know where I was? Don't tell me you tagged me with a transmitter or something."
"You must be joking. I'm not you, all right? It's instinct, born from long years," Siesta replied lightly. Personally, I found that much scarier than the alternative.
"Okay, so, next…" "Listen."
Just as I was getting a new retort ready… "How long do you plan to keep postponing it?" Siesta's blue eyes were gazing at me.
She wasn't angry—she just seemed sad, or maybe resigned.
If I had to say, it was the same expression she'd worn a few days ago, when we'd fought.
"You've already realized it, too, haven't you, Kimi?"
Realized what? I cocked my head, forcing a smile.
I swear, she never just comes out and says it. Or what? Was she secretly trying to get some sort of information out of me by asking leading questions? "Jack the Devil is looking for her lost heart. And she's only going after
hearts."
That's right. That's why every victim up through the fifth had had their heart taken out, and why the police officer had very nearly become a victim today.
"Exactly. That police officer was wounded on the left side of his chest. Without his protective gear, he might have died. He was definitely attacked by Hel. However…in that case, what about her?"
The moonlight illuminated Siesta. Her blue eyes were still focused on me. "Why was Alicia's right shoulder wounded? Why did the police officer
shoot her?"
Right, come to think of it, I seemed to remember the doctor saying something about how Alicia was bleeding after getting grazed by a bullet.
But so what? Was that a problem?
I didn't get it. I didn't really understand.
More important, I needed to find Alicia. I knew she was around here somewhere.
"Don't you think he fired that shot in self-defense?" "Siesta, move, okay? I'm…"
I put a hand on Siesta's shoulder and pushed her away, advancing across the sanctuary's red carpet.
"And didn't the knife that was on the ground with the gun seem familiar to you?"
I didn't know. I knew nothing about that. I hadn't checked to see whether the knife from the crime scene resembled the knife that had disappeared from our kitchen.
"Assistant, listen."
"—Never mind that, we have to find Alicia, fast!"
I had to hurry and get out of here. I had to go somewhere Siesta's words
couldn't reach me, or else…!
"I know you knew, too, Kimi."
The sorrow in her voice was too much for me, and I turned back.
Behind Siesta, at the back of the inner sanctum, the Virgin Mary was watching me.
"I mean, the real reason you put a tracker in that ring was—"
"Stop!"
My scream echoed pathetically in the vast church.
Yeah, I know. I know.
I'd realized a long time ago that Hel and Alicia were the same person.
Once again, we leave on a journey
I'd suspected that Hel, or "Jack the Devil," was actually Alicia, and yet until the very, very end, I'd behaved as though I still had at least a tiny shred of belief in her. Had that been because of her mind control ability, or had I personally wanted to trust her? I didn't know.
The only certainty was that Alicia had been our enemy. "…But Siesta."
Even now, I was trying to struggle against that incontrovertible fact.
"If Hel and Alicia are the same person, then what about the fake Ms.
Fuubi? Didn't you say that was Hel at first?"
Alicia had been there during that visit. If that fake had been Hel, then Alicia had to be unrelated to this after all, and—
"No, Alicia was Hel; she'd used Cerberus's ability to transform herself. We should assume that that fake was yet another enemy."
"No… You're saying we're up against two shapeshifters?"
"That's probably the most reasonable theory. That one may even be the more troublesome foe. Such as their boss, for example."
…! It couldn't be. SPES had worse opponents than Hel?
"Right now, though, Hel takes priority. We have to find her fast, or…" "You mean Alicia!" As Siesta began to turn, I caught her hand. "Not Hel,
Alicia. She's… She's…"
I knew. I knew, I knew. Logically anyway. But my heart hadn't caught up.
I still didn't want to admit it.
"During our fight, Hel's heart was wounded. Immediately afterward, Jack the Devil began stealing human hearts, and right at the same time, an unidentified girl appeared on our doorstep. Listen, Assistant." Siesta turned back to me. "Are you saying all of that is one big coincidence?"
I let go of her hand.
"…Did you know the whole time?"
"No. If I'd realized it sooner, there would have been fewer victims… But I just couldn't bring myself to suspect her until the last minute."
It probably had been her ability, then. Siesta never let her personal feelings affect what she did. When we'd looked into Hel's—into Alicia's—eyes, and listened to what she said, we'd become absolutely incapable of doubting her.
