A letter from the Ace Detective
"Not fair."
Walking down Baker Street at night by myself, I sighed.
At the end of our meeting with Mia Whitlock in the clock tower, she'd said, "I have something important to discuss with my fellow Tuner." As the new candidate for Ace Detective, Natsunagi had stayed, and they'd chased me out.
In the end, Mia hadn't given us a definite answer about whether or not there was a future where Siesta came back to life. At the very least, though, negotiations hadn't broken down.
"I'll have to ask Natsunagi about it when she gets back."
I was sure that was what they were talking about at this very moment. Forcing myself to be content with that idea, I headed home on my own. I wasn't bound for the hotel, though.
I was on my way to achieve the trip's original objective. "—Wow, that takes me back."
I'd walked down this street a year ago, too. Only back then, someone else had been there with me.
We'd looked at the clothes in the shop windows. We'd gone shopping for dinner fixings at the supermarket. We'd had tea at her favorite café. Everywhere I looked, I saw traces of her on this street.
As I walked through those familiar sights, an old mixed-use building came into view on a street corner. Siesta and I had used one of its apartments as our office and living quarters. The building had no elevator, so I took the stairs up to the third floor. A little hesitantly, I pushed the key in and turned the doorknob.
"I'm home."
I knew no one was there.
Even so, out of habit, I told the empty room I was back.
When I opened the curtains, moonlight shone in, illuminating the room. The dining table, the sofa, and all the rest of the furniture was right where we'd left it. Just the way it had been a year ago, when we'd left for SPES's hideout to rescue Natsunagi. When I'd lost Siesta that day, I'd gone straight back to Japan. It was like I was running away.
"This place is really tidy."
I'd thought the room would be dirtier, but there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere. There were no empty pizza boxes, no snack bags scattered around. Our matching teacups had been put away in the dish cupboard, where they belonged. Siesta must have cleaned it thoroughly last year before we left. She'd known we wouldn't be coming back.
I headed for the bedroom. That had been Siesta's room, and there was a bed
and a small study in there. The desk had a little locked drawer. "That's right. This is it."
I remembered the conversation I'd had with Siesta about that drawer, a bit over a year ago.
I'd gone into her study on an errand, and I had seen her sneaking something into that drawer. Then, she'd promptly locked it and tried to make me deduce what was inside—
"If you want to know what's in here so badly, why don't you try making a deduction for once? If you can, that is."
"If you'd go that far to avoid telling me, then it's gotta be you-know-what. I heard rumors your three great drives are stronger than other people's, Siesta, so it's a fairly hard-core porn magazine…"
"Are you stupid, Kimi?" "Man, that's not fair." "I'm not you, all right?"
"Ouch. You didn't have to hit back that hard."
"This isn't like the hidden folders on your computer, okay?" "Hey, how much do you know?!"
"You really shouldn't rename your folders with the titles of complicated- sounding English dissertations. It's really shortsighted."
"Yeah, let's not talk about this. I'd really prefer we stopped talking about this right now."
"It might work with other people, but it won't work on me. I just thought it looked interesting, and I peeked inside."
"So I should have named it something that wouldn't grab your interest…?
Like '100 of the Latest Hot Instagram Spots' or something?" "What I am trying to say is…"
"?"
"…Don't spring those vivid images on me like that.'"
Siesta had murmured the words very fast. Unusually for her, she'd blushed and looked away.
"…Okay, that's not even relevant. I need to stop reminiscing."
Mentally changing gears, I took out the master key I'd inherited from Siesta and turned on the orange fluorescent light. The key was one of Siesta's Seven Tools; I'd heard it would open any lock easily. She'd used it to get into my apartment, back when we'd first met.
"Don't let me down, Siesta," I prayed, then stuck the key into the lock. There was a good possibility that she'd left a hint regarding the fight with SPES here, as her legacy. However, the past Siesta probably hadn't known everything about SPES, either.
Even Mia's clairvoyance, which Siesta had counted on, wasn't perfect. Mia had said as much herself. That was why Siesta had taken that risk. In order to keep me from realizing how it would end, she must have avoided telling me anything important during those three years. Now that I'd finished the homework she'd given me, though, I was sure she'd cooperate. On that thought, I turned the key, opened the drawer, and—
"A letter?"
