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Chapter 62: Prologue

Say Natsunagi and I, and Saikawa, and Charlie, had all moved on from our pasts and spells and things like that.

Well, what about Siesta?

Had she managed to get a genuine happy ending?

"Kimihiko... That isn't right." Although her body was weak and unsteady, SIESTA pushed herself to her feet. Natsunagi hastily put an arm around her shoulders, supporting her. "Mistress Siesta is satisfied with this ending. She's left the four of you as her legacy and has resolved your problems. That means her job is—"

"No!" I shook my head, rejecting the answer she was trying to give me. "Because, I mean...she was crying."

I thought back to the showdown with Hel at SPES's island hideout, a year ago. Siesta had chosen to seal the enemy by sacrificing herself, and our time together had ended. The pollen from that biological weapon had knocked me out, and I hadn't even been able to see her through her final moments.

But I remembered. Now, I remembered. She'd been... Siesta had been crying.

She'd remembered how apple pie had tasted when she ate it with me. She'd reminisced about the time we lived in that cheap apartment. She'd looked back fondly on that photo we'd taken, with her in that wedding dress. She should have been with me the next day, and a week from then, a month from then, forever and always, and she hadn't wanted us to part.

She'd thought of those dazzling three years, and— "Siesta cried and said she hadn't wanted to die."

And so, that's right. This has to be...

"Listen, SIESTA. When you kidnapped us and showed us those things from last year... That part at the end. When you showed us that final scene, where

Siesta cried, after I'd collapsed from the pollen. Weren't you the one who decided to do that?"

After all, that stubborn ace detective almost never let people see her real smile. I couldn't believe she'd let me see her cry that easily. In other words, I'd seen it because the maid had betrayed her mistress.

So why had she done it? It had to be because—

"That's the real answer to your hunt for the mistake, isn't it?" Natsunagi and the others looked startled.

That was the first problem SIESTA had set for me and Natsunagi: We were supposed to find a certain mistake Siesta had made a year ago. We'd found the one about Hel.

However, I was sure that hadn't been the only one. There had been another mistake, one even Siesta hadn't noticed.

That was why SIESTA had filed a request with me... Well, with Natsunagi, the ace detective. She'd asked the new detective to correct Siesta's mistake.

As a matter of fact, Natsunagi had already arrived at that answer herself. She'd screamed it during the fight with Fuubi—Siesta shouldn't have died.

The correct future was the one that found her smiling with the people she loved.

That meant that an ending where Siesta had to cry was—wrong. "Kimihiko... What do you intend to do?"

In the curve of Natsunagi's supporting arm, SIESTA looked stunned.

I caught her by the shoulders and shouted through her, to the girl beyond her.

"Listen up!

I'm not giving up on you!

Even if you're satisfied with this ending, I'm not having any of it! Sure, maybe nobody will understand!

Not Natsunagi! Not Saikawa!

Not Charlotte!

Maybe it goes against everything in natural law! But I promise you this—

Someday, I'll bring you back to life!

I'll do it, I swear I will!"

The next moment, Saikawa and Charlie latched on to my arms. "You're such a dummy, Kimizuka."

"You're stupid, Kimizuka."

They were both crying as they held me up, big tears rolling down their cheeks.

When I glanced up, Natsunagi was gazing at me with a smile that was close to tears.

"You're so dumb, Kimizuka."

She'd set a trembling hand over the left side of her chest. Had it gotten through to her?

Had my voice reached the other one who had to be in there? "Honestly."

I heard a small sigh. Then, with a smile as if she was looking at kids who were a real handful, SIESTA said...

"Are you stupid? All of you."

I was sure she was saying it in Siesta's place.

A tear rolled down her face, and no one who saw it could have said she was a machine.

Page 178 Goldenagato |

"...The sun's rising," she murmured quietly, looking to the side.

Dawn was breaking on the coast road. Orange mingled with the deep blue of the sky. Out on the ocean beyond the white lighthouse, night came to an end, and the sun peeked over the distant horizon.

"Yeah. This is where it begins."

Starting here and now, we'd rebel against our world.

The detective is already dead?

—No.

This is the long, long, dizzying story of the time until I take the detective back.