The Detective is Already Dead-Chapter 21: Epilogue

"Y-you saw Ma'am?!"

On a cruise ship sailing over the blue ocean.

On the deck, Charlie turned around, staring at me like she'd spotted a cryptid.

"Yeah. If it hadn't been for her, we'd be fish food right about now."

Later, once we'd cleared up all of the previous day's business, we'd switched to a new cruise ship the Saikawa family had procured for us and set sail for home.

The tour had been canceled. After such a major accident—major incident, really—that had been the natural decision. Fortunately, none of the crew members or passengers had been harmed. Charlie and Ms. Fuubi, who'd been in the helicopter, had managed to bail out just before it crashed, so everyone was on this ship, safe and sound.

...Almost everyone.

Chameleon had sunk into the ocean, along with his sin of taking Siesta's life.

"I see... So Ma'am saved us again."

Charlie's golden hair streamed in the sea wind, but between the strands, I caught glimpses of her profile. She was wearing a sad little smile.

"Maybe she...," she suddenly began, casually as she could. "Maybe she knew she was going to die that day."

...Yeah. Maybe she did.

I could see that ace detective in my mind, her face cool as a cucumber: "I calculated everything, even my own death. Did you only just realize?"

However, even if she had...

"I wanted her to live." Charlie said the words I'd swallowed down, in a voice like water spilling out of a small vessel. "But Ma'am is inside that girl...?" Her tone rose a little.

"Yeah... But she won't show herself again." Never again. Siesta herself had said so.

"...If I pointed a gun at you right now, Kimizuka, do you suppose Ma'am

would come running to save you?" "Don't sacrifice my life to find out."

"It was a joke. I'm joking." Her expression softening abruptly, Charlie stretched. Then she turned on her heel and started to leave the deck. "Did she say anything?" she asked over her shoulder.

I couldn't see her face. What expression was she wearing?

"—She said she wanted us to get along," I said to the blond girl's back. All I could do was relay Siesta's words.

"Oh," Charlie murmured quietly. Then, finally, she turned halfway around and spoke to me directly. "Would you come to a florist with me one of these days? I want you to help me choose what to buy."

Right. I'd heard somewhere that they didn't visit graves as often over in America.

In that case, we'd go together, someday soon. Although I had no idea whether she was actually sleeping there.

"See you later, then." "Yeah. Later."

Yesterday's enemy is today's enemy, too.

But tomorrow, just maybe... If that's what Siesta wants.

When night fell, I headed for the cruise ship's bar.

The ship was different, so of course this wasn't the same bar, but the setup looked extremely similar. We wouldn't be discussing anything all that private today, so I took a seat at the counter and ordered a drink.

...Then, after I'd waited a little while, the person I was meeting showed up. "Sorry to keep you waiting," said Nagisa Natsunagi, sitting down next to

me.

While she ordered her drink, I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She wasn't dressed to the nines the way she had been last time. Instead, she was wearing her usual baggy T-shirt and shorts.

Well, thinking about it, I shouldn't have been surprised. That low-cut dress was probably at the bottom of the ocean by now.

Before long, our drinks arrived, and we clinked our glasses together lightly. "And, um, what exactly are you wearing?"

...Dammit, she wasn't gonna let it slide, huh? And here I'd avoided

describing it.

"We never seem to be quite in tune, do we?"

I just assumed you'd be all dressed up again. "What's with that jacket? It looks strange on you." "I had Saikawa buy it for me."

"Wow, what a turnoff. Seriously, yikes."

Hey, quit making valid points. You know I have no comeback for that.

...Well, she was the same Natsunagi as always. By now, I couldn't see a trace of Siesta in her.

After that, once we'd defeated Chameleon...

...Siesta (Natsunagi) and I had thrown ourselves from the sinking ship into the ocean, barely escaping with our lives. We'd apparently clung to broken planks and drifted until a rescue boat picked us up.

I say "apparently" because we'd both been unconscious when we were rescued, and by the time I woke up, we were already on this cruise ship.

And when I'd opened my eyes, Natsunagi was already...Natsunagi.

When I asked her, she said she didn't have any memories from the time when Siesta's personality had taken over. Siesta herself was taking another one of her famous naps.

"Say, Natsunagi." "What?"

There was no sense in dragging it out forever. Steeling myself, I brought up the reason I'd called her here.

"Can I ask you to keep on being an ace detective?"

Would she still carry out Siesta's last wish for her, even after getting dragged into an incident like this one?

Did she plan to become an ace detective in the truest sense of the word, instead of just pretending?

We would be fighting SPES more frequently from here on out.

If she turned me down, I couldn't blame her for it. But I did have to know for sure.

