The car jolted, waking me up. A seat belt was across my chest. I’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat. On my left, holding the steering wheel, was—
“Sies…ta?”
My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light yet, but I thought I’d seen a familiar profile.
“Are you stupid, Kimihiko?”
However, those caustic words immediately smacked down that idea.
I recognized that tone all too well. Noches—a girl who was the spitting image of Siesta—was behind the steering wheel in her usual maid uniform.
“You…were okay.”
Since Saikawa, Charlie, and Mia had been trapped by Abel’s codes after staying in Japan, I thought the same must have happened to Noches. Not only was she okay, but she’d even come all the way to France.
“I am not human, so I do not have a will. I’ll never be manipulated by Abel’s codes.”
Noches didn’t sound as if she felt bad about it. In fact, she seemed rather proud.
She was what you’d call an android, having been created by Stephen the Inventor. She probably didn’t have the organ that housed will, which apparently all humans had. Not even Stephen could make an invisible organ.
“I finally managed to be useful.”
Despite that, Noches’s smile seemed gentler than that of any human. No matter who said otherwise, even if she herself denied its existence, I wanted to believe in her heart.
“Noches, what’s the situation?”
How long had I been out after my fight with Abel?
My phone display told me that two hours had passed. There were no cars on the road around us, and the town was as empty as ever. So were things still as bad as they’d been earlier?
“A short distance from here, Abel seems to have begun the final preparations for creating his new world. The other Tuners are desperately holding him at bay. This information comes from the Assassin, who went on ahead to join them.”
So that was where we were headed now?
“Hm. Then what about Nagisa? I left her with Ms. Fuubi…”
“You genuinely haven’t noticed, have you?” said a voice from the back seat.
It wasn’t Nagisa’s, though.
“Rill…!”
When I turned around, I saw Reloaded—the Magical Girl and my former master-slash-partner. Nagisa was asleep on her lap.
“You saved my butt back there. Thanks.”
“Rill hadn’t been in actual combat for a long time, but apparently, she hasn’t lost her touch,” she said with a proud smile.
The last time Rill had been on the front lines was her battle with Gluttony.
“The real fight’s still to come, though,” I said. “The Great Cataclysm won’t end unless we defeat Abel. We can’t save the world.”
A momentary silence filled the car.
Noches was the first one to pick up on what that meant.
“Kimihiko, your true objective isn’t saving the world, is it?”
I saw Rill’s eyes widen slightly in the rearview mirror.
“You’re not trying to save the world, but the girl.”
She was right. That had been my wish and the choice I’d made. Before I saved the world, I was going to save the girl—or rather, girls.
Nagisa Natsunagi, who was asleep in the back seat, and one more…
“Kimihiko.” Noches handed me my phone.
I put it to my ear.
“Did you get it?”
No greeting, no preamble. Stephen Bluefield the Inventor got straight to the point as always.
“Yeah, I took it back from Abel. What’s next?”
“The Daydream has already been transported to your destination. I’ll send you the coordinates.”
That was the Inventor all over. He was always prepared.
“Stephen, we can leave the operation to you, right? …That said, how am I supposed to give you an organ neither of us can see?”
The invisible organ that was said to house Siesta’s will.
Frankly, I felt as if I had it, but that was all it was: a feeling. From this point on, we’d have to rely on the knowledge of an expert—or so I’d thought.
“No, saving the Daydream is a job for you, the Singularity.”
“…Uh, how am I supposed to do that? I don’t even have the Singularity’s power anymore, either…”
“Her will is inside you. All you have to do is return it to her.”
And with that, he hung up.
“Geez. Not fair.” My usual complaint escaped me, and I sighed.
“It sounds like you’re in top form.”
“In what way? If you’re going deaf, get Stephen to take a look at you.”
Rill cheerfully laughed off my retort.
“What am I supposed to do about this…?”
I’d stolen Siesta’s will back from Abel. Although it was impossible to see or touch, I could tell I definitely had it. It sounded like some sort of brainteaser, so the way to put it back where it belonged was…
“Kimihiko, back when you were trapped by Abel’s code of loss…,” Noches began, keeping her eyes on the road. “When you’d lost your five senses and your emotions, Nagisa took care of you every day. She’d tell you about what had happened that day, and feed you, and move your limbs so your muscles didn’t stiffen up.”
…Oh. So the things I’d been doing for Siesta, Nagisa had done for me.
“She changed your clothes, bathed you.”
“Wait a second, aren’t things like that jobs for the nurses?”
“She stroked your hair, and sometimes she got into bed with you.”
“Okay, you’re completely making that up! Nagisa’s got more sense than that!”
I was starting to get a little uneasy, though… Nagisa, wake up and deny this already.
“But you just wouldn’t wake up. You were like that for weeks.”
…Yeah. I’d caused them a lot of trouble. Not just Nagisa but Noches and the rest as well.
“The method we finally found was to give you back what you wanted most. The thing your will was constantly searching for, even if the shape of it was a little different.”