All ready for joint combat
"How dare you show your face here."
On her feet, Ms. Fuubi drew her handgun and pointed it at Bat.
"Ha-ha! Police work sure could stand to be a little more imaginative," the intruder retorted lazily, then plopped down onto the sofa. Just the other day, with Scarlet's help, he'd slipped through Ms. Fuubi's security and broken out of jail.
"Did you forget why I had you paroled?" Ms. Fuubi gave Bat a sharp glare. Come to think of it, they had made a deal like that way back during the Sapphire Eye incident. "I was going to have you keep an eye on Yui Saikawa, but you double-crossed me."
Oh, so that was what she'd been after… But while Ms. Fuubi had tried to kill Saikawa for being Seed's candidate vessel, Bat had gone behind her back and tried to make the girl his ally instead. That was what I'd seen play out on the roof of the TV station.
"Hey, that's why I'm here right now, offering to join your team." Bat didn't even glance at the gun trained on him. "I'll take care of the sapphire girl." As he made his proposal, his eyes were on Saikawa.
"Me?" Saikawa stared blankly.
"Bat, didn't you give up on that?" I was pretty sure these negotiations had broken down the other day.
"Ha-ha! My goal and yours were the same all along. And now you're working with that scary cop, too, right? In that case, I think you could lemme in."
He must have been listening in on our strategy meeting from a distance with those special ears. Bat had his own bone to pick with Seed, and he wanted to join the SPES subjugation team.
"What can you do?" Ms. Fuubi asked, temporarily stowing her gun.
"Activate that left eye." Bat narrowed his own cloudy eyes. "Like the sapphire girl, I'm a human with a seed. I can help her use that eye better."
Bat had been an ordinary human until he'd affixed one of Seed's seeds to himself. From what we'd heard, Saikawa had had a seed surgically implanted along with her left eye, so their circumstances were similar.
"What do you say, sapphire girl? Even if revenge isn't your thing, will you fight for your friends?" Bat asked, shifting the focus. That night, although she'd learned that SPES had taken the lives of her parents, Saikawa had chosen not to avenge them. Still, Bat knew her companions meant more than anything to her now.
"Yes, I will! All right, Bat, help me out!" Saikawa said, agreeing readily. "You're really okay with that?" I was prepared for her to laugh at me for being
overprotective, but I asked anyway.
"Of course. I won't just sit here and let others protect me. I want to be strong enough to protect you as well." Saikawa smiled, flashing a peace sign at us.
"—Yui, thank you." Charlie stood up and hugged Saikawa from behind. Earlier, she'd tried to kill the other girl on orders from Fuubi Kase, the
Assassin. By now, though, the two of them looked like they'd made up. "Charlie…"
"Yui…"
"Would you rub my feet?" "—Oh, yes."
Correction: Apparently it would take a lot more than that before Charlie could look Saikawa in the face.
"Still, I guess we've got something like a plan for now." Leaning back in my chair, I gave a long sigh.
"Right," Natsunagi agreed. "You and I will go to London and look for the hint Siesta left about defeating Seed. Yui and Charlie will build up the strength to fight him."
"—Just for the record, Watson. Are you sure that's what you should be doing?"
I'd pretty much made up my mind, but not everyone agreed. Bat really seemed to be enjoying his cigarette as he went on. "I mean, look. I'm pretty sure I heard some protagonist screaming yesterday about how he was gonna bring the woman he loved back to life. I just figured that's what you'd be trying to do next."
"Ghk— Don't you start messing with me, too!"
I bolted to my feet, thumping the table in protest… But he didn't seem the least bit concerned. He just made himself comfortable on the sofa. Dammit, had those ears of his really picked up everything I said yesterday?
"Ha-ha! Don't get me wrong. I'm asking if you're sure you've got time to mess around with Seed. What you want most is to resurrect the Ace Detective, right?" Bat gave a crooked smile.
…He had a point.
Honestly, in extreme terms, I didn't care about Seed or SPES.
