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Chapter 40: Chapter 4.3

She had red eyes, and a red military uniform. There were several sabers at her waist. She was obviously the one we'd fought to the death in London, and her name was—

"Hel..."

She wasn't Alicia. The girl who was standing here right now was Hel. The enemy we had to defeat.

"I think we can assume that the treatment's been completed—using your companions' lives," Siesta said, coming up to stand beside me. She watched Hel with stern, piercing eyes. She must have heard about that earlier, maybe from Chameleon.

"Companions? Who would those be?" Hel tilted her head, as if she genuinely didn't understand what she was hearing.

I'd seen that expression just a little while ago, when I asked Seed whether he felt guilty about killing his children.

"Do you seriously not know?"

Was that the difference between humans and plants? Did these guys give top priority to their seeds' prosperity?

"What about Chameleon, then? Even in London, you two were working together..."

"I only used him because he was a perfect cover," Hel replied casually. "I imagine he thinks the same way. Chameleon has no interest in me as an individual. To him, I'm just a symbol, a red military uniform."

...Actually, when Alicia had been the dominant personality in Hel's body, it had taken Chameleon several weeks to find her. With their sharp ears and noses, Bat and Cerberus might be different. Did these people not view each other as individuals normally?

"Unlike you people, I have no interest in playing at being comrades." Hel sneered at Siesta and me with her frosty red eyes.

"...That was a very significant way to put it." Siesta stepped in front of me, facing Hel a few meters away. "What is it that you really want to say?"

"Oh, nothing. Only that you seemed to have been on very friendly terms with her."

"Her"... She meant Alicia. That was why Hel had been talking about "playing at being comrades."

"That's right. That's why we're here to save Alicia." "I know. That's why you're going to kill me."

The next instant, the ground bulged up, and a tangle of thorny vines like bramble canes shot up from it.

"Meaning I'm allowed to kill you as well, aren't I?" The bramble whips turned on Siesta and me.

"What the heck are those?"

"It means the enemy wasn't stupid. I'm sure they've planted the entire island with their seeds." Siesta analyzed the situation for me, using a term I'd heard only a short while ago.

"...Okay. So we have to fight the whole island, huh?"

Right now, everything on this island was preparing to attack us, with their survival instincts in high gear. Quite literally, the seeds had already been sown.

And yet as she faced down the enemy of the world, the ace detective didn't even flinch.

"Actually, this is a very fitting place for our final battle." "Isn't it? For your last moments, I mean."

Siesta's musket and Hel's red sword took aim at each other, forming a straight line.

"I'll win. And I promise I'll make Alicia's wish come true." "No, you're going to die here. You can't save that girl."

There was a single gunshot, and the sound of a sword slicing through the air.

With that, their rematch was on.

I only wanted to be loved

Siesta and Hel's fierce battle had already lasted for more than ten minutes.

When the bramble whips attacked her, Siesta's musket shot them down with perfect precision—and when Hel capitalized on those openings, holding her saber at waist-level and leaping at her, Siesta swung her musket like a sword to counter it. I hung back, attempting to provide cover fire, but—

"Assistant, you're in the way." "Not fair..."

With the help of her overwhelming experience and instincts, Siesta fought on equal terms—or no, even better—with an ultimate foe who had the land itself on her side.

"—Goodness. You're so desperate, it's ridiculous." Hel had taken a big leap backward to put some distance between them. She was smiling with a frustration that didn't match what she'd just said. "So you want to retake my master that badly, do you?" she sneered, then snorted contemptuously.

More importantly... "...Your master?"

That phrase tugged at me.

From what Alicia had told us earlier, she'd been created inside Hel's brutal personality. Hel was the dominant one, and Alicia was her shadow. But from what Hel had just said—

"—Are you telling us you took over Alicia's body?"

Had Alicia really been the dominant one, and Hel the shadow? Had Hel forcibly flipped their power dynamic?

"I didn't take it over." Hel narrowed her red eyes. "I switched places for her sake." She insisted that it had been a kindness. "This body is a little different from the other SPES officers, you see. Originally, she was a normal human."

"What...?"

According to what I'd just heard at that lab, the members of SPES were all artificial beings who'd been cloned from Seed's cuttings... No, wait. That was wrong. I knew a pseudohuman who wasn't like that

.

"Bat..."

The blond guy I'd met at ten thousand meters, three years ago, was a semi- pseudohuman who'd forcibly attached a SPES ability to his own body. Had Hel—had Alicia—originally been human as well, like him?

"However, because of that, they were always performing all sorts of experiments on this body."

Experiments—the word sent goose bumps prickling across my skin.

"She was always crying out from the pain and the heat. It sounds as though my master went through some truly torturous experiences. Then one day, when she finally couldn't take the pain any longer—I was born. My master created me."

