Because everyone had their own justice
"Hey, you damn kid, it's been a while. Did they finally arrest you, too?"
She looked at me with the hyper-focused eyes of a beast stalking its prey. Was her red hair colored like the blood of the criminals she had executed in the name of justice? She had several former titles.
For example, former police officer, and former Assassin—Fuubi Kase. Now, she was incarcerated here as a criminal.
"I didn't get arrested. Sorry for never living up to your expectations," I said, bowing my head in a patently fake way.
Ms. Fuubi narrowed her eyes, then gave a smile that didn't go past her lips.
Our positions and situations might have changed, but she definitely hadn't. "Fuubi, what are you doing now?"
When Siesta asked her about her lifestyle, Ms. Fuubi snorted. "What does it
look like I'm doing? They even exempted me from prison labor, so I've got nothing to do but strength training."
So was that the reason behind the murderous hostility? Now that she mentioned it, Ms. Fuubi hadn't become gaunt—if anything, she was more toned than before. Although her abs were hidden beneath her clothes, I suspected she might have found a way to get the fabled twelve-pack.
"So hey, you chose this one as your legal wife, huh?" Ms. Fuubi asked me, shooting Siesta a glance.
"It's not like that. Nagisa's just busy with something else right now." "Uh, I didn't mention her name, did I?"
…I'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book.
"And? What brings you to this dump?" She raked her fingers through her hair, which was a whole lot longer now.
"Well, actually…"
I told Ms. Fuubi about the Federation Government official killings Noel had told us about yesterday. Siesta took a few reference documents out of her bag and passed them through the bars. They were copies of reports on the unknown crisis; the Federation Government had sent them over this morning.
"Why would you people tell me about this?"
Ms. Fuubi skimmed through them, getting the gist of things, then gave us a piercing look. "Did you think this was my doing again?"
I didn't have a prompt response for that. About fifteen seconds passed in silence.
"Unfortunately, even I can't kill people from a jail cell." Fuubi Kase broke the silence herself. "Maybe you were hoping I'd give you some sort of hint, either as a former cop or somebody who once pulled off something similar, but you've come to the wrong person. You're missing a lot of intel here."
I should've known. Ms. Fuubi shoved the documents back at us. A whole lot of them had been redacted by the Federation Government.
"Apparently the locations where the officials were killed are confidential, so they can't tell us." Flipping through the documents, Siesta gave a little sigh.
The places where the incidents had occurred, the times and dates, the code names of the murdered officials—all of it was censored. The only thing we knew was that there had already been thirteen victims.
The Federation Government ruled the world from the shadows, and I could understand why they'd keep such a tight lid on information. Even so, if they were going to make Siesta and Nagisa proxy Ace Detectives so they could investigate this, you'd think they'd be a little more cooperative.
"It's like they aren't seriously planning to have you investigate it," I said. A little irritated, I thought back to yesterday. Unlike all the other officials we'd met, Noel had seemed reasonable.
"Sorry I can't help. Is that all you needed?" Ms. Fuubi stretched lazily, starting to retreat to the back of the cell.
"No—there's another reason we're here." When I called her back, Ms. Fuubi stopped where she was, although she looked as if she probably had a few choice words for me.
"I just wanted to see you, Ms. Fuubi." I'd been worried about her, all this time.
She gazed back at me steadily. There was an emotion in her eyes that I couldn't read.
She'd been arrested about a year ago, right after the end of the Great Cataclysm.
Since the world had attained lasting peace, the Federation Government had decided to dismantle the Tuner system. As the Assassin, Fuubi Kase had stained her hands with all sorts of dark deeds, and no sooner had she lost her privileged position than they'd decided to jail her.
To put it bluntly, she'd been charged with treason. The pretext was that she'd killed a Federation Government official, but there was no telling whether that was actually true. In any case, the higher-ups had decided that Fuubi Kase's excessive meting out of justice made her a dangerous element.
"Are you okay with this?" Siesta asked her.
Did she think it was fair that the government had decided to lock her up?
"One era's terrorist is another's celebrated revolutionary. You hear that one all the time." Ms. Fuubi turned to face us. "What happened to me is the same thing
—or the reverse, that's all. I steeled myself for this to happen the day I took on the Assassin's mission." Somehow, the look on her face seemed clear and refreshed. "I may not look like it, but I'm a cop before anything else. If the world is peaceful and its citizens are happy now, then that's fine. I couldn't ask for more." Her expression softened.
