“I missed you, Kimi.”
She was crying. Siesta clung to me and wept.
“Yeah. Me too.”
I didn’t care what the logic behind it was.
In that moment, all I could call it was a miracle.
✦ ✦ ✦
Back in the present.
“So the Siesta that’s here right now is the Vampire.”
Having used her vampiric powers of regeneration to stop the bleeding, Siesta leaped down lightly from the platform.
“…So you purposely didn’t restore that history?” Ice Doll was still kneeling, her leg shot. There was an uncharacteristic note of irritation in her voice.
I’d retaken the records of the Great Cataclysm a little while ago, but there was a part of them that I hadn’t told anyone about: how Siesta had awakened. By keeping quiet, I’d intentionally created an empty record. I’d hidden the fact that Siesta was a vampire, setting up a single-use cheat.
“Yeah. In order to someday pull one over on ignorant politicians who thought they knew everything.”
The Federation Government dignitaries had lost their memories in the reboot as well. They’d had no way to know that, on that day, Siesta had awoken as the Vampire.
“Naturally, I noticed, seeing as it’s my body.” Siesta slowly walked over to Ice Doll. “However, I understood that my assistant was hiding it. I realized there must be a reason he couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t speak a single word about it or write it down, because the moment I did, that empty record would be restored and you people would know about it as well.”
Right. That meant the only other person who could have picked up on it had been Abel. He might’ve known, having seen that winged goddess—no, vampire form during that during the final battle.
“It looks like the tables have turned.”
Standing in front of Ice Doll, Siesta trained her musket on the other woman.
“So you’re standing in our way again, Vampire?”
Ice Doll sounded stunned. She was probably remembering a certain white demon.
Meanwhile, I’d run to the platform, where Ookami had fallen. He had a number of deep gashes in his body, which probably hadn’t come from his fight with Siesta, but from Ice Doll.
“Are you okay?!” I gently checked his breathing and his pulse, taking care not to jostle him. While I was looking him over, Ookami let out a quiet groan. He was conscious. Shortly after, he slowly opened his eyes.
“…I’d thought I’d trained enough, but…”
When he realized that I was the one there, the corners of his lips turned up in his usual smile.
“Don’t worry; Nagisa’s safe.”
“So I did buy enough time…”
Yes, he’d done enough. As I was starting to perform first aid, Ookami stopped me. “I won’t die. I also…have a mission. I won’t die in a place like this. What’s more important”—his gaze shifted—“is that you protect the detective.”
While I’d been checking on Ookami, Ice Doll had risen to her feet and drawn a blue sword that gleamed like ice.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
It was already a battlefield over there. From the way Ice Doll moved, you’d never have known she’d been shot in the leg. She lunged at Siesta like the wind; a small, silver, cube-shaped object floated above her head.
“Did she extract a piece of the System?”
Her leg was bleeding; we’d definitely hurt her. The way she still managed to get back up and fight reminded me of the former Magical Girl. So Ice Doll really was…
“…It’s safe to assume she’s a former Tuner. It looks as if she’s planning to convert what little power remains in the System into will and use it up.”
“So the longer this fight goes on, the sooner the world ends? Dammit, she’s got her priorities backward.”
I had always thought she was just a doll.
I’d assumed they were all nothing more than masked dolls who didn’t understand human emotions and left all the important decisions to the heroes. That that was what it meant to be a Federation Government dignitary controlling the world from the shadows.
Although Ice Doll kept her real face hidden behind her mask, it was clear from her voice and height that she was an older woman. But right now, the way she was wielding her sword wasn’t just a match for Siesta—she clearly had the upper hand. Her physical age didn’t seem to make any difference. She was so strong, it almost seemed like she was possessed by something.
“I’m borrowing this, Ookami.”
Running down from the platform, I raced toward the battle.
Just as Ice Doll’s sword sent Siesta’s musket flying, I darted in between the two of them, armed with the sickle I’d swiped from Ookami.
“…………”
Ice Doll fell back. Apparently, she really didn’t want to kill the Singularity.
“That was pretty reckless. Good work, though,” Siesta said with a smile.