But Siesta's final wish had been a request to defeat SPES. She'd said we were her last hope, and I couldn't ignore that. Besides—
"There's not much point bringing Siesta back to life if she comes back to a ruined world."
And so I'd fight SPES. I'd take Seed down. That was all this was.
"Plus, resurrecting Siesta is going to take a miracle. It's not going to happen in just a day or two."
Bringing the dead back to life was a completely ridiculous idea. Even so, I did think I could believe in it a little. The reason was Scarlet, the vampire I'd met yesterday. He was a real vampire, one with an ability that defied belief: He could breathe life back into humans who'd died.
There was just one issue.
"I figured you'd go for the vampire's abilities, but I guess you're not dumb enough to make a snap decision after seeing that."
Bat and I were probably thinking of the same thing. He grimaced a little.
On the roof of the TV station, we'd seen Chameleon, back from hell. The "undead" the vampire created lost everything, with the exception of what had been their strongest instinct in life. Nobody wanted to resurrect Siesta in a state like that. Even if it took time, we had to find another way.
"…Haaah. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this, but…," Ms. Fuubi interjected. She was scratching her head, looking awkward. "Since you're planning to go to London, there's someone like us there. If you take this issue to her, it might change something."
"A Tuner?"
The only Tuners I'd actually met were Siesta the Ace Detective, Scarlet the Vampire, and Fuubi Kase the Assassin. According to what I'd been told earlier, there were twelve of them in all. Who was the Tuner in London?
"The Oracle."
Ms. Fuubi tossed a photograph to me.
"That little girl knows every one of the world's potential futures."
At ten thousand meters again
"Beef or fish?"
We were up in the air, at ten thousand meters. In terms of phrases you were likely to run into near the front of books like English in Five Minutes a Day, the question I'd just heard was in second place. (First place goes to "Do you play tennis?") "Fish," I replied, glancing over at my traveling companion. "What about you, Natsunagi?"
She didn't seem to have registered the flight attendant's question. She had her earbuds in, and her eyes were glued to the movie on her seat's private screen.
"Sorry to interrupt when you're busy blushing at one of those sudden love scenes foreign films always seem to have, but don't ignore the cabin attendant."
"Eep!"
As I reached over and pulled out an earbud, Natsunagi flinched. "Wha…? I, I- I-I-I-I'll double-kill you!"
"That's not on the menu." I modified the order to "Two fish," one for Natsunagi.
"…Kimizuka, why are you such a jerk?" After she'd watched the flight attendant leave, Natsunagi shot me a resentful look.
That's weird. Here I'd been playing the bad guy because I'd assumed she was into that sort of thing.
"Listen up, Natsunagi. You get tired of a saint in three days, but you can watch a villain your whole life and not get bored."
"What, was that theory inspired by the 'one gets tired of a beauty in three days' saying or something? Even if I don't get bored, I'll hate you, all right? I already do hate you, Kimizuka!"
Natsunagi gave me a cold glare.
A little-known fact is that hardest type to get tired of is a beautiful and very difficult girl.
Not that I'm going to say who it is, specifically.
"In other words, the proverb implies the more righteous you are, the more damage you take," I said.
"That's one ugly proverb."
"Oh, and in the movie you're watching, the leading lady who's so devoted to that guy ends up shielding him from an enemy bullet and getting shot dead."
"And you just hit me with the worst spoiler ever!" Natsunagi tugged at her hair. Then she heaved a big sigh and powered down the screen. "…I really do hate you, Kimizuka. There's nothing fun about being with you." She turned her face away, blatantly snubbing me.
But.
"You can say that, but we're gonna be together for at least ten more hours," I told her. She was gazing out the window.
We were at ten thousand meters, on an international flight to London. Since we'd gotten pulled into a little trouble on our way to the airport, we'd ended up missing our flight and taking the next one instead, but we were still making progress on our objective.
"I know that. We're not going back to Japan until we find Siesta's legacy and see the Oracle."
Exactly. The Oracle was one of the Tuners, and the only person who might have a clue about bringing Siesta back to life.