"But Ms. Fuubi, didn't you say you wanted to get to the top?" When I'd first heard her say that, I'd assumed she wanted to climb the ranks as a police officer. But when I thought about it later, I realized what she'd really meant was—
"Kimizuka." Ms. Fuubi almost never said my name. Quietly, she shook her head. "I already have my answer. I joined the force in order to get it. This peaceful world is enough for me."
Come to think of it, when had it been? I'd asked Ms. Fuubi why she'd wanted to be a police officer before. Had it been a year ago? Right before the Great Cataclysm? …What had that been about? That had been a pretty important conversation, I think.
"Still, some mysterious enemy's going around killing the ones who shoved me in here, huh? I see. That's a nice, peaceful world."
Ms. Fuubi smirked. Was she deliberately putting on an evil act? However, she'd said she had nothing to do with this incident.
I believed her. I didn't have a choice.
"It's kind of noisy." She looked absently up at the ceiling.
Siesta seemed to have picked up on something as well; she cupped her ears, listening carefully. Was something happening above this underground cell, in the area where the regular prisoners were housed?
"That knack of yours is still going strong." "It's a coincidence, seriously."
Please let it be a coincidence. Siesta and I exchanged looks, then turned on our heels. If the detective and her assistant were here, they couldn't just ignore trouble.
"You weren't wrong," Siesta said, stopping for a moment. "The justice of Fuubi Kase, Assassin, wasn't wrong, either."
I couldn't see her face as she said this, nor Ms. Fuubi's. However, I knew the detective was right.
That back, for the first time in seven years
"…What is this?"
When we'd climbed the stairs and opened the door leading up from the basement, what we saw stopped us in our tracks.
The prison was built around a central well. On every floor—first, second, and third—all the barred cell doors stood open. The prisoners were loose. Men in dull-colored prison uniforms raced across catwalk-like corridors and hallways.
"Assistant, hide," Siesta told me.
Ducking behind an open cell door, we took in the situation. The prisoners definitely weren't fleeing from the guards. After all, the guards were fleeing, too.
Who were they running from? The answer to that one was obvious.
It was the guy who was brandishing a snake-sword that whipped around like a living creature.
"Where is he?! Where?!" the big guy screamed, lashing out at everything in reach with that strange weapon.
The sword writhed, growing and shrinking at will. It stretched to two meters, then three, slashing through cell bars and destroying stone walls. Its twisting form was almost like…
"—A tentacle." The words were out of my mouth before I realized I was going to say them.
"Look closer, Assistant. It's not." Siesta pointed at the distant enemy.
The snake-sword wasn't growing from his ear or shoulder. While his sleeve hid it from view, he was probably holding it like a regular weapon.
Maybe because we'd just heard about something similar from the Federation Government yesterday, I'd reflexively linked this to a past experience.
"Does that mean we've already ruled him out as the culprit behind the government official killings?"
"I…think so. I can't swear that he has no connection to them, though."
In other words, we'd coincidentally happened to run into a guy like this, now of all times…?
"Still, this is perfect." Siesta sounded rather cheerful. "It's a little like that other time. It'll make for a great comeback battle."
When I glanced at her, she was wearing her usual dress. "Hey, changing scenes are special. If you're going to change, check with me first and do it right."
"That's the first setup joke you've fed me in a while. I was just thinking if our comedy skills got any rustier, we should probably disband."
"Your definition of 'business partners' is very broad… Forget that, Siesta, how are you going to stop that guy?"
"I'd like to start by shutting down that odd snake-sword of his, but…"
I could predict the rest of that sentence: We didn't have any weapons that could do that.
Now that Siesta was working as a proxy Ace Detective, she was licensed to carry a weapon. However, this was a prison. They hadn't let us take guns to our interview with Ms. Fuubi.
"Assistant, this way."
Inching closer to the enemy, we sized up the situation.
The prisoners were still running around and screaming, but the man with the snake-sword wasn't going out of his way to chase them.
"So he's not attacking at random?"
If this wasn't indiscriminate slaughter, the criminal had to have a clear objective.
"I just had a great idea." Siesta smacked her palm with her fist.