The drawer held a single letter.
The envelope was sealed with sealing wax. I opened it with a letter opener, then took out the stationery.
It was a letter to me, and it began with "To my assistant."
"Are you stupid, Kimi?"
"…Not fair."
For some unfathomable reason, she'd yelled at me in the very first line. What had I done, huh? Pulling myself together, I let my eyes go to the second line.
"Trying to uncover a girl's secrets? That's a huge turnoff, frankly. Even now, as you're reading this—what sort of methods did you use? Just imagining it is scary."
"What's wrong with you? I was legit about this."
Because you used that maid to give me the key, all right?
"That said, I think the fact that you found this means you wanted to get your hands on 'that information,' even if it meant going this far."
There we go, this is it. Yes, you called it. I want to know the information on SPES that you left behind, and how to defeat Seed.
Getting my hopes up, I read the next line.
"Of the two, I prefer strawberry shortcake to Mont Blanc."
"I completely could not care less!"
I came really close to flinging the letter across the room. Seriously, what was wrong with her? There was no way I'd come to London just to learn a thing like that after all this time… And I seem to recall, Siesta, when you made me go buy those two desserts, you ate both of them. Mine included.
"Jokes aside…"
"I didn't come here to do a comedy routine across space-time with you, either, all right?"
"…I'll set down my observations on SPES and its leader Seed here."
Finally, she got to the main topic.
The letter continued on the second sheet of stationery.
"When you're reading this letter, I presume you'll have a certain amount of knowledge regarding SPES. Therefore, I'll omit the details about that. My hand would get tired otherwise."
…Setting aside that grade schooler–level excuse, Siesta's presumption was correct. Now that I'd recovered my memories of meeting Seed and had learned about the Tuners, I'd be able to follow her story to a certain extent.
"First, the premise: Seed is the progenitor of all of SPES. I believe that if we defeat him, the production of pseudohuman clones will cease, which will propel SPES toward destruction. Therefore, our goal must be to defeat Seed."
Good, that matched up with what we were trying to do.
That's why we'd come here looking for information about Seed.
"However, at present, Seed doesn't seem inclined to show himself. We can conjecture that he doesn't want to make any eye-catching moves, and that he doesn't desire war. His wish is simply to satisfy his survival instinct, and only his subordinates are committing acts of terror."
When I compared that supposition against what I'd learned so far, it made plenty of sense. Seed hadn't personally taken action. Instead, he'd made Hel and the other executives do all the conspicuous stuff—and it had all been designed to get Siesta, his candidate vessel, onto the battlefield.
He'd cultivated Siesta through battle…or maybe he'd boosted the survival instinct of the seed that was sprouting inside her by making her compete with Hel. That had been what would synchronize her with him, the primordial seed.
"Since Seed can't adapt to Earth's environment, he's seeking a human vessel. Hel and I are at the top of his list… But what prevents him from adapting to Earth, specifically? If we can determine that, it could prove to be his Achilles' heel."
…I see. Yes, that was true. Exactly what about this planet was so hard on Seed? That would be the key to taking him down.
"It could be water, for example, or some element of the air, nitrogen or oxygen. Can we assume that his weakness is something Earth has in abundance, but which didn't exist on his home planet or in outer space?"
Siesta's observations continued on a third sheet of stationery.
"The Vampire seemed to have some sort of hint, but when we negotiated, I wasn't able to pay the price he requested, so I was ultimately unable to get it out of him. You be careful of that man, too."
So Scarlet really had been involved. What would that narcissistic vampire have asked for? He'd better not have told Siesta to offer herself. If he did, next time I see him, I'll slaughter him in his sleep.
"One more important thing: I said that Seed tended not to show himself, but I did fight him once. It was four years ago, on that island."
Four years ago. But this letter had been written a year ago, which would make it five years before now. Siesta had been at the SPES facility six years ago. Had she attempted another attack on Seed, one year later?
"However, you couldn't really call that a fight. Seed's strength was overwhelming. In terms of raw strength in a fight, he's probably equal to the Vampire or the Assassin; he may even surpass them. I was utterly defeated, and I fled from that place."