It was mind control. Both Siesta and I had been in the palm of Alicia's hand the whole time.
"That can't be right." The quiet echo of my voice sounded pitiful in the church. "Then what? You're saying that smile of hers, and her tears, her kindness, every little thing, was just a misunderstanding?"
What about her scream?
Those words that had saved the fifth victim's mother—had they been a lie, too?
"No, I think those were genuine." That was some small consolation.
"Alicia's encouragement really did help her. She told us it was almost as if her own daughter was speaking to her, remember?"
Yeah. She'd said it with tears on her face. She'd hugged Alicia to her, and
—
"…!" I broke out in goose bumps all over, and a choked noise escaped me. "Back then, Alicia had…"
The heart of that woman's daughter inside her chest.
The mother had embraced the murderer who'd killed her own child as if that murderer were the daughter herself.
That was just… There was no fixing this.
We had to find Alicia quickly, quickly. We had to stop her, or else… "I'm sorry. I fail as an ace detective, don't I?"
We hadn't even had to look for her: She came to us voluntarily. Alicia was standing in the door of the church with a sad smile.
…But as a matter of fact, we'd known she was going to come here.
After Hel had lost her heart during that fight, she'd searched for a new one. She'd gone through five hearts, one after another, and had failed to take a sixth one earlier. She had to get a fresh heart as fast as she could—and she'd come to the church because she knew that, even at this hour, she would find people here. She'd been targeting the heart of one of the other orphans. One who should have been her companion.
"Alicia…"
She was coming closer and closer, and I couldn't move.
Yet I didn't sense any hostility from her. Siesta and I were standing side by side, and Alicia stopped in front of us.
"There's another me inside me, I think." Alicia set her hand over the left side of her chest. "Of the two of us, I'm sure I'm the 'shadow' side. I think that's why I don't have any memories, why I don't know who I am, and why I was always in the dark."
Dissociative identity disorder, sometimes known as having multiple personalities.
It was a type of defensive reaction. When someone went through pain or suffering too great for their mind to bear, they severed those memories and emotions from themselves and integrated them as a different personality, to reduce their physical and mental burden.
For example, abuse inflicted by parents in childhood resulted in trauma, and in an effort to lessen the emotional damage, the child created another personality. A considerable number of cases like that had been reported, from countries all over the world.
In this case, we could conjecture that Hel was the main personality, the one who'd existed first. During that battle, she'd sustained major damage; her mind had dissociated from the event, and Alicia's personality had surfaced. That was why Alicia hadn't known who she was, and why she'd had hardly any memories.
"I did keep telling you, remember? I'm really seventeen." Alicia cracked a rather strained-sounding joke.
"…Yeah, you did. Sorry for not believing you."
Alicia's appearance was probably something temporary that Hel had
created using Cerberus's ability. The real Alicia was seventeen, and her true form was that red-eyed girl in the military uniform.
"I think even I'd realized it, really," Alicia murmured suddenly. "I just pretended I hadn't, the whole time."
"…Noticed what?"
"That the other me was killing people while I was unconscious." Alicia clutched at her own chest, squeezing her hand into a fist. "It's so strange, though. When I was investigating with Kimizuka, I thought maybe the culprit really was someone else. I really, really wanted it to be true."
In that hospital bed, Alicia had told me about it—how she'd been in darkness for a long time, and how, all of a sudden, light had streamed in. How beyond it was a new self, and a new role, that she'd tried to hold on to. A swarm of hands had reached out for her from the pit of hell, and Alicia had fled from them as best she could.
"Alicia, it's not your fault." I gripped her shoulders. "Even if your hands killed people, you yourself haven't done anything!"
I mean, it was true, wasn't it? Alicia hadn't done anything bad.
True, she was a little selfish, and she wasn't exactly eager to do what she was told, and being with her had given me a lot of trouble—but she was kind, too. She could share others' joy. She could have fun with them. She could get angry for their sake and cry for them.
That wasn't a misunderstanding or anything like it. No one had made me think it. These were just the impressions I'd built over those few weeks with her. I'd never let this disaster break them! This wasn't Alicia's fault. She hadn't done a thing… Not one thing…
"Kimizuka, I'm sorry. I guess I was still a bad kid after all." Alicia was crying.