"You're a detective, all right. I knew I could count on you. Specifically what will we be doing?"
"First, you cling to that snake-sword and keep the guy from moving. Then I'll get in close and punch him in the gut."
"Don't ever call yourself the Ace Detective again."
Her instincts had gotten way too dull over the past year. Actually, no—this was basically how things had been before, too.
"After giving it some serious thought, maybe we should ask the criminal what he wants first."
"I wish you'd started with the serious thought, but yeah, I'm on board with that."
Why had he broken into the prison and started swinging that weapon around?
Before we even had to ask, he gave us the answer.
"That bastard killed my little sister, and I'm gonna end him personally."
…I'd heard that one before. From Bat, a pseudohuman we'd fought ages ago. I remembered how he'd looked, lashing that snakelike tentacle around at ten thousand meters.
Either way, this criminal was out for revenge. That was why he was looking for his sworn enemy and completely ignoring unrelated prisoners.
In that case… I made eye contact with Siesta, then picked up a uniform cap dropped by a fleeing guard and tugged it onto my head. I didn't have time to actually change clothes, but maybe my suit would be enough to fool him.
"You do have that nondescript face. It's perfect for passing yourself off as
somebody else."
"Watch it. I'll make you cool your heels in a disciplinary cell for two hours," I said, pretending to be a guard.
I walked over to the big guy. He was still swinging his weapon around, but it didn't take him long to notice me. He narrowed his eyes, watching to see what I'd do.
I inhaled slightly, then got started. "The person you're looking for isn't here."
The snake-sword paused in midair. However, the man's eyes stayed locked on me. "No, he's in here. He's been here for the past ten years."
"Yeah, I meant you're a little late." My mouth had gone dry, but I went on. "He got sick and died a month ago." The guy's beast-like eyes widened. "That means your enemy's not on this planet anymore. You can't take him out with that weapon."
I was making it all up, of course. In my heart, I begged the criminal the guy was targeting: Please have made a run for it already. At least don't be dumb enough to step forward and say it was you.
Wearing my best poker face, I waited for his decision.
"That's a lie." A few meters ahead of me, a dark light smoldered in the man's eyes. "This ain't logic. I can feel my enemy's nearby, and I don't need a special ability to do it. You're not gonna make me doubt it with your words."
In the next instant, the snake-sword stopped hesitating and flew straight at me. "…! What, you've decided I'm hostile now, too?"
Just before that attack nailed me, though, something crashed into the enemy's blade and knocked it off course.
"Yes, that really isn't a pseudohuman." It was Siesta. She'd flung her ballpoint pen at him like a spear, blocking the attack. "That snake-sword isn't physically part of him. It's just a dangerous mechanical weapon."
"Apparently. He seems really mad, though."
The enemy glared at us. Then his blade lashed out at us like a whip. "Assistant!"
Siesta grabbed me and jumped. The snake-sword gouged a big chunk of concrete out of the floor, right where we'd been standing. One hit from that thing would take us out instantly.
"That wasn't a bad strategy."
"Yeah, but it was a bit too simplistic. I guess nobody would give up a long- cherished ambition that easily."
As we talked, we kept evading the enemy's attacks.
That said, Siesta was literally carrying my weight. I'd become an adult and grown a bit, but there was really no way around this. It was all about dividing the labor appropriately.
"This takes me back," Siesta whispered. "It was like this seven years ago, too."
Yeah, it had been. The first time I'd met Siesta, at ten thousand meters.
That was where I'd learned that the world had some powerful enemies, and that there was a great detective who fought them. Come to think of it, we'd had a rough time against that enemy's snakelike attacks, too, and then Siesta had said exactly what she was saying now:
"If I just had a weapon or something…"
Unfortunately, I didn't have an attaché case on standby today. "Still, I guess we managed to buy some time."
"We did. She's right around the corner."
When she reached a certain spot, Siesta set me down, then froze. Once again, the snake-sword closed in on us. We hadn't given up, though.
The detective was already fully prepared. "Siesta! Catch!"
The musket Nagisa Natsunagi had thrown from the upper floor landed right in Siesta's hands.
That had been the other detective's job today. She was fully prepared, too: She'd gone to pick up this weapon from the former Men in Black.
"Brilliant work, Nagisa."
With a single bullet, the whole incident was over.
That formidable back was proof that the Ace Detective had returned.