Chapter 85 - 6.2

Chapter 85: Chapter 6.2

The end of Route X

Tentacles sprouted from Seed's back, their pointed tips turned toward us.

Our enemy's face was still blank. As he'd said, he wouldn't waste energy attacking first. When it came to striking back, though, I was sure he wouldn't hesitate.

"Natsunagi and Saikawa, shelter behind the pillars!" I called over my shoulder. Then Charlie and I stepped forward.

"What's our plan?" Charlie glanced at me. "Same as always."

"Meaning we don't have one. Right."

Even as we prepared for battle, we joked with each other. Except for that blank year, this was how we'd always done things.

"Do you think she'll say I did well?" Charlie's murmur sounded just a little younger than usual.

I didn't have to ask who "she" was. Charlie was always focused on the great Ace Detective, a girl who'd let her back do all the talking.

"I think I was jealous of you, Kimizuka." Without sparing me so much as a look, Charlie darted toward the enemy. I tightened my grip on my gun and we split up, running at Seed from different directions.

"I ran after Ma'am, and you walked beside her, Kimizuka," said Charlie. "I got the feeling we'd never be equal as long as I lived...and I envied you. But...I realized it was all right that way. After all..." The agent sprinted across the battlefield, evading the tentacles that closed in on her, her blond ponytail flying. "As long as I was a step behind Ma'am, I could guard her back!" she shouted.

Then her golden sword slashed through the incoming tentacles. She took a big step toward the enemy, and—

"—! Stop!"

Behind us, Saikawa screamed. Her left eye must have picked up on something.

Just then, a violent tremor hit, jolting us vertically and side to side all at once. "...! An earthquake?" Charlie stopped in her tracks.

No. This was no earthquake. This was—

"Surface of the Planet Exploding Seeds— My seeds have already been sown across this world."

As Seed spoke, countless briars grew out of the floor and walls of the parking garage. The building had been under his control all along.

"...Dammit!"

The brambles tangled around me. I shot through them, but there was no end to them. Swarms of briars were targeting Saikawa and Natsunagi as well. Natsunagi had her musket, and she was managing to deal with them somehow. Saikawa wasn't good with weapons, though, and the thorny plants surrounded her easily.

"Yui!"

Charlie, who'd freed herself faster than any of us, headed to Saikawa. Her golden sword mowed down briars right and left, almost in a dance; when she'd cut them all down, Charlie reached in to help the other girl—but that's when it happened.

"! No, Charlie, don't!"

Saikawa had seen something else with that left eye and shoved Charlie away.

And then.

" !"

One of Seed's tentacles darted out of a blind spot and grazed her neck. "Saikawa!"

From this distance, I couldn't tell how deep that wound was, but its location couldn't have been worse. Bright blood flowed from the right side of her neck.

"...Huh? That's weird. I managed to save Bat that way once." Saikawa had a hand to her neck. Her face was pale, but she still tried to force a smile. Her left eye could read combat better than any of us...but that didn't mean she could physically keep up.

"Yui...!"

Just as Charlie tried to run to her again, the floor around Saikawa crumbled

away. A massive tangle of briars shot up from the floor below, swallowing her, and she vanished before she could say a word.

"Saikawa...!" "Yui!"

My voice and Natsunagi's overlapped...but there was no way for us to reach our friend now.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Charlie was the first one to act. She ran at Seed, her blond hair disheveled.

"You said that vessel was your friend? It's incredible that you'd call yourselves 'friends' when you can't protect her properly."

Apparently, Seed hadn't intended to hurt Saikawa, either. He turned cold eyes on Charlie. Then a tentacle that grew from a spot near his spine turned silver, like steel, and countered the golden blade Charlie swung at him. The result was

—

"......Oh."

The next thing I knew, Charlie was in the air.

I heard her sword snap, and then a duller crunch. A brief sob escaped her, the steel tentacle wrapped around her waist like a whip, and—

"Humans really are fragile."

