After talking with Ice Doll and Youkaki, reaching my decision, and leaving the abbey, I’d gone back to the car that was still parked at the edge of the island. There were two people inside it now: me in the front passenger seat and a girl asleep in the back seat.
“Nn…huh? I…” The girl sat up, rubbing her eyes.
“You awake, Nagisa?”
The Ace Detective had just been released from Abel’s code.
“Ah, mm-hmm. Kimihiko…”
Nagisa looked around, still dazed. The situation when she’d blacked out on the train was very different from the one in which she’d just awoken, and she seemed to be trying to fill in the gaps with what she remembered.
“Want some water?”
“Th-thanks.”
As I handed her the plastic bottle, our fingertips touched.
Nagisa looked at me, then quickly averted her gaze. It was dark in the car, but her cheeks still looked kind of red. “Um, I sort of had a dream.” She managed to drink the water, fanning her face with her other hand.
I considered saying I had one of those myself actually but asked her a question instead. “Was it a good dream?”
Nagisa seemed to think a little, then smiled. “Not bad, I guess!”
“Not bad,” huh? I gave a wry smile, but it quickly turned into a sincere one.
Nagisa and I sat there smiling at each other for a little while.
“So, Kimihiko. What’s the situation?”
“Right. It would be faster to get out and see for yourself.”
Nagisa and I climbed out of the car and looked up at the dark sky.
The enormous System still floated there. Beneath it was a large shining disk, like a platform to stand on. I thought that was probably where Abel was.
The sight made Nagisa press her lips together firmly. “Kimihiko, there’s something I need to talk with Professor Moriya about.” She seemed to have encountered the truth I’d learned about Abel, too…or maybe she’d gone even further.
“Are you all right now? Physically?”
“Want to feel my body to check?” Nagisa joked, turning to face me with a smile. All her wounds from earlier were gone. “Let’s shut down the Great Cataclysm together, just the two of us,” she said, her gaze filled with determination.
“‘Just the two of us’? Come on, don’t shut me out like that.”
The voice had come from behind us, and Nagisa turned around to look.
From where I was standing, I’d been able to see her the whole time.
A certain girl had been gazing at Nagisa from a little ways away, waiting impatiently, willing her to hurry up and notice her.
“No way. Seriously?”
Nagisa gasped, her red eyes wide.
“Sies…ta…?”
There stood the sleeping beauty who we’d been waiting all this time to wake up. The detective, Siesta, was smiling, her short, pale-silver hair fluttering in the wind.
“It’s been a long time, Nagi— Whoa!”
Nagisa had lunged at her before Siesta could finish her sentence. She hugged her tightly, calling out over and over in a voice blurred with tears the name of her friend who’d finally come home. Siesta looked startled at first, but then she smiled and gently rubbed Nagisa’s back.
“Welcome back, Siesta.”
“Thanks, Nagisa. I’m home.”
The two girls gently let go, took a step back, and smiled at each other.
The sight I’d always wanted to see, the wish I’d always wanted to come true, was happening right before my eyes.
“Looks like this was the right order to do things in.” Relief washed over me. I’d gambled and won.
I’d guessed that I would need one thing to rescue Nagisa from Abel’s code: an ability that Siesta had shown me time and time again—the Daydream’s power to unfold her own internal landscape and summon others into it so she could talk with them.
We’d assumed that ability was based in Siesta’s heart, but by now, I knew it was a product of her will. As such, I’d woken up Siesta in the abbey first, then the two of us had interfered with the world of the code in which Nagisa had been trapped and brought her back.
“I see. So you took Siesta’s will from Abel, Kimihiko. What’s more, her memories and personality haven’t changed.” Nagisa gave a sigh of relief. “But how exactly did you wake her—?”
However, before she could finish, Nagisa was interrupted by a ferocious rumble of thunder.
“I’d love to bask in this touching reunion, but relaxing with some tea will have to wait until after we’ve stopped the Great Cataclysm. That’s fine by you, right, Siesta?”
There were countless things I wanted to say to her, but they could wait until after. For now, I filled Siesta in on the crisis.
“How about that. Before you knew it, you ended up in a position that gave you the initiative, Kimi.”
“Yeah, during the year you spent asleep. How’s that? I’ve turned into a reliable man now, right?”
“Hmm. You do have a face that would get many girls’ hopes up for no good reason.”
Yeesh, not fair.
Sighing, I opened the trunk of the car and gave Siesta the item Noches had brought along.
“Here. We won’t get anywhere without this, will we?”
Siesta’s eyes widened for a moment, but her expression quickly changed to a smile as she slung the weapon—her musket—over her right shoulder. “Brilliant work, Assistant.”
The three of us left the car behind and raced toward the battlefield.