Seed was at least as strong as a Tuner. Back then, Siesta had still been a kid; she could never have been a match for an opponent like that. Seed had probably only let her escape because she was a candidate vessel. He'd been counting on her growth.
"A little while after that, I met a girl named Mia Whitlock who could see the future. Mia became a Tuner, and she looked up to me as one with more experience. She worried about me, and one day, she made an exception and showed me what was written about SPES in the sacred text."
And what had Siesta seen there…? It must have been what Mia had told me about on the bus. At first, the sacred text had told of a future in which Siesta was defeated by SPES, and Hel became Seed's vessel.
"That experience showed me that overturning the future and defeating Seed would require extremely careful planning. I knew I would need more information about SPES. That's why I spoke to you that day, up in the air."
That had been four years ago—far overhead, at ten thousand meters.
Siesta, who'd made me carry her gun onto the plane, had intended to make me her assistant all along.
I was sure there was just one reason: this predisposition of mine. With me around, incidents—and SPES—would come to her.
"Then I got a little careless and took a nap, so I wasn't able to explain the plan properly."
Look… Do you have any idea how freaked out I was back then? First, I got
pulled into a hijacking out of nowhere, and then I ended up in a fight with a pseudohuman.
"But you managed to follow me just fine. You did even better than I thought you would, actually. More than anything…"
I turned to the fourth sheet.
"…talking to you was fun."
"Are you a moron?" I caught myself retorting out loud.
"The next thing I knew, I'd ended up dragging you all over the place with me for three whole years. I'm sorry."
I'd heard that apology before, when Siesta temporarily took control of Natsunagi's body.
…Sheesh. I'd told her not to say she was sorry.
"It's likely that I'm still causing problems for you. If you need this letter, it means that I've failed to kill Seed. I think I'm causing a great deal of trouble for you, and probably for your current companions as well. As the Ace Detective, and as a Tuner, the fact that I wasn't able to ensure that justice was served is more shameful than anything. At the same time, I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart to you who were left behind."
The letter was four pages in all. This was how she ended it.
"Finally, while I'd like to outline specifically what you should do next, even I can't accurately predict the future a year from now. In particular, due to that predisposition of yours, the environment that surrounds you changes by the day. It's very likely to be doing something even the Oracle can't predict. That being the case, as I close this letter, I'll place the faintest of expectations on you. I look forward to seeing you choose a future that would never occur to me."
That was the end of the letter. It was just like Siesta to finish that way. By saying she couldn't begin to predict what I'd do, she left things up in the air, and yet she did seem to have realized that whatever future we chose would be pretty wild.
"Too bad, though. Of all the unexpected futures, the route where you come back to life must be the one you expect least."
With a little laugh, I dropped onto Siesta's bed, then lay there on my back. Come to think of it, I'd spent the night with her one time, when she'd gotten drunk. And after that, we'd had that huge fight… Geez.
"Hurry and wake up, Siesta."
Then let's fight again, and feel all awkward, and one of us will give an embarrassed apology, and we'll eat pizza and cake, and drink tea, and have really dumb conversations. As I thought about that… I felt as if, right now, I might be able to dream about it.
There on the bed, I softly closed my eyes.
On a moonlit night, you vow
Something smelled sweet.
It was a fragrance like rose perfume, something comforting and reassuring. "Oh, you're awake."
When I woke from a world of darkness, I saw a girl's face right next to me. "…What are you doing, Natsunagi?"
I'd only meant to close my eyes for a minute, but apparently, I'd conked out. "Watching you. You were snoozing as peacefully as a baby."
"Don't just get into a bed where a guy's sleeping." "Did it make your heart skip a beat?"
"Well, being in Siesta's bed with you is making me sweat, but not for the reasons you might be thinking."
Siesta would probably belt me one without saying a word. In a dream, for example.
"And? Why are you here, Natsunagi?" Had she and Mia finished their talk? "Actually, how did you get here? Did you take a taxi? It's not safe to walk around by yourself too late at night."
"…Huh! So you're worried about me."
The room was gloomy, but I could tell she was smiling at me. Fine, I get it, just quit smirking.
"Well? Did you find what you were looking for?" she prompted.
