On the day of the Great Cataclysm, while Abel had been rampaging after hijacking the System, I’d spoken with Ice Doll in the abbey and gotten her approval to abandon the Akashic records. After that, I’d found Siesta asleep in a bed.
I’d taken the organ that housed Siesta’s will back from Abel, and now I needed to return it to her. To do that, I needed to shake free her memories as the Ace Detective—her will for justice.
However, Ice Doll had told me that only one Ace Detective could exist in the world at a time. That meant I had to choose whether to let Nagisa Natsunagi or Siesta live as the Ace Detective.
“Siesta. I—”
And this was my answer.
“Forgive me, Siesta. I’m making Nagisa the Ace Detective.”
Nagisa was fighting at this very moment, trapped inside one of Abel’s codes. What would happen to her if she lost the position of Ace Detective while that was going on? Tuner positions weren’t just empty titles; there was a good possibility that the title of Ace Detective and the powerful status it conferred were protecting Nagisa from the attacks of Abel’s code.
More than anything, Siesta wouldn’t forgive anyone for taking the title of Ace Detective away from Nagisa. She knew better than anyone that Nagisa wasn’t just a stand-in. That was why I’d decided, here and now, that Nagisa Natsunagi was the Ace Detective.
“But I won’t give up on you, either,” I murmured to the sleeping Siesta.
I couldn’t make her the Ace Detective again—but I could make her one of the Tuners of justice again. Say, for example…
“As the Vampire.”
That was my unauthorized plan that I hadn’t told Ice Doll about. If I’d sounded her out about it, she probably would have just given a contemptuous snort and told me the System would never allow it.
Yet it was Ice Doll who’d told me how the Tuners were chosen. The candidate had to have mastered the power of their will or performed heroic feats. In other words, they needed to be living a life that made them a suitable Tuner. She’d said the System made its decisions from that perspective.
Having heard that, I thought there might be a way to make Siesta a Tuner other than the Ace Detective. Siesta had been the Ace Detective for years and had a number of achievements under her belt, and even when evil had struck her down, her last will hadn’t died.
If she reawakened, Siesta was bound to keep saving people with a will that was stronger than anyone else’s. In which case, the System was bound to accept her as a Tuner again. That meant the only issue was whether she would be acknowledged as a different Tuner—and the aim was for her to become the Vampire, the only position that was currently empty.
During the Vampire Rebellion six months earlier, Scarlet and the rest of the vampire race had been annihilated. Since they posed a threat to the world’s stability, the Federation Government had wiped every last one of them from the face of the Earth…or so they’d thought.
But I knew differently. I knew of a girl who’d inherited the blood of Scarlet, the king of the vampires. In an attempt to eventually erase the boundary between vampires and humans, Scarlet had poured his blood into her, intending to make her his temporary bride. And that girl was…
“Siesta, I hope you forgive me.”
I apologized to the one girl who was qualified to become the Vampire.
“I’m sorry. I can’t wake you up as the detective.”
Besides, you might have lost your former personality and your memories when you wake up, just like Stephen warned us. You might not even remember me. It would be only natural for you to lash out and ask who’d listen to anything a guy like me says.
Still, I believed in her. Even if she wasn’t the Ace Detective anymore, no matter what she forgot or what position she found herself in, Siesta was the type of person who would always fight for justice.
“That’s why, please fight as a Tuner one more time.”
I bit my lip slightly, making it bleed.
“……!”
I honestly didn’t know if there was any meaning in doing this or if it was the right move.
The only thing I did know was that I had to give Siesta her will back, along with the invisible organ that housed it.
A long time ago, Scarlet had told me that as long as he had a bone, a single strand of hair, or even just some of their DNA, he could resurrect the dead with their strongest instinct intact. Simply put, a person’s will was constantly circulating through every cell of their body.
That being the case, I believed that at least a little of Siesta’s will would be mixed in with the blood I’d just shed. That had to be why Stephen had left everything to me.
“If you don’t want this, dodge it, all right? Cuss me out or hit me, but fight it somehow.”
As long as she woke up, I didn’t care how it happened.
“It’s about time you woke up, Siesta.”
Kneeling beside the bed, I gently kissed the sleeping beauty’s lips.
It felt like an eternity passed.
Either that or maybe our lips really did meet for that long. Siesta didn’t respond. I pulled back slightly, gazing down at her. The eyes in that pretty face remained closed.
“…I guess that wasn’t how you do it.”
A sense of helplessness and a little embarrassment made me look away. If that hadn’t worked, what was I supposed to do? I got to my feet and pitifully raked my fingers through my hair.
“Are you stupid, Kimi?”
I turned around even before my thoughts had time to catch up.
On the bed, the girl was gazing up at me, looking a little put out. Then, as if she couldn’t help it, she broke into a grin.
For the first time in a year and three months, Siesta was awake.
“……!”
I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t even say her name.
I just ran to her and tightly wrapped my arms around her slim body. Siesta put her arms around me, too. Feeling her steady warmth, I asked one question after another.
“Do you know who you are?”
“Code name, Siesta.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Boy K, who has a talent for getting dragged into trouble. Kimihiko Kimizuka.”
“Do you remember what I am to you?”
“You’re my most precious—my beloved partner.”
Siesta remembered everything.
Was it because she’d safely retaken the organ that housed her will? Or because Nagisa and I and everybody else had talked to her the whole time she was asleep? Had all the cells in her body remembered, even if her heart had been replaced?