The situation was worse than it had been when we’d arrived. The System was under Abel’s control, and countless lasers rained down from the inverted pyramid, destroying buildings and scorching the earth. However, every so often, the vector of a laser twisted. That was the Tuners, repelling the attacks with their wills.
Blocking the beams of light wasn’t all they were doing. The arrows the Magical Girl fired from a distance targeted Abel, and the Assassin was in a helicopter now instead of on her motorcycle, letting off shot after shot with her gun. Was the helicopter being piloted by a Man in Black or Noches?
“Well, Assistant? How do we stop this?”
“We destroy the Akashic records.”
“You say that like it’s easy.” Siesta gave a bitter smile. “I really can’t see the Phantom Thief letting you just stroll in and break them, though.”
“No. Which means we’re going to need to talk Abel around.”
However, as Abel himself had told us, his will had created this situation. He’d turned himself into the Great Cataclysm as the ultimate premeditated crime.
Even so, we had to make him acknowledge that this new world was wrong.
“I’ll do it,” Nagisa said. Her red eyes shone with determination, proudly conveying that this was her mission. “…So I want you two to help me make a path.”
Siesta’s eyes widened slightly, but she nodded rather happily. “In that case, my assistant and I will support you.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Nagisa. “Suddenly, I feel like there’s no way we’ll lose.”
The two detectives smiled at each other.
Of the three of us, I think I was the surest that we wouldn’t lose.
“Okay, now we just need to figure out how we’re going to reach Abel…”
Just then, a set of stairs appeared. It was an incredibly long staircase of light that led up to the System floating high in the air. A stairway to Abel. What in the world…?
“I sense everyone’s wills,” Siesta said. “Somewhere far away, strong wills are praying that we’ll return.”
A manifestation of will this great… Could it be the power of the Oracle? Maybe the idol and the agent were also praying for us somewhere.
“Shall we go, then?”
And so we started up the stairway of light.
“Huh? I’m in the middle?” Nagisa asked. We were walking up the stairs side by side, with me on Nagisa’s right and Siesta on her left. I really would’ve preferred to run, but the footing wasn’t very stable, and if we fell, the battle would be over before it even started.
“Well, sure. This was your idea.” Right now, both Siesta and I were acting as the assistant. “If you’re nervous, want me to hold your hand?” I asked, offering my palm. “Here.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea. Here, hold mine, too.”
“Why are you both holding my hands?! I look like a little kid! Honestly!” Nagisa fumed. Her outburst really did make her sound like a little kid, though, and both Siesta and I burst out laughing. It felt like this had been an ordinary part of our daily lives at some point long ago.
Days when the three of us had walked side by side. A happy memory we wished would happen again someday.
“Duck, you two.”
Just then, reflected laser beams came flying at us from the System. It almost seemed like punishment for taking all the tension out of the situation.
“That’s a bad habit of ours, isn’t it? We forget we’re on the battlefield and start laughing,” Siesta said, nodding to herself. She swept her musket to the side, knocking away the lasers.
“No kidding. Thanks to that, we never do manage to stay tense during the most important parts.”
“Oh? I’d always imagined you’d tremble like a newborn fawn anyway, Kimi.”
“Huhn? Did you sleep so long it made you dumb? I’m extremely brave these days. I could probably take down most demon kings.”
“I don’t think cosplaying as the world’s greatest hero would be a good look on you.”
“Siesta, you really should apologize to me. See, when I get serious—”
“Oh, for crying out loud! Don’t have a lovers’ quarrel with me sandwiched in the middle!”
Even though Nagisa was yelling, she looked the happiest of the three of us for some reason.
This almost feels like a dream.
Was that shallow of me to think? Or was I really not tense at all, here on the brink of the final battle? If it was dreams we were talking about, I’d had my fill of them: The blissful dreams where Mia, Saikawa, and Charlotte were trapped, for example. As well as the dream of a new world that Abel had talked about over and over.
What was the difference between them? They were the same sort of dreams, the same sort of ideals. But there seemed to be a decisive difference between them.
That was why I’d turned down that kind dream in the library. I was so close. It felt as if I’d have the answer if I just thought about it a bit longer. Or maybe it was something I’d known all along but hadn’t been able to see.
“We should probably start putting our hearts into this.” Siesta’s face turned serious, and she focused on the path ahead.
Above us, the System was gradually looming larger and larger.
Just then, a gust of wind buffeted us, and we stopped and stood still so we wouldn’t fall.
“I feel it,” Nagisa said, once the wind died down. “I feel Abel’s will.”
The Ace Detective, who knew Abel’s despair better than anyone, glared at the sky.
We kept going, climbing the stairs to reach the final answer.