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Chapter 22: Prologue

Ten thousand meters above the earth, I met a girl, and for the next three years, we went on an unforgettable series of adventures.

In Singapore, we gambled at casinos and played on the beaches and searched for a legendary hidden treasure.

In New York, we were watching a musical until terrorists got involved.

In Venice, the City of Water, we pursued a notorious phantom thief who was trying to make a getaway in a dramatic boat chase through the canals.

We trekked across deserts, forged through jungles, crossed mountains, sailed over oceans—journeyed all over the world.

Finally, in London, we encountered a diabolical villain, whose secret base proved to be our final destination.

The girl who was my partner confronted the villain.

I was watching the scene play out from behind her, but all of a sudden my vision went blurry, and my hearing started to fade.

I quickly tried to shout, but I couldn\'t make a sound.

This has to be a dream. Just a horrific nightmare.

I knew it logically, and yet I couldn\'t shake the fear.

As I struggled with my thoughts, the enemy raised a huge blade. It was going to strike my partner unless someone intervened.

I screamed her name, or tried to, but my voice still wasn\'t working.

As despair welled up within me—my partner turned halfway back toward me.

She was saying something. Telling me something.

...But I couldn\'t hear her voice.

Desperately, I tried to read her lips, but my vision was fading. A moment later, blood dyed the girl\'s face.

She was dead.

However...I\'d been able to make out one thing. Just one.

Right before she died, my partner had looked at me with a lonely smile.

That was the sort of dream I was having. "You\'re the ace detective?"

That ridiculous question was what pulled me out of my dream. The classroom was empty, and the sun was going down outside.

I must have dozed off at some point, and someone had been kind enough to wake me. Rubbing my bleary eyes, I raised my head.

It was a girl in my grade, but I didn\'t recognize her.

Then, for some unfathomable reason, she hauled me up by the shirtfront and started threatening me in ways I didn\'t really understand. My knack for getting dragged into trouble hadn\'t gotten any better.

"Oh, I see. Yes, of course: You wanted me to hold you close, didn\'t you?"

That wasn\'t a thought I was having, but she pressed me to her chest anyway.

The marshmallowy softness and the sweet scent of her perfume threatened to dissolve my brain.

I could also hear her heart. Badmp, badmp.

Badmp, badmp.

The sound was so familiar. Why was that? Thinking it was odd, I asked the girl her name. And she told me it was—

"...Hmm?"

A sweet scent and a springy sensation against my cheek woke me. Ah—waking up was part of the dream, too.

The room was dark, and I couldn\'t make out much. But the scent and the softness from the dream were definitely there. So what was this?

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"

There was a scream, and a sharp pain ran through my cheek. Not fair... "—! What the heck was that for, Natsunagi?"

I glared at the girl, the one I assumed had just slapped me.

"What the heck were you doing?! Don\'t just grope your classmate\'s chest the second you wake up! Have some shame!"

"The first time we met, I\'m pretty sure you forced me to feel up your chest."

"—! I already told you, I wasn\'t exactly myself when I did that!"

The girl who was yelling was Nagisa Natsunagi. She was in my grade in high school, and she was an ace detective.

We\'d gotten to know each other when I\'d taken a certain job. Then we got involved in a couple more cases, and along the way, she\'d become the detective, I\'d become her assistant, and we\'d developed a sort of friendship that neither of us seemed able to shake. That said, I didn\'t remember sleeping together being part of the arrangement...

"So, where is this?" Natsunagi twisted around curiously. We were lying on a cold concrete floor. She didn\'t recognize this place any better than I did.

"...Yeah, where are we?"

I dredged my memory, which I should have done earlier. Why had Natsunagi been lying beside me when I woke up? What time was it, and what was this place? What had I been doing yesterday...?

"Uhnn... Would you two quiet down already?"

I felt something land on my knee with a light thunk. "That voice... Saikawa?"

I didn\'t recall making any indication that she had permission to use my lap as a pillow... That aside, it definitely was her voice.

Yui Saikawa was Japan\'s top idol, and the first client Natsunagi and I had picked up. Ever since we\'d solved her case, we\'d been close enough to banter back and forth... But...

"Saikawa, why are you here, too?"

"Huh? Why am I sleeping with you, you mean? You\'re asking me that?" "What\'s with the suggestive phrasing? ...Wait, I didn\'t bring you in here,

did I?"

"Hang on a second, is that what\'s going on?" Natsunagi cried. "You brought Yui in here, and you pushed me down onto the hard floor, and tied me up, and then—!"

"Natsunagi, your fantasies might be affecting your memory. You\'re not tied up, all right?"

This was a disaster—I was starting to think figuring out where we\'d found

ourselves would be more trouble than it was worth. But then:

"If you\'re going to play games, do you suppose you could save it for later, Kimizuka?"

The voice was cold and cross, and the harshness toward me specifically told me instantly who she was.

"So you\'re here, too, huh, Charlie?"

Charlotte Arisaka Anderson. She was another old connection I couldn\'t seem to get rid of: a girl about my age with whom I\'d worked frequently. After another recent case, we\'d gradually made peace with each other...but clearly, she hadn\'t softened her attitude toward me.