"Yeah, Siesta left us a letter with a hint. Starting tomorrow, it looks like we'll be adjusting the plan a little."
That said, our plan still wasn't clear. To be honest, I wanted to get Natsunagi's input, too. However, right now… "How did things go on your end?"
I propped myself up on one elbow. She was lying next to me. While I'd been here, reading the letter, Natsunagi had been discussing the possibility of bringing Siesta back to life with the Oracle.
"Mm-hmm. It's all right."
Natsunagi nodded. Her expression was sincere. "The Oracle said that that future, or the possibility of it, definitely exists."
"—Seriously?! …Then why did she make me leave by myself back there?" Deep down, I'd been worried that no such route existed, and she'd told me to go because she hadn't had the heart to tell me that.
"Oh, that was, um… She said she had to dress formally and make preparations in order to see the future. I bet she was embarrassed about the idea of you seeing her change."
What's with that girly reason…? Well, it didn't matter, as long as it wasn't the worst-case scenario I'd been imagining.
"That said, it sounds like she still needs some time to think about specifically what needs to be done in order to make that future happen."
"I see… Still, just learning it's possible is an achievement all by itself."
I'd never thought this wish would come true in a day or two. We'd probably have to sit down with Mia and talk things over thoroughly. All that aside… "There's a way to reclaim Siesta, then? Really…?"
In that dawn, I'd screamed it.
I'd sworn at the top of my lungs that I'd bring the detective back to life.
Part of it must have been delirium. I hadn't had one single idea about concrete ways to bring that blasphemous miracle about.
…But there really was a way to reclaim Siesta? Would I get to see her again someday?
"Say, Kimizuka." Natsunagi spoke lightly. "Do you want to bring Siesta back to life?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Then you really did like her?"
"I don't get the connection between those statements." What's that "then" about, huh? Geez… "She wasn't my lover, and we weren't even friends. She was just a business partner."
"I see. So your love was unrequited." "Hey, don't make things up."
"Oh, it's fine. Treat this like the night of a school trip. Wanna talk romance?
C'mon!"
"Why are you so hyper, huh? Knock it off. And I don't think guys and girls talk about this stuff togeth— Okay, I get it. I get it! Quit poking me all over the place!" She's weirdly persistent today. Actually… "Natsunagi, wait… Are you drunk?" I'd thought that scent earlier was perfume, but could it have been
liquor? Sure, the legal drinking age in England was eighteen, but… "Who knows? All girls have secrets."
Oh, is that right? Well, she could be hyper if she wanted, but would she do something she might regret later? Would she be tearing her hair out over this tomorrow? (I sure had back then.)
"And? And? Be honest. What did you really think of Siesta, Kimizuka?
C'mon, c'mon, I'm the only one who's listening." Still, Natsunagi kept getting in my face.
Apparently, she wasn't going to let me go that easily… Man, I guess I've got no choice. "I said she was just a business partner. Let me correct that." I turned my face away from Natsunagi, looking up at the ceiling.
"What was she really…?"
"…A business partner who was just a little bit special." "Yowza!"
"You are making fun of me, aren't you!"
I flipped over and unleashed a ferocious attack on Natsunagi's forehead. "Owwww! Kimizuka, your forehead flicks seriously hurt, all right?!" she
yelled. I could hear the beginnings of tears in her voice.
How's that? Did it sober you up a bit? "What, I thought you liked pain!" "I hate pain with no love behind it!"
"Ever the proper masochist…"
I'm begging you, in the future, don't get stuck with a violent dude or some good-for-nothing guy you need to bankroll.
"…Haaah. Well, as long as I managed to get those words out of you, I guess it's okay." Natsunagi seemed to have calmed down a little after all. Murmuring to herself, she sat up.
"Natsunagi?"
Sitting on the bed, she gazed at me steadily.
"Just leave it to me," she said firmly, there in the moonlight.
"I'll get Siesta back, no matter what I have to do. I swear on the name of the proxy detective."
Natsunagi smiled at me.
Those words seemed so reliable that I thought I wouldn't mind leaving my entire destiny in her hands.
Her smile was so beautiful that I wanted to stay right there, watching it, until the end of the world.