Because everyone had their own justice
"Hey, you damn kid, it's been a while. Did they finally arrest you, too?"
She looked at 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 na of justice? She had several forr titles.
For example, forr police officer, and forr 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 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 ntioned it, Ms. Fuubi hadn't beco 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 , shooting Siesta a glance.
"It's not like that. Nagisa's just busy with sothing else right now." "Uh, I didn't ntion her na, 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 Governnt official killings Noel had told us about yesterday. Siesta took a few reference docunts out of her bag and passed them through the bars. They were copies of reports on the unknown crisis; the Federation Governnt had sent them over this morning.
"Why would you people tell about this?"
Ms. Fuubi skimd 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 so sort of hint, either as a forr cop or sobody who once pulled off sothing similar, but you've co to the wrong person. You're missing a lot of intel here."
I should've known. Ms. Fuubi shoved the docunts back at us. A whole lot of them had been redacted by the Federation Governnt.
"Apparently the locations where the officials were killed are confidential, so they can't tell us." Flipping through the docunts, Siesta gave a little sigh.
The places where the incidents had occurred, the tis and dates, the code nas of the murdered officials—all of it was censored. The only thing we knew was that there had already been thirteen victims.
The Federation Governnt 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 t, Noel had seed 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 .
"I just wanted to see you, Ms. Fuubi." I'd been worried about her, all this ti.
She gazed back at 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 Governnt 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 Governnt official, but there was no telling whether that was actually true. In any case, the higher-ups had decided that Fuubi Kase's excessive ting out of justice made her a dangerous elent.
"Are you okay with this?" Siesta asked her.
Did she think it was fair that the governnt had decided to lock her up?
"One era's terrorist is another's celebrated revolutionary. You hear that one all the ti." Ms. Fuubi turned to face us. "What happened to is the sa thing
—or the reverse, that's all. I steeled myself for this to happen the day I took on the Assassin's mission." Sohow, the look on her face seed 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 assud she wanted to climb the ranks as a police officer. But when I thought about it later, I realized what she'd really ant was—
"Kimizuka." Ms. Fuubi almost never said my na. 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 ."
Co 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, so mysterious enemy's going around killing the ones who shoved 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 seed to have picked up on sothing as well; she cupped her ears, listening carefully. Was sothing 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 mont. "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 ti in seven years
"...What is this?"
When we'd climbed the stairs and opened the door leading up from the basent, 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. n in dull-colored prison uniforms raced across catwalk-like corridors and hallways.
"Assistant, hide," Siesta told .
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 scread, lashing out at everything in reach with that strange weapon.
The sword writhed, growing and shrinking at will. It stretched to two ters, 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 sothing similar from the Federation Governnt yesterday, I'd reflexively linked this to a past experience.
"Does that an we've already ruled him out as the culprit behind the governnt 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 tis...?
"Still, this is perfect." Siesta sounded rather cheerful. "It's a little like that other ti. It'll make for a great coback 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 first and do it right."
"That's the first setup joke you've fed in a while. I was just thinking if our cody 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 so 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 rembered how he'd looked, lashing that snakelike tentacle around at ten thousand ters.
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 ti 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
sobody 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 . 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 . "No, he's in here. He's been here for the past ten years."
"Yeah, I ant 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 ans 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 ters ahead of , 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 doubt it with your words."
In the next instant, the snake-sword stopped hesitating and flew straight at . "...! What, you've decided I'm hostile now, too?"
Just before that attack nailed , though, sothing 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 chanical 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 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 beco an adult and grown a bit, but there was really no way around this. It was all about dividing the labor appropriately.
"This takes back," Siesta whispered. "It was like this seven years ago, too."
Yeah, it had been. The first ti I'd t Siesta, at ten thousand ters.
That was where I'd learned that the world had so powerful enemies, and that there was a great detective who fought them. Co to think of it, we'd had a rough ti 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 sothing..."
Unfortunately, I didn't have an attaché case on standby today. "Still, I guess we managed to buy so ti."
"We did. She's right around the corner."
When she reached a certain spot, Siesta set 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 forr n 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.
Reviews
All reviews (0)