NOVEL NEXT
Chapter 60: Epilogue
"You've got serious guts, arresting a police officer."
Fuubi's right cheek was red and swollen. One of her wrists was handcuffed, with the other cuff fastened to one of the guardrail posts. I had the feeling she wouldn't have put up a fight at this point anyway...but just in case.
"Still, I can't believe you actually swallowed that seed." Fuubi gazed up at me, looking rather appalled.
Chameleon's seed granted the ability to turn invisible. After I'd taken that first heavy blow from Fuubi, I'd used it to erase myself from the battlefield.
"You're gonna die."
Fuubi was watching me, her eyes narrowed. "Yeah, I know."
Since I hadn't taken any precautions, I'd already known I'd be running that risk. That was why I hadn't wanted to use this plan if I could help it.
The seed was what Scarlet had given me at SIESTA's house. He'd extracted it from Chameleon's body when he'd temporarily resurrected him.
"Well, if my body breaks, it breaks." I might lose my sight, the way Bat had. It could even shorten my life... But. "I never was more than her shadow, so this ability's a perfect fit for me." I'd keep on being a behind-the-scenes kind of guy, as an assistant to somebody or other.
"Is that right? Fine. You hurry up and get over there too, then." Fuubi jerked her chin toward SIESTA.
SIESTA was lying by the side of the road, surrounded by Natsunagi and the others. Charlie had given her first aid, but she'd been shot through the left side of her chest. This woman was the one who'd done it, and she was still telling me to go to her.
"You're still Ms. Fuubi after all."
"What are you talking about? I'm your enemy." "...Sure."
I had several questions, but I turned my back without asking any of them.
First off: Siesta, the ace detective, was the one in charge of subjugating SPES. Why had Ms. Fuubi helped out with that job after Siesta died, when she held a different position?
And another thing: the fact that SIESTA existed. She'd said that Siesta's corpse had been frozen to prevent decay, then fitted with an artificial intelligence and reborn as a mechanical doll. Who had acted so quickly?
If the person in question wasn't talking about it, I couldn't ask. If she couldn't say, then I had to respect that.
Turning my back on Ms. Fuubi, I went to SIESTA.
SIESTA's eyes were closed. Natsunagi and the other two were watching over her.
"Ma'am." Charlie knelt, taking SIESTA's hand.
As if in response, her eyes opened slightly. "...As I told you, Charlotte, I'm not her."
"...!"
Charlotte was startled, and the robot squeezed her hand weakly. "SIESTA!"
"Are you okay?!"
Saikawa and Natsunagi hastily called to her. She looked at them, and— "Heh-heh." She smiled, her shoulders shaking slightly. "Honestly. You
people are as noisy as ever." Slowly, with Charlie's help, SIESTA sat up. "I can't take a nice long nap if you're going to be like this." She cracked a special joke that no one else could get away with.
"SIESTA, you're all right?" I tried to check on her wound—but SIESTA shook her head.
"I've more than accomplished my mission," she said with another quiet smile.
"What do you mean?" Charlie gazed at SIESTA uncertainly.
"I'm no more than a program Mistress Siesta made to help settle her unfinished business."
"Ma'am's unfinished business?" Charlie tilted her head as if she had no idea what that might be.
"That's right. Mistress Siesta's legacy was the fact that she'd left the four of you—Kimihiko Kimizuka, Nagisa Natsunagi, Yui Saikawa, and Charlotte Arisaka Anderson—here in this world. However, each of you had tasks you
still needed to overcome."
Tasks left to the four of us. True, over these past few days, it did feel as if we'd confronted an insane number of problems.
"Nagisa Natsunagi had to learn who she really was, then face her past. Yui Saikawa had to accept the truth of her parents' death and choose how to live her life. Charlotte Arisaka Anderson needed to free herself from the spell of her mission and find a will of her own. And Kimihiko Kimizuka—"
After gazing at the others in turn, SIESTA looked at me. "You had to move on from Mistress Siesta."
She astutely pointed out something I'd been pretending not to see. "Mistress Siesta's only worry, the one thing that troubled her, was the
question of whether you would be able to solve these heavy, painful issues. That was why she made me."
"...So that was, in the truest sense, Siesta's final job," I murmured.
SIESTA nodded quietly. "After all, her job was to protect the client's interests. To protect her companions." She quoted a phrase the ace detective always used to say. "Essentially, I was a maid who helped her in that endeavor."
"Then I was right? The problems that kept cropping up over the past few days were all..."
"Yes. They were tasks to help the four of you overcome the issues you harbored." SIESTA grinned like a little kid who'd pulled off a successful prank.
She'd encouraged Natsunagi to talk with Hel, opening the path for her to become the ace detective.
She'd forced Saikawa to confront a painful truth but had me stay with her as a friend.
She'd blocked Charlotte's path like a wall but helped her find something really important.
And she'd had me assist the other three in solving their problems so that I'd be able to accompany someone who wasn't Siesta as their assistant.
It was as if she'd predicted not just what we'd do, but Seed, Scarlet, and Fuubi. On top of that, she seemed to have used them to help us grow. Ordinarily, it would have been an impossible feat.
"First-rate detectives resolve incidents before they even occur, you see."
Another of the ace detective's signature phrases. SIESTA smiled as if she was rather proud of herself. "And so my role is at an end," she said with some relief.
"But... I'm still not...!" Charlie hadn't said all she wanted to say to SIESTA, and she wouldn't let her go to sleep.
"No, this is the end." SIESTA squeezed her hand gently, speaking softly. "I've completed my tasks. Mistress Siesta no longer has any regrets. The four of you will be able to live on and thrive. And so," she said, "smile and say good-bye to me."
SIESTA smiled at us. Her expression was a lot more nuanced than it had been when we first met her.
"I...see," I responded briefly.
This had been Siesta's final job: to help us, the legacy she'd left behind, to conquer our remaining problems. For Natsunagi, the past. For Saikawa, the truth. For Charlie, her mission. For me—the dead.
We'd all faced these things—and just now, we'd graduated. From the past, from the truth, from the mission, from the dead. And SIESTA, who'd helped us do it, had finally completed her job.
That meant you could probably call this a happy ending for all of us: Natsunagi, Saikawa, Charlie, me...and SIESTA.
Every one of us had accomplished something we'd needed to do. As a result, this was a beautiful place to end the story. It had to be.
Now, once SIESTA said her good-byes to each of us, we'd reach the moving climax. On that note, as the other three sniffled, I asked...
"In that case, did Siesta get a happy ending?" It's like I said before:
It's still too soon for an epi