Chapter 2.1

Mystery-solving with a side of fish and chips

Natsunagi and I had relocated to a restaurant near the hotel for lunch, and we were facing each other across a table. It had been the Ace Detective's suggestion not to solve mysteries on an empty stomach.

"I never thought I'd see this thing again." I sighed, shooting a sidelong glance at the volume that sat on the table.

The back cover had been removed, and most of the pages after a certain point had gone missing…but it was definitely the sacred text. When I opened it, I saw a written account of some of the things Siesta and I had experienced during the past few years.

"Another coincidence… No, there's just no way, is there?" Natsunagi frowned, although she was still snacking on fries.

I'd first seen the sacred text a year ago. The one who'd had it then was Hel, Nagisa Natsunagi's shadow personality. The sacred text was said to contain written accounts of future events. Its actual owner was Seed, and Hel and the other SPES executives had been basing their invasion of Earth on its instructions.

Now, roughly a year later, here it was again. As Natsunagi said, we couldn't brush it off as coincidence. Why had this book come to us? Could it be a trap set by Seed? Or maybe…

"—The Oracle," I said.

"I was thinking the same thing, actually," Natsunagi agreed. "The sacred text describes future events. In terms of who's most likely to be writing something like that, I can't think of anybody but the Oracle."

Yeah, that was my theory, too. Of course, we couldn't completely rule out the possibility that Seed was clairvoyant… But if I had to pick one, we had testimony about the Oracle from both Ms. Fuubi and Olivia, so she was probably the more credible option.

"In other words, the most likely explanation may be that the Oracle is the real owner of the sacred text, and at some point, Seed managed to steal it from her."

There was one other reason to assume the Oracle owned this book. I turned to what was currently the last page, since so many were missing. What it said was

—

"'The monster Medusa will attack the city of London,' hmm?" Natsunagi narrowed her eyes at the page. It was dated one week ago.

If that prophecy was true, the city was being threatened by the Medusa right this minute.

"Meaning this is another test the Oracle's people set up for us, to determine whether we're really worth meeting."

"That's probably the most natural conclusion. This is a message from the Oracle: 'If thou wouldst meet me, thou must vanquish the dread Medusa, which hath plunged the city of London into terror most dire.'"

"What was the creepy voice for? Don't tell me you were imitating the Oracle." "Don't call it creepy; I was just doing an impression! But I bet that's what

she's like. Not that I'd know."

She'd never even met us, but she had posed aggravating puzzles for us through her servants. I was sure she was a spoiled, stuck-up little girl lounging arrogantly on her throne. Again, not that I'd know.

"But anyway, are you sure it's okay to prioritize this?" Natsunagi asked. "We were supposed to go retrieve Siesta's legacy first, and then we decided to look for the Oracle instead. But now we're heading off on another trail. Aren't we getting further and further from the answer?"

…Yeah, she definitely had a point.

We had about ten more days until we hit the deadline Ms. Fuubi had set us for taking down Seed. In that time, I had to find the legacy Siesta had left and meet the Oracle who held the key to her resurrection. We might not actually have time to deal with an unidentified monster on foreign soil.

"The thing is—if I look away from a case that's sitting right in front of me, I can't go back to that apartment." I'd already gotten started. If I gave up on it and went home, Siesta would be mad at me. If somebody was being attacked by the Medusa as we spoke, I couldn't ignore that.

"…Okay," Natsunagi murmured, so quietly it almost sounded like an exhalation. "Well, if you're fine with that, Kimizuka, then so am I, I guess." She was wearing a rather tired-looking smile. Apparently we'd reached a consensus about what to do.

"Besides, I've already got an idea."

Natsunagi looked puzzled, and I told her about a certain experience I'd had,

way back when.

"The thing is, two years ago, Siesta and I encountered a Medusa." Medusa was a monster whose gaze turned people to stone.

However, the one we'd run into hadn't been a real monster. In a certain European-style mansion, the Medusa we'd met was a pitiful man whose adopted daughter had been left in a persistent vegetative state because of an accident. He'd felt so sorry for her that he'd been using poison to do the same thing to other people.

"I see… But you and Siesta already resolved that, didn't you?" "Yeah. Or Siesta did, anyway. I was just deadweight."