He flung her through the plants that covered the building and out of the parking garage.

"...How far is it from here to the ground?" I felt myself break out in full-body goose bumps as my blood ran cold.

If she slammed into the ground from a height like this, while she couldn't even attempt to break her fall, Charlie would—

"Natsunagi! Go after her!"

The only words that came out of my mouth were predictable. I didn't even know whether I was talking about Saikawa or Charlie. I just tagged the Ace Detective with the simple, all-important request to save our friends. In exchange

—

"Seed!"

Without waiting for Natsunagi's response, I charged Seed alone, Magnum in hand. Thanks to Charlie, all the briars that had blocked the way were gone.

"Two to go, hmm?"

Tentacles swarmed from Seed's back, reaching for me.

Draw on all your past experience, limit yourself to lethal attacks, drill the enemy in the throat with your bullets. That was all I needed to do right now.

I felt no pain. Compared to the pain of losing somebody precious, this was nothing. With Seed right in front of me and my black gun in my right hand, I—

"Yes. That is what it means to hone one's survival instinct."

By the time I heard the enemy say that, I was already lying on cold concrete. Wait, was it the floor that was cold, or was it me? I must have taken a solid hit from one of those tentacles; my body wasn't moving well. Had he hit me in a bad spot, or was it because I'd lost too much blood?

"It doesn't matter."

Nothing was going to happen if I didn't get back on my feet. Then I had to take another run at the primordial seed and destroy it. Even if my body was heavy as lead, I had to move, right now.

Immediately after that, there was an explosion. The car had been dashed into the wall, and as it crumpled, gasoline leaked out and ignited. The parking garage was overgrown with plants, and in moments, the whole place was in flames.

"...! Who cares?" I wiped away the sweat and blood that ran down my forehead, then loaded my gun again. These were the last of my bullets.

How could I beat him? Up until now, I'd used the surge of passion inside me as my weapon. Kimizuka had counted on my emotions, too. It wouldn't matter what sort of appeal I made to this enemy, though. He didn't even understand the concept of feelings. What could I do against an opponent like that?

"Let me ask you one more time." Just then, as if he'd read my mind, Seed spoke to me coldly on that fiery battlefield. "Why do you humans put so much stock in emotions? Sometimes you choose actions based in emotion over your own survival instinct, even though that should be the most fundamental desire of any living creature."

He didn't even blink, and he wasn't asking out of idle curiosity. Seed was asking me, a human, a question he must have had ever since he fell to this planet.

"—So you didn't notice."

Even though he'd had loads of chances.

I bit my lip, standing in the flames, and then I shouted at Seed. "Alicia tried to protect Siesta and me, ignoring the danger to herself—that's friendship! Hel

always stayed close to you and did her very best at everything—that's sadness! Yui thought of her parents, and her parents constantly put their only daughter first—that's love! Charlie inherited Siesta's last wish after she died and kept carrying out missions all on her own—that's dedication! Albert risked every facet of his own life to save his little sister—that's devotion! Siesta died, entrusting everything to Kimizuka, to me, and to her friends—that's passion! All of that— They're all human emotions. Having them is what makes us human!"

Right now, that was the very best answer I could give.

"I see. I didn't understand that in the slightest. It's probably similar to the way humans can't perceive insect calls as intelligible speech."

In the midst of the flames, Seed's expression didn't change.

"All right. I've finished recombining my genes. I should be able to attack you now."

Even as we fought, Seed had been manipulating his DNA. The tips of his tentacles turned toward me again. Right behind me, Kimizuka lay on the floor, fast asleep. I couldn't run.

"...!"

A minute ago, there was just one person I hadn't told Seed about. My partner and assistant—Kimihiko Kimizuka.

Siesta was more precious to him than anyone else, and he was trying to get her back, even if it meant walking into territory that was taboo to humans. It hadn't seemed right for me to say what sort of emotion that was, here and now. The word that best describes it may not even exist.