"You people seriously don\'t remember? We were on our way to visit Ma\'am\'s grave when somebody kidnapped us and brought us here."

"...!"

Oh, right. I remembered now. Yesterday, the four of us had been on our way to visit my former partner\'s grave.

It had started a few days earlier, when the cruise Saikawa was hosting had gotten seajacked. After we\'d defeated the pseudohuman Chameleon, Charlie and I had reconciled by mutually taking up Siesta\'s last wish, then promised to visit her grave.

Of course, that would have been an extremely awkward trip with just the two of us, so yesterday Natsunagi and Saikawa had joined us on the visit to her grave... But on the way, someone had attacked us and brought us here.

"I swear, you people are always so careless," Charlie sniffed, crossing her arms arrogantly (it was too dark to actually see her, but I\'d bet you anything she did).

"Uh, except you got kidnapped, too." "You\'ve also been kidnapped, Charlie." "Weren\'t you kidnapped as well, Charlie?"

"...! Argh, fine, I\'m sorry!" Charlie\'s shrill voice echoed in the dark room. We weren\'t acting nearly as worried as we should have been. Our captor\'s probably wishing they hadn\'t wasted their time kidnapping us right about

now, I thought with a chagrined smirk—

"Ahh...!" Natsunagi held up a hand to shield her face from the sudden light.

A screen at the front of the room had come on. "Dark cells and mysterious TV screens, hmm?"

Several "death game"–type scenarios raced across my mind. For example, in a moment the kidnapper would appear on that screen, wearing a mask, and lay out a set of fiendish rules.

"Ghk! First they bound us hand and foot, and now what? What on earth will they...?"

"Natsunagi, are you blushing?" I asked.

"If I recall, Kimizuka, weren\'t you planning to attend your little sister\'s wedding once this battle was over?" Saikawa asked.

"Don\'t try to jinx me to give yourself a better chance of survival," I snapped back at her.

"It\'s all right, Kimizuka," Charlie said. "No matter what type of death game this is, with my brains, we\'ll have no trouble."

"Lucky us!" I crowed. "Charlie just out-jinxed everybody." "I wasn\'t trying to be funny!"

Come on, people, at least show a little fear. The poor kidnapper\'s not gonna know how to make a grand entrance after this.

Sheesh. Well, no matter what happens next or who shows up on that screen, I\'m definitely not going to be too taken aback, I thought. That\'s what we were all thinking.

Which is why in the next instant...

When we saw the individual who did appear on the screen, we couldn\'t say anything.

"If this footage is playing, it means that Kimihiko Kimizuka, Nagisa Natsunagi, Yui Saikawa, and Charlotte Arisaka Anderson are all present."

It had been a year since I\'d heard that voice—cool as a cucumber and yet so warm.

"Sies—"

"Ma\'am!"

"Gweh."

I felt a sudden weight as Charlie climbed right onto my back for a better view of the screen.

The girl on the display had pale silver hair and blue eyes. It was my former partner, the deceased ace detective. Siesta.

Charlie had been her apprentice at one point, and she wasn\'t able to conceal her excitement at seeing Siesta again after a year apart. However...

"Charlie, this is a recording." "Huh?!"

We couldn\'t let fleeting emotions trick us. Always stay calm and clever. There was no way Siesta could be here now. The detective was already dead.

"It\'s been a long time, Charlie, but I\'m sorry. This is just a video; I recorded it a year ago, in anticipation of today."

As if Siesta had seen even this little exchange coming, she smiled softly at Charlie.

"Ma\'am..." Charlie gazed sorrowfully through the screen at Siesta.

"I\'m sorry to ask when things are getting emotional, but please get off me before you have this conversation."

Once again, the four of us turned toward the TV. "So she\'s...," Natsunagi whispered.

"That\'s Siesta, then...," Saikawa said.

This was probably the first time either of them had actually seen her.

"Now then, there is a reason I\'ve gathered you here," Siesta said, again as if she\'d known exactly when the lull would be. "I think it\'s about time you knew...about what happened to me, one year ago."

One year ago—was the detective talking about the day she had died? The day she\'d been killed by Chameleon?

"Chameleon didn\'t kill me."

Once again, Siesta seemed to have read my mind. "No, but he said—"

I was sure Chameleon had said he\'d killed her. Charlie sent a confused glance my way. She\'d heard the same information straight from Chameleon as well, back during the battle on the ship.

"Assistant, I want you to remember." Siesta gazed at me.

"There\'s something you want me to remember?" I was forgetting something? Forgetting what?

"I\'d also like the rest of you to know. Once you do—I want you to decide." In the next moment, the screen cut to a different image. It was the interior

of the airplane where I\'d met Siesta four years ago, at ten thousand meters. "What\'s...?"

"It\'s a record of all I\'ve seen up to this point. The three years I spent with you."

...! It couldn\'t be. Was she planning to tell us about that record, those memories, right now? Was this supposed to help me remember whatever she needed me to?

"All right, are you ready? We\'ll start four years ago."

No sooner had Siesta appeared on the monitor again than she told us:

"I want you to watch this to the end. You\'ll see what happened to us. The truth of my death. And my last fight—"