<h4>Chapter 109: Chapter 3.4</h4>


    <strong>A nk shot of an oath, told at ten thousand meters</strong>


    The grenade had shrouded the battlefield in thick ck smoke. A lone girl leaped through it, her maid uniform fluttering in the wind.


    "We''re counting on you, Noches."


    Holding my useless right arm, I slipped into the shadow of some rubble. "I see. So these are yourpanions now."


    Just before I made it, though—for just a moment, Siesta''s blue eyes found me through a gap in the windblown smoke.


    The wish to stop her from dying <i>belonged to all of us</i>. If you defined <ipanions </i>as people who shared amon goal, then the girl who was sprinting with a sword in one hand definitely counted.


    "Still, I never dreamed you''d rebel against me."


    Siesta leveled her gun at Noches, preparing to fight back...but the weapon flew out of her hand, sniped from a distance.


    "Charlotte, Yui. You too?"


    Siesta nced at a building in the direction from the bullet but promptly returned her gaze to her immediate opponent. "Noches. I don''t believe you were made forbat," she grumbled at her former maid, dodging a one- handed sword thrust.


    "Mm, yes. I anticipated this situation and bluffed."


    "You''re telling me youid the groundwork two full weeks ago to make me let my guard down? Those are some extremely thorough preparations."


    Siesta''s response was cool; she probably hadn''t taken Noches seriously.


    Had she realized we''d borrowed the power of a certain Inventor again?


    "My former mistress taught me to prepare to resolve an incident before it urred, you see." Noches crouched down, then closed the distance between them in a rush.


    "Is that sword coated with tranquilizer as well?"


    It was. If it so much as grazed Siesta, we''d win this fight on the spot.


    "...! I may be an android, but I think you''re more overpowered than I am, Mistress."


    Siesta had pulled out that ballpoint pen again and used it to knock the sword out of Noches''s hand.


    "Oh? They do say the pen is mightier than the sword, though." "...You''ve got aeback for everything, don''t you?"


    At that, Noches drew a pair of pistols. Firing two shots in a magnificent disy of ambidexterity, she nailed her earthbound target... Or she would have if the target had been anybody else.


    "—Not one of your attacks will ever work on me."


    Launching herself off the ground, Siesta flung herself backward as if she were performing a Fosbury flop. The bullets cut through space beneath her.


    "Then we''ll just keep going until one does."


    Noches kept up a barrage of bullets as if our lives depended on it. She took an endless series of heavy weaponry out of her maid uniform. As I took in the situation, I thought about what I should be doing, then attempted to relocate.


    "An endurance contest? That''s not very smart."


    Meanwhile, Siesta kept evading Noches''s bullets with peerless uracy. She jumped up from the asphalt, ran across walls of buildings, sprinted over roofs, leaped into empty space, and finally reached the elevated train tracks. The primordial seed''s attack had left them thickly covered with vines, and no trains ran on the deserted rails.


    "I won''t let you escape."


    Noches went after Siesta, bounding off of abandoned cars and telephone poles as footholds.


    "...They''repletely ignoring me."


    That was convenient, though. I couldn''t take the shortest possible route to the tracks the way they were doing. I ran through the empty, ruined city for several minutes, finally managing to make it to the station.


    I jumped the unmanned ticket gate, dashed up the stairs without pausing for breath, then sprinted all the way to the end of the tform, stumbling as I went. Then I gazed down the tracks with misty eyes—and saw Noches, down on one knee; Siesta had her at gunpoint. She must have taken her guns, and she had Noches pinned.


    <i>"Charlie! The wind died!"</i>


    Just then—the voice of a certain idol filtered onto the battlefield from the wireless earphone Noches had happened to drop. A bullet fired from nowhere in particr skimmed past, below Siesta.


    The sniper had fired from a building several hundred meters away. With Saikawa''s left eye reading the wind currents for her, Charlotte Arisaka


    Anderson''s sniping was even more urate.


    True, Seed had retrieved Saikawa''s seed, but the ability that dwelled in her left eye had remained. It was as if Seed had been trying to leave that sapphire eye in this world on its own.


    Now, if only the pressure of theirbo attack slowed Siesta down— "—That''s twice. That attack won''t work, either."


    But my hopes were immediately shattered. First, Siesta kicked Noches out of her way. Then she turned back, pointing her gun at <i>the blond agent who''d been sneaking up on her from behind</i>.


    "...Ma''am. You weren''t surprised." Charlie froze. She was holding a dagger at the ready.