"...To be honest, I'm really not sure about this." Natsunagi traced the rim of her glass with a slim finger. "I was useless back there. As a matter of fact, I only made trouble for everybody, and you and Yui had to rescue me. In the end—I leaned on this heart. On her." Her voice dropped to a murmur. "I knew it. I'm really not..." She forced a smile.

"You know that's not true." "...Kimizuka?"

"That ringtone completely saved our butts."

During the fight with Chameleon, that electronic noise had ultimately told us where he was. The sound had come from Natsunagi's phone; she'd slipped it into Chameleon's clothes when he'd snatched her. It had been an impulsive idea, a way to fight an enemy when our eyes were useless.

"...I see. That only worked because Yui and Charlie helped, though."

From what I heard later, while Siesta and I were fighting Chameleon, Charlie had piloted a small boat carrying Yui, who had used her left eye to watch the battle unfold from out on the ocean. Then, when Chameleon disappeared, she'd called Natsunagi's phone so that the ringtone could tell us where he was. Siesta had also anticipated everything—which meant that, once again, I was the only one in the dark.

...Still, I guess that's okay. I am the assistant, after all. The important thing was Natsunagi.

Could she fill the shoes of the ace detective?

"Besides, Natsunagi, Siesta herself told me you'd loaned her your body of your own volition. What you said was why Siesta acted, and that saved my life."

Without that passion of hers, I would have died. It was Natsunagi who'd saved me.

On top of that, she had a natural gift that even she hadn't noticed.

During that first incident with the heart, I'd had feelings I hadn't acknowledged—that maybe I'd even repressed—and Natsunagi had lit a fire under me, reminding me of the mission I needed to carry out.

During the sapphire incident, Natsunagi saw what Saikawa actually wanted before I did, resolving the issue without resorting to force.

Then, during this incident, she'd used her emotions and words to get Charlie and me, and even Siesta, to act. I was sure Natsunagi had the ability to say and do the things people wanted most at any given moment.

In that case—

"Thank you. You make the best ace detective ever."

After all, it's true, isn't it? Because detectives exist to fulfill their clients' requests.

"...That's not fair," Natsunagi murmured softly.

I didn't know what exactly she was referring to, but from the way her lips curved slightly, we seemed to have avoided a breakdown of negotiations.

"But... Yes. I'll do it. Besides...," Natsunagi went on. "Someone asked me for a favor, too."

"Someone? Don't tell me—Siesta?"

"Yes. That was her condition for going back to work. Just this once."

Then Natsunagi told me about the contract she'd secretly made with Siesta.

"Nagisa Natsunagi, Yui Saikawa, Charlotte Arisaka Anderson, and Kimihiko Kimizuka—I want the four of you to defeat SPES."

"The four of you are the legacy I left—and the last hope." "That's what she told me," Natsunagi said, smiling softly. "I see," I said briefly and nodded.

I was sure that, right now, in this instant...

...I'd finally taken up the ace detective's last wish as well, in the truest sense of the word.

"Well, that doesn't change the fact that I'm not sure of myself." Smiling wryly, Natsunagi raised her glass to her lips.

"It's fine. Nobody's got less confidence than I do."

"What an awful comparison. Would anyone ever feel better after hearing that?"

"Besides, you sound like you think Siesta's this perfect superhuman, unlike you, but she's actually not."

"Really?"

Yes, really. Sorry, Siesta. Dead men tell no tales.

"She wasn't a drinker, but this one time, she drank, like, a whole bathtub of liquor, got dead drunk, and then—"

That was when, out of nowhere, Natsunagi picked up her drink and chugged it, all at once.

"Hmm? Hey, Natsunagi?"

The lights in the bar were dim, but when I took a close look at her face, her cheeks seemed to be red.

And then—

"This actually had alcohol in it, didn't it?" she said.

Suddenly, Natsunagi set a finger on my chin, tilting it up. I couldn't fight back... It was as if she was reenacting the day we'd met, in the classroom after school.

"Ngh, ghk..."

"So. You're coming to my room today, aren't you?" "...Huh? What are you talking about?"

—No, wait. Could the real Natsunagi say that sort of thing?

In that case, this was... No, but it couldn't be... "Which do you think it is?"

...Haaah. That smile's completely against the rules. As I was struggling to come up with an answer... "Erm, attention all passengers."

It was a shipboard announcement.

Unlike the earlier criminal statement, this one was apparently official, made by the captain.

"While I can't disclose the details...," the announcement began, very enigmatically.

"...is there a detective on this ship?"

I exchanged glances with her, the girl next to me, and we both nodded. It was still too soon for an epilogue.

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