I thought back over the explanation we'd been given yesterday.
"An oracle?"
My eyebrows drew together at Ms. Fuubi's proposal. She'd mentioned this person while we were thinking of ways to bring Siesta back to life. However, I was pretty sure…
"SIESTA mentioned her, didn't she?" As the first one to remember, Saikawa spoke up before I could say any more.
Yeah, when SIESTA first told us about the Tuners, "Oracle" had been one of the ones she mentioned, right along with positions like Vampire and Assassin.
"Yeah, that's right. I've never met her in person. I don't even know her name.
They say the Oracle foresees everything with her precognition, though."
At this point, I'd already met pseudohumans and a vampire, so I couldn't just say That's crazy and kick the idea of clairvoyance to the curb. Besides, I'd heard that the Tuners were people appointed to protect the world during crises. That meant the idea of a real Oracle who could see those crises coming made a lot of sense.
"If there's a future where the Ace Detective comes back to life, the Oracle may be able to show you how to get to it."
"…I see. So we should ask her for help, hmm?"
My eyes went to the picture again. The photo was a slightly blurry sneak shot.
It showed a girl with pale blue hair and European features.
If she was able to foresee every future possibility, she might be able to find a route where Siesta came back to life. A way to work a miracle, something besides the vampire's method of resurrection.
"So, if you're going to London to look for the Ace Detective's legacy, consider meeting her, too. The Oracle could be the key to reviving her," Ms. Fuubi said brusquely.
Our trip had acquired a second objective.
"Ooh, a trip all alone with Kimizuka… Doesn't that mean he's already locked into your route, Nagisa?" Saikawa teased.
"Saikawa, don't compare people's lives to a dating sim."
"Yui, no matter how many flags you plant, this guy doesn't have that kind of courage. He just doesn't."
Natsunagi, don't put a hand to your heart and quietly shake your head. And get that seriously photogenic smile off your face.
"Well, whatever. Sorry, Saikawa, but you need to loan me the funds to get to London."
"Huh? As if any girlfriend would loan you money when she knows you're headed off to fool around with another woman."
This idol singer, who was several years younger than me, suddenly scared me.
And who is whose girlfriend?
"Serves you right. You proposed to me yesterday, and now you go off with some other girl. You make me sick."
"Charlie, don't go saying things that'll give people the wrong idea! When did I ever propose…to… I did, didn't I? Come to think of it."
Looking back, I did remember making a crazy remark like that during our fight with Ms. Fuubi. I hadn't genuinely meant it, of course, but…
"Wow! What is this? Incredible… My blood is actually boiling with indignation. That's amazing!"
"Natsunagi, the disconnect between your mood and what you're saying is freaking me out."
I really hate this idea. I absolutely don't want to be alone with Natsunagi when she's like this.
"…So, how do we meet the Oracle?" I asked Ms. Fuubi, trying to get the conversation back on track.
"Uh, about that." She looked unusually apologetic. "I'm not sure how to tell
you this, after I made the suggestion myself, but…it's said that nobody can ever meet the Oracle."
Oh, I see.
It looks like the ending I'm working toward won't just hand me a miracle.
"—This really takes me back." On the plane, the comment slipped out of me. "?"
Natsunagi looked perplexed.
"I just meant I was on a plane like this four years ago, too." All by myself, with a mysterious attaché case.
However, at ten thousand meters, I—no, we—became a team.
"I see. So this is where you and Siesta began," Natsunagi said. She was watching the white clouds drift by outside the window.
"Yeah, just one heck of a coincidence… No, actually, I think it was inevitable."
It had all been part of her plan. That was how I'd been launched into three years of dazzling adventure by the detective in the seat next to mine.
"Oh, Kimizuka. That's the look of a guy who's reminiscing about his former girlfriend."
"What do you mean? Cut it out. And don't hold up a mirror."
Maybe it was because I'd been indulging in memories of that distant day. The next moment—it wasn't my imagination.
I genuinely heard a flight attendant who was making her way through the cabin say…
"Is there a detective on the plane?"