...So that's what had happened.

It was a textbook case of dissociative identity disorder. After long-term emotional and physical agony, when she was unable to take it anymore, she'd created a different personality to reduce the psychological damage. Hel was a shadow personality that Alicia had made for herself.

"That is how my master and I are connected. Our suffering halved, our sorrow halved as well. That is how we've lived so far."

"In that case, I'll end both the suffering and the sadness for you right now." A daydream raced across the battlefield; any further conversation was useless. Siesta launched herself off the ground, closing the distance between

herself and the girl in the military uniform so fast, you could barely see her.

Determined and resolute, she pointed her gun at her.

"Oh, I forgot to mention one thing," Hel murmured softly without so much as flinching. "Suffering halved, sorrow halved— And of course, we share pain equally as well."

The next moment, Hel's head abruptly fell forward, and then... "...What? Where am I?"

She looked around blankly; the cruelty in her eyes nowhere to be seen. And then her eyes landed on—

"Huh? Kimizuka?"

I was a short distance away, and she spotted me first thing, but she didn't notice the other individual right in front of her or the gun turned on her. The muzzle fired a shot.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" With a scream, the girl crumpled to the ground. The bullet seemed to have grazed her; dark red blood streamed from her right shoulder.

"Alicia...!" I shouted. "Kimi...zuka..."

...! I'd been right. It really was her. Convinced, I tried to run to her, but— "Don't come over here."

But the one who'd shot Alicia warned me over her shoulder. "—Siesta, that's Alicia! We can't..."

"I know. That's why I didn't aim at anything vital." Siesta kept the gun trained on Alicia.

"My, my. How kind of you. If you'd shot through her heart or her head, you two would have won."

In the next instant, briars burst up right under Siesta's feet. "...!"

She instantly withdrew, retreating to stand beside me again. A few meters beyond the riot of brambles, the girl in the military uniform unsteadily got to her feet, holding her shoulder.

"So my master is that important to you."

The red eyes beneath her service cap had reverted to Hel's cold ones. There was no doubt about it: Hel was in charge now, and she switched with Alicia's personality whenever she wanted...!

"However, I won't lose to anyone who's that na?ve. This time, I will carry out my mission as SPES."

Hel's red eyes opened wide, and she sprang on us with her sword. At the same time, a horde of brambles attacked us. If we tried to fight, Hel would probably flip back to Alicia. In that case, we wouldn't be able to lay a hand on her—

"Oh, it really was a lie." Quietly, Siesta murmured.

It sounded a lot like what she'd said to Bat three years ago, on that hijacked

airplane. That sentence meant shit was about to get real.

"What are you talking about?" Hel tilted her head, caught by surprise. However, the briars didn't stop moving. They surrounded Siesta and me... and then withered away.

A drop of water trickled down my cheek, and I looked up. "Rain?"

There was a helicopter up there, high in the sky. Was it scattering some sort of liquid...?

"Weed killer," Siesta said. "It's a custom-made, super-fast-acting variety.

Don't worry; it has no effect on humans." "Always ready for anything, huh...?"

It had been a counter for that biological weapon, a technique that killed plants and left humans alive. Ms. Fuubi was probably the one in that

helicopter. "...!"

Hel, still holding her military sword, attacked on her own, while Siesta swung her musket like a blade again.

"What? What about me is a lie?"

However, Hel's hands were trembling slightly around the grip of her saber.

In response, Siesta said:

"You have no real interest in SPES, do you." She spoke without mercy.

"...I've told you over and over. I am obeying fate...and acting in accordance with the will of SPES. That's why I'm—!"

Her red eyes were wavering. For the first time, Hel seemed genuinely off balance—and there was no way Siesta was going to let that opportunity slip past her.

"You said so yourself," Siesta reminded her. Her expression remained steady.

"You are a completely new being, created by Alicia's defensive instincts. Meaning there's no way instincts as a member of SPES could have taken root in you."

...! So that was what this was about... If what Hel had told us earlier was true, the one who'd had SPES abilities and instincts to begin with was Alicia. Hel was only an acquired personality Alicia had created in self-defense. By rights, Hel shouldn't have instincts as SPES.

"That means you're just a fake who's been desperately trying to get close to SPES."

Hel was staring at the ground, and Siesta verbally cut right through her. "Then...," Hel murmured. When she raised her head, her face was suffused

with anger. This was the second time I'd seen her this way. "Why would I do that?! What reason do I have to do all this for SPES...?!"

That's right; she'd been just as angry back then, too. Siesta must already have realized it, in that instant.

Once again, the detective spoke to the girl in the military uniform, as if reasoning with her gently.

"You probably wanted your father to love you."