    Since Charlie had been sniping from a distant building, there was no way Siesta could have anticipated that she''d climb up onto the tracks. However


    —"I knew my assistant and Noches <i>were letting me hear Yui''s voice on purpose</i>. The instructions she was giving you were a bluff. You were actually lurking nearby the whole time, waiting for a chance."


    —She''d caught on.


    Staring down the barrel of the gun, Charlie bit her lip and tossed her knife away.


    "I never thought you''d turn on me too, Charlie." "Apprentices always surpass their masters eventually."


    Just then, another gunshot echoed, and a bullet skimmed beneath Siesta. "I''m impressed she can do all that with only her left eye as a guide."


    The bullet struck the rails with a fierce metallic ng, momentarily diverting Siesta''s attention. Charlie grabbed the chance to back up, putting some distance between them. Then she drew her gun and pointed it at Siesta.


    "You thought you could beat me with a quick draw?" Siesta extended her right arm too, aiming her own gun at Charlie.


    "...You''re right. I might not be able to beat you yet, Ma''am. But..." Charlie''s voice grew stronger. "Maybe <i>we </i>can."


    That was the signal.


    "Why did I get this job when I don''t have a license?"


    Straddling the bike we''d prepared, I shook my head and cranked the elerator. As the engine roared, I jumped down from the tform onto the tracks. And then...


    "...! Why do you have that, Kimi?"


    Charlie threw herself off the tracks. In her ce, I charged at Siesta, holding the Ace Detective''s musket at the ready.


    "...I don''t believe I gave that to you." "Nope. I''m just here to give it back."


    <i>Ever since that day four years ago, as your assistant, it''s been my job to give this to you.</i>


    "But first..." My target was twenty meters away. Steering the bike with my knees, I held the musket with both hands and fired.


    "I see. I really wasn''t expecting that one. ...Still." Siesta''s blue eyes turned toward me as I drove down the deserted tracks on the motorcycle.


    "—That''s three. I believed you''d team up."


    Siesta pulled the trigger of the gun in her left hand. The shot was so urate, it could have passed through the eye of a needle; the bullets we''d fired collided in midair with a bang, canceling each other out.


    By the time it happened, though, my motorcycle was right in front of Siesta. If I used the momentum to crash into her...


    "...Dammit!"


    Yanking the handlebars to the side, I threw my weight to the right in an attempt to avoid the collision. Of course, I was flung off into empty space—


    "Are you stupid, Kimi?"


    I felt as if I''d heard a voice scolding me for being reckless. Then, for just a moment, my body seemed to pause, hovering lightly in midair.


    "...O."


    Right after that, though, I rolled onto the tracks. I felt as if I''d gotten a full- bodyshing with a whip. But there was no time to groan in pain or catch my breath. Lifting my face from the gravel, I checked on the situation—and what I saw was...


    "This is a battlefield, Charlotte."


    " !"


    Siesta''s bullet grazed Charlie''s right shoulder. That shot was probably an indispensable courtesy for an agent who risked her life in battle.


    "...Not yet. Ma''am...I still..." Charlie got back up. Her shoulder was bleeding, yet she still gripped her gun, trying to correct her teacher''s error. As Siesta looked at her apprentice, for just a moment, the muzzle of her gun seemed to waver. Was she thinking of where she should shoot in order to be sure she''d immobilized her target, or—


    "...! Charlie!" Just then, a girl''s shadow appeared. The voice belonged to a certain idol, the one I''d been hearing over the phone a moment ago. Right now, I was hearing the real thing from ten meters away.


    Siesta sighed, then murmured, "—Fourth time. I knew about that dedication, too."


    She must have been paying attention to the intervals between the gunshots and the impacts and realized the sniper was graduallying closer. Saikawa stepped in front of Charlie, gun in hand. Siesta pointed her own gun at her.


    "I won''t let you."


    Just then, Noches slipped in like the wind and kicked Siesta''s right hand up. Her gun flew high in the air.


    "Sorry, but your timing is perfect."


    Instead of flinching back, Siestanded a precise kick to Noches''s abdomen.


    " !"


    Someone shrieked, but I couldn''t tell who. Noches went flying. She collided with Saikawa and Charlie, taking them out with her, and all three of them rolled onto the gravel bast between the rails. Finally, no one was blocking Siesta''s way.


    "Are we done now?"


    Siesta closed her eyes, taking slow, deep breaths. When plenty of time passed, she opened her eyes again. I couldn''t read any emotion in them. The Ace Detective was her usual self.


