Chapter 27 - 2.2

Chapter 27: Chapter 2.2

I can forgive everything but that triumphant look

"Charlie?"

I knew this girl.

Charlotte Arisaka Anderson.

She was sixteen, and although she was an American citizen, she had Japanese blood as well. She was an agent who flew all over the world on orders from the organization she belonged to, and on Siesta's request, she'd worked with us a few times—meaning she knew me, too.

"Are you okay?" I asked Charlie nervously. "...Yes, mostly."

Holding her injured right shoulder, Charlie slowly sat up on the bed. I straightened up, too, stepping back.

What was she doing here, though? Why had she sneaked into my room with a weapon...?

"Oh, I see what's going on. Siesta asked you to do this, didn't she?"

Was this the "step" Siesta had said she'd taken? I see... Yes, with combat skills like Charlie's, we'd be able to fight the enemy on equal terms. Apparently, I'd jumped the gun, and now I was guilty of excessive self- defense.

"...She sure did. I swear... You just lunged at me out of nowhere." "Look, I'm sorry, okay? But you did come in here with a gun." "Well, Cerberus might have gotten in ahead of me."

I see. Yeah, that's true. I might have been a little too wary myself. A little more of that, and I would have had Siesta laughing at me for freaking out.

"Hmm. Something smells." Charlie sniffed audibly. "Does it? Did you fart?"

"Are you familiar with the word tact?"

"Well, my ace detective partner sure isn't." I went over to the window to air out the room for Charlie.

"Still, you're better than I thought you were, Kimizuka. You completely crushed me," she said behind me. "Even if you did use a trick, I never thought you'd manage to pin me..."

"Yeah, I guess it really is the first time I've ever beaten you one-on-one."

That training Siesta puts me through all the time must be paying off, I thought. I set a hand on the curtain, and just as I opened the window—

"No, really, could I actually beat Charlie?"

It was a completely pathetic self-evaluation, a deduction with zero pride. The thing is, though, I knew.

I knew how strong Charlotte Arisaka Anderson was. I also knew that Siesta was the first to acknowledge that strength. Charlotte would never lose to a guy like me.

"...Uh, more important."

I had a simpler theory, too.

"That short-tempered sore loser would never admit she lost this easily." Especially not to me, her mortal enemy. Therefore—

"Who are you?"

I turned around, directing my question at Charlie...or more precisely, at the individual who was passing as Charlotte Arisaka Anderson.

"Ah—you've seen through my disguise, then?"

The voice shifted from Charlie's into a deep male voice. In the next moment, her face and body warped and changed into a sturdy middle-aged man in a black robe.

"Well, no matter. Either way, I shall take your heart." "...! So you really are Cerberus?"

That ability to transform must be where he'd gotten his code name. The guard dog of Hades had three heads, a symbol of an ability to change into other people. If his nose was sharp, too, of course the police would have a hard time with him. No wonder they hadn't managed to catch him yet.

"Bad news, though. Your Jack the Ripper imitation ends today." I'd retrieved the Magnum during that fight, and I pointed it at his forehead.

"You do seem quite capable. I thought you were that ace detective's lackey, but I shall have to revise that impression."

As Cerberus spoke, he quietly closed his eyes and put his palms together in front of his chest. The gesture reminded me of a priest, although the impression was lessened somewhat by his pompous way of speaking and sturdy build. However, I was only able to think that for a moment, before—

"The moon is full tonight. It makes the blood sing."

The next moment, Cerberus's muscles began swelling up, and then thick fur spread over his body. He looked just like—

"Wait, you're a werewolf...?"

Aren't you confusing Cerberus with something else? But this wasn't really a situation for snappy comebacks.

We're not letting him get away...!

Hastily turning to the window behind me, I tried to cut off Cerberus's escape route, but...

"Too late."

By then, he'd already resumed his beast-man form and was leaping lightly over my head.

"I have a mission. One more. I must obtain just one more fresh heart, and until then..."

He leaned out the window, and— "You can leave yours, Cerberus."

A spray of blood.

Then Cerberus's head—only his head—fell out of the window and down.

After a moment, his decapitated body slowly toppled over backward. "...Huh?"

My mind couldn't process what I was seeing. Why was Cerberus dead? Who was it? Who'd done this?

"Assistant!" That was Siesta. She sounded more flustered and tense than I'd ever heard her. "Be careful."

She was pointing her musket at the window, but its muzzle seemed to be wavering slightly.

"This is the first time we've met in person, isn't it, ace detective," said a bitterly cold voice.

The speaker, who was sitting on the windowsill, swung the saber she'd used to cut down Cerberus, shaking off the blood.

"You're..."

A girl with short black hair and red eyes. She wore a wine-red military uniform, and multiple sabers hung from her waist. She seemed to be about

Siesta's age. Between her service cap and her high collar, I couldn't make out her face all that well.

But the flawless ace detective was wary of her. Who in the world was—? "My name—my code name—Is Hel," she droned from her perch in the

window, cleaning the blood off her sword with a cloth. "Code name... So she's another one?"

"She's one of SPES's highest-ranking officers," murmured Siesta. She was standing next to me now, and her expression was grim. "In Norse mythology, Hel is the name of the queen who ruled Niflheim, the country of ice."

"So there's no system to their code names, huh?"

At the very least, it was clear that she was in a different league from Bat and Cerberus.

"Well, now."

Hel descended from the windowsill and proceeded straight to Cerberus's corpse, without so much as a glance at us. She crouched down—and plunged her sword into the left side of his chest.

"...Ughk." The gruesome sight made me feel sick.

With a face that held no emotion, Hel stuck her arm into Cerberus's chest...then pulled something out of the pooled blood.

"Now we have the final piece." Hel's gory right hand held what looked like a small lump of black ore. "Now then, I'll take this back with me and commence the operation..."

"Do you think we'll let you?" Siesta glared sharply at Hel. The aim of the long-barreled gun was perfectly steady now.

"Well, well." Hel returned Siesta's gaze. "But you cannot shoot."

"What are you talking ab...—?"

Abruptly, as if she'd noticed something, Siesta's eyebrows rose.

"And you cannot take a single step from that spot. You cannot speak." Hel's bloodred eyes glinted ominously.

Siesta's eyes widened. Her mouth flapped as if she were a fish who'd poked her head out of the water in search of food, but she didn't say a word.

"It can't be— A pseudohuman ability..."

If Hel was also a member of SPES, then she would have had some sort of special power. If she could do this, was it an ability that controlled what others did...?

I was in too much of a panic to think through it rationally, though. She had Siesta nailed down. In that case, our enemy's next move was obvious.

The girl in the red military uniform sprinted toward me. "Now, why don't you come see hell with me?"

In that moment, my mind lost its link to the world.