She bit her lip while round, jewellike tears fell from her large eyes. "We never needed to go out and hunt for a devil, did we."
One of those tears fell onto the ring finger of her left hand. "The devil was inside me all along."
Alicia's ring cracked audibly.
The blue jewel shattered, and the transmitter I'd hidden in it flew apart in
fragments. "Assistant!"
Siesta shoved me out of the way, and I crashed into the ground. When I hastily looked up, Alicia's left arm was frozen mid-swing. She was holding a knife, and Siesta had put her arms up, catching it with a cross block.
She was holding the fruit knife I'd used to peel the apple in her hospital room.
"Alicia…"
Her eyes were blank—she was in a trance. Alicia's mind wasn't there anymore. Was this how she'd attacked those five people? …But even if she could overpower ordinary civilians, she was no match for Siesta.
"I'm sorry."
Apologizing quietly, Siesta pinned Alicia to the floor and pushed the muzzle of a Magnum against the back of her skull.
"Siesta, don't!" The next thing I knew, I'd shoved her out of the way. "Are you stupid, Kimi?! If we don't do this here—!"
"No, you can't! If you solve this by killing her, Alicia won't… She won't…!"
"Can't you tell those emotions are going to skew vital decisions?!" "Didn't you just learn that's how people are?!"
Siesta and I each trained our guns on the other's forehead.
For both of us, this was our line in the sand. We couldn't compromise. "Well, well. Infighting?"
I heard a voice from somewhere. I searched for it but couldn't locate it… But we'd been through a similar experience a few weeks back.
"Allow me to reclaim her."
In that instant, Alicia's prone body abruptly vanished. "…! Chameleon!"
I glared into empty space. Even if I couldn't see him, I knew he had to be there.
"I've had quite a time searching for her, you know. I took my eye off her for one moment, and then she was gone. Not only did she change her shape, but she'd even lost her memory."
…So it was true, then. After that first battle, Hel had used Cerberus's ability to change into this form in order to hide from us. However, she'd taken a lot of damage both mentally and physically, and Alicia's personality had accidentally surfaced. She'd been wandering the streets of London— And that must have been when I'd found her, asleep in that cardboard box.
"It seems she will require full-scale treatment. For now, I will take her back to my abode."
"—Where are you going?!"
"In the ocean approximately seven hundred nautical miles to the northwest, there is an isolated island that serves as our stronghold. What do you say? I believe it is about time, is it not? Once you've prepared yourselves, why not come for a visit?"
In a meticulously polite tone, Chameleon issued his declaration of war. "Now then. We shall be waiting."
That was the last thing he said, and then he was truly gone. The only ones left were Siesta and me.
A hollow, heavy silence fell.
I'd lost a companion, and the bond I'd spent that time cultivating. I couldn't even look Siesta in the eye.
After a few minutes, or maybe half an hour or more… "…—!"
A sharp pain ran through my back. "…I thought you'd shot me."
When I twisted around from where I was sitting on the ground, Siesta had just finished whacking me on the back, hard.
"Are you stupid, Kimi?"
Yeah, that's fine. You can call me as many names as you want. But—
"I'm not apologizing."
Instead of looking at Siesta, I let my back do the talking.
"That's all right. You don't have to." To my surprise, Siesta sat down on the spot, back to back with me. "You were trying to do what was right, and so was I. So you don't have to apologize. I won't either. That's just fine for us," Siesta said, behind me.
"…What should we do now?" I asked pathetically. We'd lost everything.
In response, Siesta said…
"First, let's go to the store together."
She was perfectly calm, speaking to me in the same tone she always used. "Let's buy the biggest, reddest, roundest apples we can find. Then we'll
make a delicious apple pie, and eat it, and brew some truly exceptional tea and drink it together. After that, well…if you insist, we can take a bath together… Although I will be wearing a bath towel, mind you. Then, when night comes, we could order pizza, and drink a toast with cola, and watch rented movies all night long. We'll fall asleep in the middle of one of them, and we'll both be cranky when we wake up, and we'll fight over petty things. Then we'll spend the day the way we always do, and after that—"
The heat on my back disappeared, and I turned around.
My partner was standing there, holding out her hand to me to pull me up from the floor.
"Let's set off on a journey to save our friend." I took her hand without hesitating.
Maybe then the three of us could walk together again, one more time.