That meant Kimizuka would have to find the answer on his own someday. He might resort to forbidden methods and make the whole world his enemy, maybe even end up fighting the Tuners—but he would regain Siesta. He'd get her back someday for sure. I knew he would. After all, I'd already found the route that led to that future.

"Are you sure that's okay?"

Out of nowhere, I felt as if a voice had echoed in my mind.

It was the question I'd been asked two days ago, at the top of the highest clock tower in England, by a girl who could see the future.

After she'd made Kimizuka leave and it was just the two of us, she told me about the distortion that would result if we overturned a predetermined future, attempting the taboo of resurrecting the dead.

Just as there could only ever be one person in the world with the gifts of an

Oracle, it was possible that the world would only allow one Ace Detective. So if we created a future where Siesta came back to life, I'd be—

"Yes, it's fine."

Back then, I hadn't been able to respond to the question immediately, but I had an answer now.

"I mean, it's true, isn't it?" The role I'd been given.

The mission I had to carry out here and now. "—I'm the proxy detective."

I'd decided as much a year ago. "............. !"

The next moment, Seed's tentacle ran through my stomach. ".........gk, ah,........ kh!"

Pain fiercer than anything I'd ever felt broke over me, and I almost blacked out. When the tentacle retracted, deep-red blood fell in large, noisy spatters. That wound was probably going to be fatal.

—Even so. "Run, legs!"

Using my word-soul power one more time, I gave myself a firm order. Run, run.

The pain doesn't matter. Forget about everything except going forward. "Maybe I'm no match for you!"

I'd spent all my time in a hospital bed, and I hadn't even been able to sprint a hundred meters. Now I had legs that could run, and a reason I needed to. I wouldn't stop.

"But someday, someone will cut you down!"

Facing forward, mustering my last strength, I swore that oath to the enemy of the world. Then, hiding myself in the black smoke and the flames, I crept up on him. I was holding not the musket, but my other weapon.

"Maybe the idol from Japón will talk you down with a song, or the blond agent will dominate you with her fighting skills!"

It was one of my other partner's favorite swords; I'd found it at the test facility

just before we left the SPES hideout yesterday. Lend me strength, I prayed, then squeezed its hilt tightly.

"Or maybe a bland-looking boy in a jacket will change your mind with his clumsy words, or maybe a white-haired Ace Detective will demolish you with an ingenious scheme no one else could ever think up!"

Two meters left between me and the enemy. As I burst out of the black smoke with Hel's borrowed strength—I swung the red saber at my enemy's neck.

"I won't get to see that future play out—but I can say this much! There will never be a future where you rule this planet and conquer mankind!"

At the end of my final battle, what I'd accomplished was... "...Not enough, huh?"

With just a few centimeters left before it severed my enemy's head, the red saber had been blocked by a tentacle shaped like a sword. —And then.

"You too, Hel?"

As my consciousness faded, I heard Seed whisper those words, very faintly. "We're about to be interrupted," he said. Almost immediately, I caught the

distant pulse of a helicopter. It was reinforcements—and, since Seed had already achieved his main objective and secured a vessel, he simply vanished.

"...I guess this is it."

Apparently, I couldn't trick my brain with word-soul any longer. I tottered, then crumpled to the ground.

"Kimi...zuka..."

In the midst of the blazing flames, I crawled toward Kimizuka's prone body.

There wasn't much oxygen. I'd lost too much blood. My grip on my consciousness was slipping, and I couldn't seem to get enough air. Even so, I stretched my hand, my fingertips, toward him.

"Tha...nk..."

I couldn't finish the sentence.

However, at the end, I'd managed to do what I'd always dreamed of: I'd become somebody. Feeling just a little satisfied, I fell asleep.

My name is Nagisa.

Nagisa Natsunagi, proxy detective.

My last wish kept the detective's mission from dying out, and it will be

inherited by the next person to fight.