As Natsunagi said, Siesta had solved that particular incident brilliantly. That meant either this was a copycat crime…or it might be a real monster, someone with the power of one of SPES's seeds. Either way, we'd have to check into it carefully.

"Well, we're done fueling up, so let's get out there and do some field work."

The detective and her assistant would have to do the kind of legwork detectives did back in the day. We should probably kick off our investigation by asking some questions. How common was public knowledge about this incident, anyway? What sort of damage had the Medusa specifically done? I started to get up, but then…

"Kimizuka, listen. Are you feeling okay?" Natsunagi asked. She kept stealing glances at me. The question had come out of nowhere, and I wondered what was up. "I've been waiting for the right moment to ask for a while now." She was being unusually considerate.

"Well, physically, I've got so much energy it's kind of scary."

Was she asking because of the fight with Ms. Fuubi two days back? True, I thought I'd broken a bone or two at the time, but…none of it was giving me trouble in my day-to-day life, aside from a few aches and pains.

"Really? No side effects either?"

…Oh. That part, huh? When I saw the worry in Natsunagi's eyes, it finally hit me.

During the fight, I'd swallowed Chameleon's seed to trick Fuubi. Those things were originally created by Seed. Although they gave whoever ingested them special powers, eating one without taking proper precautions meant you'd pay for it with various side effects. You might lose your sight, the way Bat had. I'd heard you could also lose a good chunk of your life span.

But right now there were no signs of anything like that. I'm also not setting up any foreshadowing; I'm not gonna say, I hadn't been able to tell whether the fish and chips were good because I'd actually lost my sense of taste. Of course, I might get hit with some plot twist later on, but at least for now, I was the picture of health.

"What, you've been worried about me?" I teased Natsunagi.

—But.

"Yes, I worry about you." Natsunagi turned to me, and her face was surprisingly serious. She gazed steadily into my eyes. "It isn't just me. Yui and Charlie are both concerned, too. You're important to us. We worry about you at least as much as you worry about us, Kimizuka. You see?"

She told me there was no such thing as only taking, or only giving. Feelings always go both ways.

Although I hated to admit it, the smile Natsunagi gave me then was so overwhelmingly cute it rivaled the former Ace Detective's.

"Did I just hear the sound of someone falling in love?" "Unfortunately, that was just the conversation falling flat."

 Remembering a year ago, memories for two

The next day…

"What a great morning," I said to Natsunagi.

We were sitting side by side on the top story of a double-decker bus, gazing out at the city streets.

Yesterday, Natsunagi and I had gotten right to work investigating the Medusa. Asking around had yielded one clue, and now we were taking the bus to a certain destination. We weren't in the mood for sightseeing, of course, but every glimpse of the city was bursting with local color. I wanted to share those sights with Natsunagi, only…

"..."

Natsunagi was gazing straight ahead; she seemed dazed. It was as if her mind wasn't here.

"Those clothes look good on you." Suspecting I'd done something wrong, I complimented her and tried to put her in a good mood. I didn't know too much about exact clothing types or what they were called, but she was wearing a black dress-like thing. It was a little different from what she regularly wore, but it was perfect for the country we were in.

"Kimizuka, in the extremely unlikely event that you ever get a girlfriend, I bet you start fighting in two seconds, then split up two seconds after that."

"I'm going to ignore that second part and object to the idea that my chances of ever getting a girlfriend are that small."

Apparently, she hadn't been ignoring me intentionally. I finally had Natsunagi's attention.

"You've been spacing out. What's the matter? Didn't you get enough sleep?" "Oh. True, it was hard to drift off when you kept talking in your sleep. That

was part of it."

"…I don't remember that at all." That's one way to take damage from sleeping in the same bed. I hoped I hadn't said stuff about Siesta.

"You kept prostrating yourself and apologizing to Yui. Why, I don't know." "That's a hundred times worse than what I was thinking."

Come to think of it, I'd fought with Saikawa before we left Japan. I wished I could hurry and make up with her.

"And also…" Natsunagi gave a wry smile. "Last night, I dreamed about her."

Natsunagi was probably referring to her alter, Hel.

"It might be because we saw the sacred text yesterday. It made me think of her."

That's right. Natsunagi dreams.

Earlier, she'd said she'd spoken with Siesta, who lives in her heart, in a

daydream. They had another world that no one else could touch. "So what did you and Hel talk about?"

