“I grew tired of that world,” Lot said, his face contorting with what looked like loneliness.
“I see. So you’re…”
Was he trying to choose his neighbor instead of the world?
Had Lot discarded his mission as a hero to try to put his daughter on the Ark, even if that meant 99 percent of the world’s population would be killed? Was he just trying to protect his family?
“Singularity, no doubt you understand. You chose the detective instead of the world.”
Yeah, he was right. Like him, I’d chosen my neighbor. I’d ended up picking the girl.
I’d given up the Singularity’s true role to save both detectives. I had no right to tell Lot he was wrong.
The snow silently continued to fall.
We didn’t have a reason to fight each other. I’d already lowered my gun. Now Lot was just quietly waiting for me to retreat of my own accord.
“That’s exactly why I entrusted it to her.”
The words had left my lips before I realized, and Lot gave me a confused look.
“I didn’t choose the world. I saved the detectives, then begged them for help instead. I told them I wanted them to help me save the world and entrusted them with my will.”
When people’s lives end, they entrust their last will to others. But in reality, there’s more to it than that. When you lose your way, when you can’t choose the option you know you should, when a hopeless fate leaves you feeling drained—at times like that, we don’t entrust our “last will” to others, but our will.
“Lot, isn’t that what you did, too?”
Over a year ago now, it was Lot who’d shown Charlie the way to the control tower where the Akashic records slept. The rest of the Federation Government dignitaries hadn’t wanted to touch that Pandora’s box, but Lot had pointed his daughter toward it.
“Even you wanted someone to walk the path you weren’t able to choose, didn’t you?”
Hadn’t he wanted to seek his ideals, to struggle, to find new possibilities through suffering? Hadn’t he tried to entrust that complicated, messy wish to his daughter?
“You were more aware of Charlotte’s strength than anybody else.”
That was why he’d left it in her hands. Just as I’d left my wish to Siesta.
When something precious slipped from my limited grasp, I’d have the person who was walking beside me pick it up. Even if I couldn’t call it beautiful, I had a will that would continue unbroken.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the only way we can live.”
The cold snow had soaked through to my back. There was a long silence. This freezing cold, at least, was something we had no choice but to accept.
“You’re right,” Lot said finally. “It was like that.”
He’d phrased that in the past tense. Lot had reached the same conclusion I had once—and now he regretted it. In which case, there was only one thing he’d do next.
“……!”
Suddenly, the sound of an explosion echoed from below and the ground shook violently beneath me.
There was a second explosion, then a third, and the bridge began to break apart. It was a trap to get rid of anyone who was in the way, not just the Singularity.
It had to be more than thirty meters from here to the ground. If I fell, I wouldn’t have a chance. That was true of Lot, too, though. In an ordinary fight, he would have been able to kill me instantly, but he’d chosen to do it this way. Which meant—
“You’re prepared to go down with me?”
He didn’t think he was right, so he was taking responsibility for it. He’d throw himself into the void and leave the rest to fate.
“Dammit…!”
I felt a strange, floating sensation, as if my insides were weightless—then the stone under my feet crumbled away, and I was suddenly in free fall.
“Grab on!”
Someone had yelled out to me. It was dark, and the figure approached rapidly before I could make it out clearly. As I fell, I managed to reach out toward it—
“Hgeh!”
I slammed into the figure face-first, letting out a weird cry. An arm closed around me, and our bodies swung precariously. It was like a bungee jump or a slingshot ride at an amusement park. I clung to the figure as the wind kept whipping around us.
“Hey, how long are you going to stay like that?” a voice whispered in my ear when the motion finally slowed. I couldn’t see. That wasn’t because it was dark, though, but because my face was pressed up against somebody’s torso.
“Sorry,” I apologized. Slowly raising my head, I found myself looking at Charlotte Arisaka Anderson, who gave a disgruntled sigh. She was holding on to a sturdy wire, apparently having caught me in midair like a trapeze artist.
“You’re okay…!”
“You totally failed to come rescue me, so I came to rescue you instead,” Charlie said with a grin. Her face was red; she’d probably caught a cold with how freezing it was.
Even so, I had been sure the agent had kept on fighting. Desperately fighting against idyllic dreams as she waited for the detective and I to show up.
“…Sorry I was late.”
“Never mind that—just hold on tight.” Operating the machine she’d used to shoot the wire, Charlie pulled us up. Since the bridge had collapsed, it would have been dangerous to go down.
“I didn’t tell you to hold on that tightly.”
“I’m scared of heights.”
Since, you know, I had no choice, I put my cheek next to Charlie’s, leaning into her. “What happened to Lot?”
Debris from the collapsed bridge lay below us. However, when I strained my eyes, I saw a big flower blooming among the rubble. The vague outline of a white figure lay in its center, as if protected by the petals.
“Apparently, Yggdrasil is fostering life even here, in this icy land.”
…Oh. So that’s what had saved Lot? But would Yggdrasil really protect him at such a convenient time?