“What now, Siesta? I don’t think she’ll fall for any more tricks.”
“The enemy won’t take your life, Assistant. Why don’t you be my human shield, and I’ll provide cover fire from behind you?”
“Did your IQ drop to zero the second you stopped being the Ace Detective? You’re a vampire, so you’re pretty close to immortal. You be the vanguard.”
“Look, we’ve been over this before: I’m not actually immortal. If she lops off an arm at the shoulder or something, I won’t be able to recover it. I’m not that much of a vampire.”
Even if she’d inherited Scarlet’s blood, Siesta hadn’t become a real vampire. That did mean she wasn’t bound by the vampires’ limited lifespan, though, so it wasn’t all bad.
“Assistant!”
The tip of the sword skimmed right past my eyes. Ice Doll had charged right up to me before I’d noticed. I’d only escaped thanks to Siesta, who’d picked me up and leaped back, trying to get some breathing room.
“—Geez, she’s fast.”
But Ice Doll was right beside us again, as if she’d moved at the same time. Her cloak hid her feet, making it almost look like she was floating.
“Sorry, she’s catching up.” With no other option, Siesta set me down.
Ice Doll’s sword closed in on us, skimming the floor. I defended myself with the giant sickle, but she knocked it out of my hands. In almost the same moment, the second attack came: Ice Doll had been holding a second sword at the ready in her left hand.
Siesta shoved me out of the way. Ice Doll’s sword cut into Siesta’s right shoulder, creating a spray of bright blood. Yet our opponent already knew the wound wouldn’t be fatal. She swung her second blade horizontally, intending to cut off Siesta’s head.
“—Siesta!”
But something blocked the sword’s path.
Out of nowhere, what looked like tentacles had sprouted from beneath the floor.
“Assistant, we’re retreating.”
Once again, Siesta picked me up and put some distance between us and Ice Doll. Just as she did, rubble cascaded down right where we’d been standing. I looked up at the ceiling to see more tentacles—or rather, the roots of an enormous plant. There were so many of them, and they were all lashing out as if they had wills of their own.
“Nagisa saved us… Or not?”
It seemed less like Yggdrasil was being controlled and more that it had gone on a rampage. No… Had something happened to Nagisa? Had she ended up fighting Lot…?
“Ice Doll. What are you?” Siesta said, eyes narrowing.
It was going to take a little longer for her wounded shoulder to recover. Ordinarily, Ice Doll wouldn’t have let that opportunity escape her, but the plants that had thrown the battlefield into chaos were beginning to bloom.
“Ice Doll, if you’re a former Tuner, what was your position? Those sword skills… I heard there used to be positions like Master Swordsman until not too long ago. When did you stop being a Tuner?”
“I was not the Master Swordsman, nor is there any need for me to tell you at this stage. I doubt anyone even remembers the position anymore.”
Yggdrasil attacked Ice Doll from the ceiling like a horde of stabbing spears. However, white wings instantly grew from her back and protected her, likely as a result of the System’s power.
“After all, it’s been more than four hundred years since I stood on the battlefield as a Tuner.”
Spreading those white wings, the masked warrior set her two swords together, then thrust them into the floor. The elderly doll was nowhere to be seen now. In her place stood a proud swordswoman with long white hair flowing down her back. But—
“Four hundred years? What do you mean?” I didn’t understand. Even Bruno had only lived a few decades past a hundred. Ice Doll had been alive for even longer…?
“It’s the effect of a powerful drug that was created by the Inventor at the time,” Ice Doll said, cutting through the plant as it attacked her. “It made me and a handful of other Tuners stop aging entirely. The Federal Charter forbids the manufacture of that drug now, but at the time, people weren’t so concerned about human rights.”
In the next moment, the world around us changed. The great hall and the rampaging plant were gone. Instead, people in armor brandished weapons, fighting one another on a barren field.
“—An imagined landscape,” Siesta murmured. She could use a similar ability, but the one who’d done this was…
“Undying. Unaging. We Tuners worked ourselves to the bone, racing across countless battlefields.”