"…She got really mad at me." Natsunagi puffed her cheeks out, looking cross.

Yeesh. What happened to that conversation in front of the mirror? I'd just assumed they'd made up.

"She told me not to take on burdens without asking." With a rather disgusted sigh, Natsunagi spoke on Hel's behalf. "She told me she'd take responsibility for her own crimes."

…Ah. That did sound like her; she was stubborn. She'd accepted the fierce emotions Natsunagi had shown in front of that mirror. This must be the answer she'd come up with after that. Hel had taken innocent lives once and had resolved to face those crimes herself. That stubbornness was also her way of showing compassion toward her main personality.

"Well, I wasn't okay with that, myself. And then it turned into a fistfight."

"That's what happened with Siesta, too."

Apparently, the three heads of the guard dog were still snarling and snapping at one another.

"Still, I never thought I'd set foot in this country again."

As I watched the scenery stream past, I was remembering the last time I was here, with Siesta. It had been a year or so since I'd seen these streets, but I'd lived here for several months, and everything was very familiar. Even the signs and streetlamps along the road had something nostalgic about them.

"It's been a long time for me, too." Natsunagi's expression softened. "You and I walked down this street together last year, didn't we, Kimizuka?" She seemed to be remembering something far in the past.

She was right: Siesta and I weren't the only ones who were here a year ago. Back then, Alicia—or rather Natsunagi, who'd used the seed to assume Alicia's form—had gone around with the two of us.

"I know I've asked this before, but you only looked like Alicia back then, and you were Natsunagi on the inside. Right?"

"Right. That was definitely me. Of course, I didn't realize it myself until just recently," she said, giving a wry little smile.

True, the girl I'd known last year hadn't used the formal pronoun the real Alicia had used, or Hel's boyish one, but Natsunagi's regular-girl pronoun. She might have looked like the pink-haired Alicia, but she'd been Nagisa Natsunagi on the inside.

"I wonder, though. Alicia was twelve or thirteen; her apparent age may have affected the way I talked and acted a little. Even I'm not really sure." Natsunagi thought back.

"You did seem kind of young… Although your mental age is still plenty young now, I guess."

"Wow. This from a guy who kept trying to get Siesta to spoil him like a kid." "I don't remember that, and nobody got it on tape."

"I swear I'll make her tell me all about it someday."

…Natsunagi had picked up a weird new motivation for getting the detective back.

"Oh, look, that jewelry store. Isn't that the one we went into?" Natsunagi was pointing at a glass-fronted shop that faced the road. She was right; it was the place I'd visited with her during our hunt for the sapphire eye.

"If I remember right, you had no money and couldn't buy anything that time." "Yeah. I was poor then, and I'm poor now." It wouldn't be a bad idea to have Natsunagi set up a detective agency one of these days, so I could pull in a daily

wage.

"Well, you gave me a ring you bought at a street stall instead, so it worked out." Natsunagi looked up at me through her lashes, seeming rather happy.

"…I forgot about that."

"You said, 'From here on out, uh…looking forward to working with you,' and slipped it onto my ring finger…"

"—You made me say that! Forget it, right now!" "Noooo way."

As we were talking about dumb stuff like that, the bus pulled up to our stop.

From there, we walked a few more minutes until finally we reached— "This is the place," Natsunagi murmured, looking up at a white hospital.

This was one of the things we'd learned from our inquiries yesterday—one of the Medusa's victims had been admitted to this place.

"Well, shall we go?"

We walked into the building, then into the elevator that would take us to the hospital room we'd looked up.

"Still, it doesn't sound as if news of the incident has spread as far as we thought." Natsunagi was thinking back over yesterday's investigation.

As a matter of fact, although we'd asked quite a few people around town, not even one in twenty had said the word "Medusa." No related keywords rang a bell for them, either.

"Yeah. If we hadn't broken into that newspaper, I bet we still wouldn't know about this place."

The day before, Natsunagi had complained that we were getting nowhere and suggested a break-in. If she hadn't, there was no way things would have gone this smoothly.

"The media must have the intel. All we have to do is eavesdrop on them!" "Don't say that so cheerfully. Eavesdropping isn't something to be casual

about."

"Ah, well, it actually did work… Thanks to your ability, Kimizuka." "Yeah. It really is perfect for covert maneuvers, huh."