    "Nagisa is still asleep; she can''te here. In that case, who''s next? The Oracle or the Assassin...? The Vampire? Well, it doesn''t matter who it is; I won''t lose."


    Using her left hand, Siesta picked up the musket I''d dropped onto the rails, then loudly fired it into the sky.


    "To protect the world, I will kill myself. To achieve that, I will defeat you. By defeating you, I can protect you. This is my final job as the Ace Detective."


    Siesta was a Tuner, one of the guardians of the world, and this was a hero''s oath. A seed that could destroy the worldy asleep inside her. To keep it from sprouting, she would end her story with her own hands.


    "And so you are my final enemy—Kimihiko Kimizuka."


    Siesta pointed her musket at me. I was back on my feet.


    "Geez. You say my actual name for the first time ever, and it''s in a situation like this?" Smiling with chagrin, I trained my own gun on Siesta.


    Still, for the wless ace detective, this was unusual—that oath of hers needed two corrections. The first was...


    "...Yourpanions never learn, do they?"


    Three figures had gotten to their feet behind me, and Siesta sighed. It wasn''t just me. Nobody here had given up on standing in her way. She''d also gotten one other thing wrong.


    "Siesta, we won''t let youplete that final job." I''d already seen a way to win this.


    <strong> A certain girl''s recollection</strong>


    "And? What sort of partner do you think you could make it work with?" I asked my assistant.


    We were sipping ck tea in an open-air terrace café. That day, he''d messed up during a certain mission, and we''d held a postmortem session about it on the way home. In fact, we weren''t finished yet. I went on, turning the conversation his way, hoping to convince him to make some friends.


    "What type of person could I get along with...?" Across the table from me, my assistant mulled it over, unexpectedly serious. "A kind, big-sister type who can tolerantly embrace all my ws," he answered finally.


    "You''re talking about your taste in girls, not apanion." Honestly. And here I was attempting to have a serious conversation. "Not only that, but you just described me to a tee."


    "How, exactly? You''re the pr opposite of that."


    I hadn''t been ying dumb, but he hit me with aeback anyway. I don''t understand this boy.


    "You keep focusing on me, but what about you, Siesta?" he asked. "Do you have anypanions?"


    Several faces rose in my mind, including Charlie''s, of course. The Oracle in her high clock tower, for example. The red-haired police officer—or was she more of arade than a friend?


    In addition...I had the feeling there had been others. I''d definitely had


    people I could callpanions, long ago. My memory of them was oddly hazy, though, as if someone had sealed it... I knew they''d been there, but I could no longer recall the girls'' names or their faces.


    "...Maybe that''s why I keep pestering you about them."


    Because I''d lost mine. In exchange, I wanted my assistant to have them.


    "I don''t get what you mean by ''friend'' or panion'' in the first ce." My assistant didn''t seem to have heard me. He was sounding like a middle schooler with delusions of omnipotence. Although at his age, he technically should have been attending middle school.


    "You put the other person first sometimes... You want to. I think that sort of rtionship counts as ''friends'' or panions,'' don''t you?"


    There were no clear standards, of course. Still, I felt it was necessary to attempt to put formless concepts into words once in a while.


    "Isn''t that what we are, then?"


    I hadn''t been expecting that remark, and my hand froze partway to my teacup.


    "...When I couldn''t make it work with Charlie today and almost got myself shot, you put yourself on the line to protect me. That means you think of me as, uh... I mean, you know..."


    My assistant''s eyes went to my bandaged left shoulder; his expression was aplicated mix of emotions. Even though, to me, a wound of this level was nothing to write home about.


    "I protected you because of our contract."


    It was a promise I''d made to my assistant a year ago. I''d told him I would protect him. I''d taken him on this journey on that condition. That meant it was simply my job to put myself on the line when he was in danger...


    "For all that, you looked pretty panicked today." For some reason, my assistant was gazing me, as if he''d stumbled onto something entertaining. "Actually, Siesta, you tend to get pretty rattled when I''m really in trouble."


    " !"


    <i>He''s awfully impertinent for an assistant. I just—I only—</i>


    "Haah..."


    I couldn''t work up the energy to respond. Instead, I heaved a rather weighty sigh. The important thing to me was protecting my clients'' interests. As long as I could do that, I was satisfied.


    "Come to think of it, Kimi, you didn''t order coffee. That''s unusual."


    Suddenly curious—eager to change the subject, really—I pointed this out to my assistant. He generally did order hot coffee, but this time he was drinking tea, like me.


    "It''s just a ck tea kinda day." "—I see."


    We sat on the terrace, sipping the same tea and gazing at the same setting sun.