Chameleon's seed gave me the ability to turn invisible. As long as I could do that, sneaking up and listening in on conversations was easier than twisting a baby's arm.

"Now we'll just have to hope you didn't acquire a taste for invisibly sneaking into the women's bath."

"Quit imagining stuff that could actually happen. Seriously, knock it off.

Don't pray with a serious look on your face."

While we were still talking, the elevator reached our floor. Then we walked to the room, steeled ourselves, stepped inside, and saw…

"So this is the Medusa victim?"

The patient was a man in his forties. Quietly, we went closer.

The man on the bed was breathing on his own, and every so often, he blinked, but that was all. He didn't speak, and he didn't move so much as a finger. It really did seem as if he'd been turned to stone.

"A persistent vegetative state, hmm?"

From what I'd heard, the man had been hospitalized about a week ago. That matched the date the sacred text had given for the Medusa's appearance. Was it possible that our mystery monster had petrified this man using a power of some sort? But who had done it, and why?

As my thoughts ran around in circles—

"Say, Kimizuka?" Natsunagi was gazing at the face of the man on the bed. "Haven't we seen him somewhere before?"

Apparently, nobody's just an extra in this world.

 At this point, the story splits in two

After that, we continued our investigation.

We got the details from the hospitalized man's attending physician and saw other patients who'd been brought in with the same symptoms. Ordinarily, confidentiality issues would have made it almost impossible to get anyone to reveal those things. However, Natsunagi's red eyes got the information easily.

Based on the information and circumstantial evidence we'd gathered, Natsunagi and I talked it over and came up with a theory about the Medusa's identity and motive. It was an answer we happened to reach only because it was the two of us. Then, partly because Natsunagi wanted to, we stopped by a second place.

"I finally made it here," she murmured.

We were in the graveyard of a church on the outskirts of London. It was dusk, and gravestones stood in neat rows on the wide, grassy field.

Natsunagi knelt in front of one of them. "I'm sorry it took me so long— Daisy."

Daisy Bennett.

She had been the last of the five victims in the Jack the Devil incident that had occurred in London a year ago. Natsunagi had finished paying her respects to the other four, and now she offered flowers to the final one.

"Natsunagi." Gently, I set a hand on her shoulder. "…Yes, I know."

The criminal behind those serial murders had been Hel, Natsunagi's other personality. Hel's heart had been damaged during her first fight with Siesta; in order to survive, she'd taken the lives of five people, then used their hearts like batteries.

That said, Hel had committed those crimes on her own initiative. Natsunagi hadn't even known they were happening. In a way, she was a victim as well; her mind and personality had been stolen.

"I've come to terms with the past. Now I'll do my best to atone."

There was no grim resolution in Natsunagi's profile. This wasn't the only reason she'd come here.

"That means I'll be fine. Go finish your job, Kimizuka." Natsunagi smiled at me.

"Are you really sure? You won't get lonely if I leave? You won't cry at night?"

"What am I, a kid? I'm not the one who went around searching the whole apartment because he didn't see Siesta anywhere, Kimizuka."

Don't talk like you saw that. That never happened… I'm pretty sure.

"Besides, we did find the key."

"…Yeah. Coincidentally. Right as we were doing this."

Exactly. As we were on our way to this graveyard, I'd gotten a call saying that my stolen wallet and the master key had turned up. Natsunagi and I were being forced to temporarily part ways here because somebody wanted it that way. Sheesh. They had some nerve, splitting up a detective and her assistant.

"You sure are a worrywart, Kimizuka." It must have shown on my face, although I hadn't meant it to. Still hugging her knees, Natsunagi gazed at me with a wry smile. "I'll be fine. After all, I'm not alone."

"…Yeah, that's true."

It was. Even if I wasn't there, Natsunagi wasn't alone. There was one other person here who'd resolved to fight alongside her.

"All right. If anything happens, call me. I'll come running in a giant robot." "Uh-huh. Please keep the scale of the worldview where it is, okay? Try to

think on it and do better next time."

She can say that, but this is a world where we have to fight aliens and vampires and monsters we hadn't even seen yet, so let me have this once in a while. Just every so often.

"Okay, see you later." "Mm-hmm, later."

We exchanged brief good-byes, and I walked away.

I trusted that those girls would be able to make it through what was bound to happen next.